Дэвид Балдаччи - One Summer

Unfortunately, he was too late.

Mikki was waiting for him on the front porch with a copy of another gossip paper with a similar headline. She was trembling and attacked him as soon as he got out of the truck. “This is all over school. How could you make Mom go out that night? And how could you even think that she would cheat on you?”

Jack exploded, “That story is full of lies. I never accused your mom of anything. I saw her slap Bill Miller. She and I had a laugh about it because he was drunk. And I didn’t insist she go out that night. In fact, I told her not to.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Mikki, it’s the truth. I swear. Tabloids make stuff up all the time. You know that.”

“This never would have happened if you hadn’t agreed to do that stupid Miracle Man story in the first place. That was your fault.”

“Okay, you’re right about that. I wish I hadn’t but—”

“So now everybody thinks Mom was a slut and you’re a jerk. And I’ll spend the rest of the school year having people talking behind my back.”

“Will you just listen to me for a sec—”

Before he could finish, she’d fled inside, slamming the door behind her. When he started to go in the house after her, he heard the lock click. Staring through the side window at him was Cory. He gave his father a furious scowl and ran off.

Jack ended up taking Cory and Jackie to Chuck E. Cheese’s for Jackie’s third birthday. Jack wore a ball cap and glasses so people wouldn’t recognize him during his fifteen minutes of “infamy.” On the table in front of him were a half-eaten cheese pizza and a mass-produced birthday cake. While Jackie jumped into mounds of balls along with a zillion other kids, Cory sat slumped in a corner looking like he would rather be attacked by sharks than be here. Jack didn’t even know where Mikki was. The only moment in his life worse than this was when the cop told him Lizzie was dead.

Later, after they returned home, Jackie played with the monster truck that Jack had rushed out to buy him the night before. Cory had escaped into the backyard.

“You like the truck?” Jack asked quietly.

Jackie made guttural truck noises and rolled it across his dad’s shoulder.

At least I’ve still got one kid who doesn’t hate me.

Carrying his youngest son, Jack walked up the stairs and peered inside Mikki’s bedroom. It was small, lighted by a single overhead fixture that gave out meager illumination, and her clothes were all over the floor. A half-empty jar of Nutella sat on a storage box. Her guitar and keyboard were in one corner. A device to mix musical tracks was on the floor. Sheet music was stacked everywhere. There was an old beat-up microphone on a metal fold-up table that she used as a desk.

Jack put his son down and then walked over and picked up some of the music. It was actually blank sheets with pencil notes written in, obviously by his daughter. Jack couldn’t read music and didn’t know what the markings represented, but they looked complicated. She could create this but couldn’t even manage a B in math or science? Then again, he hadn’t been a great student either, except in the subjects that interested him.

He took Jackie’s hand and walked into the bedroom the boys shared. It was far more cluttered than Mikki’s because it was smaller and housed two people instead of one. The beds were nearly touching. There was a small built-in shelf crammed with toys, books, and junk that boys tended to collect. Cory had stacked his clothes neatly in the small bureau Jack had gotten thirdhand. Jackie’s clothes were on top of the bureau.

Jack noticed a box crammed with papers on the floor next to Cory’s bed. He looked inside. When he saw the top page, he started going through the rest. It was printed information about his disease. He saw, in Cory’s handwriting, notes on the pages.

“He thought maybe he could find a cure.”

Jack spun around to see Mikki standing there.

She came forward. “He wanted to save you. Dumb, huh? He’s only a kid. But he meant well.”

Jack slowly rose. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, to be fair, you were pretty out of it at the time.” She sat down on one of the beds, while Jackie rushed toward her and held out his truck for her to see. “That’s really cool, Jackie.” She hugged her brother and said, “Happy birthday, big guy.”

“Big guy,” repeated Jackie with a huge smile.

She glanced at her dad. “It’s a nice gift.”

“Thanks.” He stared back at her. “So where does that leave us?”

“This is not where we say stupid stuff and hug and then bawl our eyes out and everything is okay, cue the dumb music. It’s one day at a time. That’s life. Some days will be good and some days will suck. Some days I’ll look at you and feel mad; some days I’ll feel crappy about being mad at you. Some days I’ll feel nothing. But you’re still my dad.”

“The thing is, I was supposed to be gone, not your mom. I’d accepted that. But then your mother was gone. And somehow I got better. It just wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”

“But it did happen exactly that way. You are here. Mom isn’t.”

“So where do we all go from here?”

“You’re really asking me?”

“You obviously know a lot more about this family than I do.”

His cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. It was Bonnie’s number. Now what? Hadn’t she done enough damage?

“Hello?” he said, bracing for a fight.

It was Fred. He sounded tired, and there was something else in his voice that made Jack stiffen.

He said, “Fred, is everything okay?”

“Not really, Jack, no.”

“What is it? Not Bonnie?”

“No.” He paused. “It’s Cecilia. She died about two hours ago.”

Though she’d lived the last ten years in Ohio with her daughter and son-in-law, except for her short stint in Arizona, Cecilia Pinckney was a southerner through and through. She’d requested to be buried in Charleston, South Carolina, in the family crypt. So Jack bundled the kids into a pale blue 1964 VW van with white top that Sammy had lovingly restored, and headed south. A large crowd gathered under a very hot sun and high humidity for the funeral. Bonnie looked older by ten years, shrunken and bowed. Seeing this, Jack couldn’t bring himself to offer anything other than brief condolences. As she looked up at him, Jack thought he could see some affection for him underneath all the sorrow.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

“Cecilia was a great lady.”

“Yes, she was.”

“When some time has passed, we need to talk.”

She slowly nodded. “All right. We probably should.”

After the service was over, Jack and the kids drove back to the hotel, where they were crammed into one room. Jack had just taken off his tie and jacket when the hotel phone rang. He answered, thinking it might be Fred, but it was a strange voice.

“Mr. Armstrong, I’m Royce Baxter.”

“Okay, what can I do for you?”

“I had the pleasure of being Mrs. Cecilia Pinckney’s attorney for the past twenty years.”

“Her attorney?”

“That’s right. I was wondering if I could meet with you for a little bit. My office is only a block over from your hotel. Fred O’Toole told me where you were staying. I assumed you’d be heading back to Ohio soon, and I thought I would catch you before you left. I know the timing is bad, but it is important and it won’t take long.”

Jack looked around at the kids. Jackie was passed out in a chair, and Cory and Mikki were watching TV.

“Give me the address.”

Five minutes later he was sitting across from the very prim and proper Royce Baxter, who was dressed in a dark suit. He was in his sixties, about five-ten, with a bit of a paunch and a good-natured face.