“It’s so good, Gran,” Ethan said, his mouth smeared with chocolate and melted marshmallow.
“You’re so good,” she said, bending down to kiss his head. The music seemed to grow louder, a song that always reminded her of her wedding party, Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration.”
Howard appeared beside her, holding a full plate, and slipped his arm around her.
“Your new career is going to wreak havoc on my waistline,” he said.
“You’ve never looked better,” she said, and it was true. She thought of the day she’d spotted him down the beach, how it was like looking at him thirty years earlier. With the success of the evening, she herself felt decades younger. And she’d never wanted him more.
As if sensing what she was thinking, he leaned over, kissed her, and whispered, “I can’t wait to celebrate later, just the two of us.”
Ethan tugged on her hand. “Can we go sit with Mom?”
“Yes,” Howard said. “Good idea. Beth, you’ve been on your feet all day. Everyone’s over there waiting.”
Everyone?
Sure enough, at a table tucked away in the corner, she found Stephanie and Lauren sitting side by side. And the filmmaker. And Nora and her friend Henny. And was that…Rory’s brother? Incredulous, she looked at Howard. He shrugged.
“Life happens when you’re making doughnuts.”
When only close friends and family were left, Nora pushed all the tables aside and the dining room became a dance floor. Lauren’s parents hadn’t sat down in half a dozen songs and showed no signs of stopping.
Matt said he had to drive back to New York, and Lauren walked him to the door.
“Don’t come outside. I won’t be able to leave,” he said.
“So don’t,” she said, surprising herself. “Stay.”
“I have a meeting first thing in the morning.”
She nodded. Maybe it was for the best. She didn’t want him to go but she wasn’t ready for him to stay.
He hugged her and she clung to him. “Good-bye,” she whispered.
“For now,” he said. “Only good-bye for now.”
But when the door closed behind him, she wasn’t so sure. The warm, crowded room suddenly felt empty.
Stephanie appeared, handbag over her shoulder, trailed by Ethan.
“Are you leaving?” Lauren asked.
“He’s tired.”
“I’m not!” Ethan said, stifling a yawn.
“I’ll take him home,” Lauren offered.
“No, stay. It’s fine.”
“Matt left and I was about to get going anyway. Really. I’d be happy for the company.”
Outside, the air was heavy with moisture. Lauren inhaled, taking Ethan’s hand, then led him to the boardwalk. The feel of the wood planks under her feet reminded her she hadn’t gone running in the past few days. She looked out at the ocean, glowing silver-black under the bright moon and stars. A clear night, a transparent sky.
Ethan hummed quietly to himself.
“Did you have fun at the party?” she asked.
“It was a great party!” he pronounced.
“What was your favorite doughnut?” she asked.
“S’mores,” he said.
“Somehow I knew you were going to say that.” She squeezed his hand.
The Miley Cyrus song “Party in the U.S.A.” played in one of the nearby houses lining the boardwalk. A teenage couple with sun-bleached hair walked by holding hands. They looked like such babies, and yet they were no younger than she had been when she fell in love with Rory.
“Aunt Lauren, who was that man at the party?” Ethan asked.
She stopped walking. “Um, my friend? Matt?”
“No,” Ethan said. “The big, big tall one.”
Okay, Lauren thought. This was it. Sooner than expected. But it was here.
“That man,” Lauren said, “was your father’s older brother.”
His eyes widened. “Did you know my father?”
Lauren nodded. “I did. His name was Rory. He was…he was very special.”
Ethan seemed to consider this. “Did he like soccer?”
“Soccer? Yeah, he did. But his favorite sport was ice hockey. And he was one of the best players I’ve ever seen.”
Ethan just stared at her. She wasn’t sure if she should say more or if she was overwhelming him. She’d thought it would be difficult to start the conversation, but the reality was that it was hard to stop. It felt good to talk to him about Rory. It felt right. “You know what else he loved?” She looked up and pointed. “The stars.”
Ethan smiled. “Like me!”
“Yes,” she said. “Just like you.”
Then she gasped as she noticed three particularly bright stars that had been pointed out to her by a boy on a night just like this, only a lifetime ago.
She bent down next to Ethan. “Ethan, look. Those three lights are Vega, Deneb, and Altair. The Summer Triangle. Do you see?”
“Yeah,” he said. “A constellation!”
“Actually, it’s not a constellation. It’s a star pattern called an asterism. Your father taught me that.”
Ethan grabbed her hand and they continued on toward the Green Gable. When the house came into view, Lauren said, “We’re home.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
The invitation arrived at the Green Gable on a windy day in March.
It had a New York City return address.
Lauren knew what it was before she opened it. She left the rest of the mail, most of which was for her parents along with a few clothing-store-sale postcards for Stephanie, on the counter. She sat alone at the kitchen table with the envelope, looking out at the pool covered with its winter tarp and fighting her mixed feelings.
