Another Summer

by Georgia Bockoven

  On her way back to the kitchen to start pancake batter for breakfast, she stopped to pick up the newspaper Jeremy had left open on the coffee table. Dutifully, he’d checked the lost-and-found column, breathing a sigh of relief when none of the missing cats fit Francis’s description. After a tense discussion over ice cream, she and Jeremy had settled on a plan of action to look for Francis’s original family. In addition to phone calls to local vets and animal shelters, they were to go to a library in Santa Cruz to check back issues of the newspaper. She’d yielded on putting up signs saying they’d found Francis when Jeremy pointed out no signs had been put up saying he was lost.

  She’d never been more sure she was right in what she was doing nor more afraid of the potential consequences. As important as it was to teach Jeremy a moral lesson, she desperately wanted it to go his way. Lost in the black hole of her grief, she’d left Jeremy to fight his own battles for too long.

  How could she even think of trying to resume the life she had known before when nothing was the same? To put Angela aside was to deny her. Who would remember her little girl if she didn’t?

  Her legs gave out and she sank to the sofa. She’d been fooling herself to think two days of being Jeremy’s mother again, of smiling and laughing and believing she’d found her way back, would lead to a third. Maybe Craig was right. Maybe they would be better off without her. It broke her heart to see what she’d done to her son, how she’d almost destroyed his self-confidence and his belief that being loved wasn’t a privilege but a right.

  She covered her face with her hands to stifle her sobs and rocked forward, her elbows on her knees. The hope she’d seen in Jeremy’s eyes made failing him again unbearable. Why was it impossible to love Jeremy and Angela at the same time?

  The weight of this new depression sat on her chest like a concrete monolith. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t reason, she could barely breathe.

  She wasn’t aware Francis had come into the room until he started insinuating himself onto her lap. Her first instinct was to push him away, but he made it clear he would not leave. He forced her to sit up and then crawled onto her legs and looked up into her eyes.

  He didn’t meow or purr, he just sat there with an enigmatic expression on his face. Slowly, with conviction, she realized something she would have thought insane a day ago. A strange peace came over her. He knew what she was thinking. He understood what she was feeling.

  She didn’t know how she knew this, she just did. No one, no matter what argument they used, could talk her into believing any different. The connection she felt wasn’t magic or mystic or supernatural, it was a gift. She didn’t need to know from where or whom, it was enough that she’d been told it was all right to move on. Angela wasn’t alone anymore.

  Francis settled into her lap. Ann ran her hand over his downy fur. Her fear that they would find someone who had been looking for Francis disappeared. They would never find out where he had come from, but it was clear why he was there.

  CRAIG MADE THE FINAL TURN OUT OF THE forest and onto the beach road. He was surprised to see the living room lights still on in the house and glanced at the dashboard clock. One-thirty. Ann must be having another rough night.

  He parked the car in the driveway, got out, and rolled his shoulders. After the long day he’d put in at the office wrapping things up so he could leave, the six-hour drive from Reno had seemed more like twelve.

  After unlocking the door, he carefully turned the handle, making as little noise as possible in case Ann had managed to fall asleep on the sofa. If so, he’d cover her with a blanket and wait until morning to tell her about the thoughts that had been going through his mind and the conclusions he’d reached the past two days.

  She was asleep, tucked into the corner of the couch, her head tilted back, a gray pillow on her lap. She looked peaceful, almost serene, words he hadn’t used to describe her in a long time. While disappointed their talk would have to wait until morning, he was glad she wasn’t sitting in the dark trying to hide her tear-swollen eyes from him.

  Craig took the plaid blanket from the back of the chair beside the fireplace and unfolded it. He started toward Ann and did a double take when the gray pillow moved.

  A head popped up and turned toward him. A mouth opened in a yawn and two legs extended in a stretch.

  Craig smiled wryly. He leaned down to scratch the cat’s chin. “I’m gone two days, and another guy moves in and takes over.”

  Ann stirred. Francis stood, stretched, hopped down, and headed for Jeremy’s bedroom.

  “Craig?” Ann frowned and sat up. “What are you doing here? I thought you were gone until the end of the week.”

  He sat next to her. “I couldn’t stay away.”

  She put her hand on his knee and leaned into him. “I’m glad. There’s been a lot going on here that I need to talk to you about.”

  Tentatively, he put his arm around her shoulders. Instead of resisting, she snuggled closer. He savored the moment. “I missed you,” he said softly, his breath teasing her hair.

  She looked up at him. “I missed you, too. But I’m so grateful I had this time alone with Jeremy.”

  “What I said before I left … about us … about my not being able to take it anymore. I was wrong, Ann. I’m sorry. I’m back, and I’m staying. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, we’ll get through this.”

  She put her hand on his cheek. He turned his head to press a kiss to her palm. There were tears in her eyes when she said, “I love you, Craig Davis.”

  He couldn’t remember the last time she’d told him she loved him, or the last time she’d let him hold her this way. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed her, really kissed her, not the perfunctory kind given in passing but the deep, from the bottom of his soul kind filled with the longing that at times threatened to consume him.

  She tilted her chin to bring her lips up to meet his. For a breathless moment he hesitated. He’d traveled this road with Ann before, seeking the comfort of her body in his own struggle to overcome the grief of losing Angela. She’d rejected him, her own sorrow demanding isolation. The two people whose lives were forever changed by the loss could not give each other what the other needed to survive.

  What started as a tender exploration, a careful dance with a potentially reluctant partner, soon turned into an explosion of need. A deep moan of pent-up desire came from the back of Ann’s throat. She moved to straddle Craig, locking her arms around his neck.

  She kissed him again, hard and deep, moving her hips in unmistakable invitation. In seconds she’d become wild and primitive and insistent, and he responded in kind. There were no words to describe how profoundly he’d missed her or what it meant to have her back in his arms, wanting him, needing him, loving him.

  Craig grasped her thighs and stood, carrying her into the bedroom. He carefully closed the door behind them with his foot. Ann reached down and turned the lock.

  They undressed each other with hurried, practiced movements, dropping and tossing clothing from the floor to the dresser. Craig pulled back the bedspread and they tumbled onto the bed, rolling so that Ann was on top and then on bottom. Bracing himself over her, he kissed her neck and throat and the soft curve of her breast.

  He loved his wife’s body, the smell and feel of it, the way her nipples hardened at his touch, the soft flesh of her inner thigh when she pressed her legs against his waist, the sounds she wasn