Matt had called her a few months earlier when the film was accepted in the Tribeca Film Festival. It was a big deal, because he’d missed the application for Sundance recutting the film to omit Stephanie and Ethan. He was upset about not making Sundance, but it was the first moment Lauren fully let herself believe that he had kept his word.
She still hadn’t left the island, not even to visit Matt, whom she thought about every day. Not even to visit Rory’s grave on the five-year anniversary of his death.
Instead, on that day, she had walked to the edge of the ocean, the sky as gray as slate, the air misty and freezing. She’d held Ethan’s hand, and together they tossed a few flowers into the sea.
“The waves are bringing them back,” he said.
“That’s okay,” she told him. “Let them rest here for a while.” Standing by the freezing water, she had thought that five years was a long time and yet, in the big picture of life, it was no time at all.
Lauren carefully tore open the envelope and pulled out a stiff white card.
You are cordially invited to the Tribeca Film Festival’s world-premiere screening of the documentary film American Hero: The Rory Kincaid Story. Please join director Matt Brio and producer Craig Mason at the City Cinema Paris Theatre in New York City on April 17 at 7 p.m. A panel discussion will follow.
“Can’t you just send me a digital copy of the film?” she had asked when he called. “I mean, even as just a professional courtesy.”
She had donated funds, through the Polaris Foundation, toward finishing the film.
“I want to see it with you. No—scratch that,” he said. “I want to see you.”
“You could come here,” she’d said. But he hadn’t, and she knew that he was right not to. At some point, she had to decide what he meant to her, what she was willing to mean to him. Eight months after he’d left the island, she still didn’t know.
But she did know that she had to see the movie—if not before the public saw it, then at least along with it on opening night.
She booked a hotel room and left Longport at ten in the morning on the day of the screening. By the time she was in the standstill traffic queue to get through the Holland Tunnel, she felt sweaty and her heart was beating fast. She texted Mat
t in a panic. He responded: That’s how everyone feels on approach to the Holland.
She wrote back, Very funny.
I have to do press now for a few hours. Do you want me to pick you up later for the screening?
She told him no, that she would meet him at the theater. A pause before the dots appeared to show him texting back, then disappeared. He still didn’t believe she would actually show up.
Finally: Okay. Your name will be at the box office. Text me when you get there.
The traffic inched forward.
Lauren stood on the corner of Fifty-Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue, next to Bergdorf Goodman and half a block from the Plaza Hotel. Surrounded by the grand buildings and bustling pedestrians, she felt her trepidation give way to excitement.
She wore new clothes she’d bought for the occasion: tapered black pants, a crisp white blouse, and a pale blue spring cardigan. The only thing that wasn’t new was the heart necklace she had on. She’d come to realize she didn’t have to throw everything away. And she didn’t want to.
Lauren expected to feel exposed and vulnerable walking into the theater, but the crowds of people helped her feel perfectly anonymous. Then she saw the theater marquee with the movie poster, the title American Hero: The Rory Kincaid Story in red, white, and blue with a close-up image of Rory in his U.S. Rangers uniform and beret in front of the American flag. It made the film seem more real, but at the same time, looking at Rory’s face, she felt like she was seeing a stranger. His time in the military had taken on a distant, dreamlike quality in her mind, while memories of high school were still so sharp, she could be walking in the supermarket, hear a song from 2004, and it was like he was right there next to her.
“Here we go,” she whispered to herself.
The line to get into the theater stretched all the way to Sixth Avenue. Adjusting her sunglasses and pulling her hair around her face, she followed Matt’s direction to check in with a festival rep at the box office.
The rep seemed very young. When Lauren gave her name, the woman startled as if she’d been confronted with a celebrity.
“Mrs. Kincaid, we are so honored you could be with us tonight,” she said. “I’ll take you to your seat.”
The theater was empty except for a group of people standing in the front, under the curtained screen and before a narrow stage. She spotted Matt immediately but he was engrossed in conversation with a guy setting up a microphone stand. Lauren followed the festival rep down the aisle to the front row.
“Thanks,” Lauren said to her. She didn’t want to sit there—wasn’t sure she should be in the very front row. But then Matt noticed her, and the expression on his face told her she was exactly where she was supposed to be. With him. She realized it was maybe the height of stupidity to have planned their reunion in such a public and stressful situation.
He came over and hugged her, holding her just a beat longer than a friendly greeting.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said. “Come meet some people.”
Before she could hesitate, she was shaking hands with the woman who had cofounded the festival with Robert De Niro. Matt introduced her to his producer, Craig Mason.
“Great to finally meet you,” Craig said. “Matt was saying you should come aboard for our next film.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “This film fit into the mission of the Polaris Foundation but I’m not making a habit of funding films.”
“Actually, I thought you’d be great as a researcher on the next one,” Matt said.
She looked at him. “Research? Really? What’s the next project?”
“I was hoping we could talk about it over dinner tomorrow night.”
People began filing in.
“I need to borrow you for a minute,” a tall African American man in a charcoal suit who was wearing an earpiece said to Matt. The two of them walked to the mic, leaving Lauren to find her way back to her seat.
She resisted the urge to turn around and watch the seats fill, but the buzz of conversation grew around her until it felt deafening. The energy in the room was electric. Matt’s producer and a few other people filled out her row, leaving room for Matt in the aisle seat next to her, which he used for just a second before jumping up again to greet someone.
A photographer wearing a press pass took photographs of the room before focusing her camera on Lauren and the front row. She asked the producer for his name, then turned to Lauren.
“Can I please have your name? This is for the New York Times.”
Lauren hesitated for a second, causing the woman to look at her more closely.
“Lauren Kincaid,” she said.
“You’re Rory Kincaid’s widow?”
Lauren nodded.
“Can I speak to you after the film?”
Again, Lauren hesitated. Five years, and she’d never spoken one word to the press. The lights dimmed, signaling the audience to get settled in their seats. It was happening. The time for truth had come.
“Yes,” Lauren said. “We can talk after the film.”
The man in the charcoal suit took the microphone and welcomed everyone to the festival and the premiere of “this important film.”
Matt slid into his seat.
“We are delighted to host the world premiere of American Hero: The Rory Kincaid Story. Five years after the death of hockey star turned soldier Rory Kincaid, American Hero takes on an emotional and challenging topic—head trauma in our athletes and soldiers. The people behind this film are dedicated to helping foster an informed and rational dialogue on the issue while honoring a man who inspired a nation. I am thrilled to share this film with you tonight and honored to introduce director Matt Brio.”
The room erupted in applause. Matt jumped up and returned to the stage and took the mic. Lauren’s stomach did a tiny flip, a combination of nerves and pride—for Rory, and for Matt.
“Thanks to all of you for being here today. And a special thanks to my producer, Craig Mason, and to the Polaris Foundation.” More applause. When it quieted down, Matt said, “When I began this film, I found a motto engraved above the entrance to Rory Kincaid’s high school: Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve. It was an amazing benediction to me, because I went into this project haunted by this question: Why do some men and women answer their nation’s call when so many others are deaf to it? I wanted to illustrate what it means to be a hero. And what I found was that even our greatest heroes are vulnerable and flawed, just like the rest of us. So while they bravely go forth to serve, we need to do a better job of serving them. I hope that after watching this film, you’ll agree. Thank you, and enjoy the film.”
The crowd erupted in vigorous applause. Lauren watched the curtain rise on the giant screen in front of her. Matt returned to his seat.
She smiled at him.
“You ready?” he asked, leaning closer. He started to put his arm around her but then hesitated.
Lauren reached for his hand.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes locked on his. “I’m finally ready.”
Acknowledgments
This novel was a tough one. Thank you to my agent, Adam Chromy, for being a tireless sounding board and reader of the dreaded first drafts. (I’m sorry if I sometimes shoot the messenger.) I want to thank my extraordinary editor, Judy Clain, for asking all the right questions to help me dig deeper into this story and get it to the finish line. Alexandra Hoopes, thank you for your valuable input. To my rock-star publicist Maggie Southard Gladstone, I appreciate everything you do. Ashley Marudas and Lauren Passell, thank you for your energy and creativity in getting these books out there. Reagan Arthur and Craig Young, I am so fortunate to be working with you and the entire team at Little, Brown.
A special thank-you to Tanya Biank, author of Army Wives: The Unwritten Code of Military Marriage, for generously taking the time to read an early draft of this novel and answering my questions about military life. Any errors are entirely my own.
Thanks also to Donna McCarthy
, owner of Hannah-G’s restaurant in Ventnor, New Jersey (the inspiration for Nora’s Café), Ellen Rosenberg of the Lower Merion Ice Hockey Club, and the Jewish Book Council.
I am grateful for the incredible support of the Great Thoughts’ Great Readers community and its creator, Andrea Peskind Katz. Andrea, you are one of a kind and I look forward to many more book adventures with you. A shout-out to Robin Kall Homonoff and her fabulous Point Street Reading Series! Brenda Janowitz, I cherish our friendship.
Research for this book brought me back to my beloved Jersey Shore, where I spent the best summers of my life with my family. Thanks to Aunt Harriet and Uncle Paul Robinson, my cousin Alison Anmuth, and my father, Michael Weisman, for joining me on a spontaneous day trip to Longport in the summer of August 2016. I wish we could do it more often!
Finally, thank you to my husband, who saw me through my own dark hour. I love you.
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About the Author
Jamie Brenner is the author of the national bestseller The Forever Summer, also chosen as one of PopSugar’s must-read books of spring 2017. Her previous novels include The Wedding Sisters and The Gin Lovers. She lives in New York City with her husband and two teenage daughters.
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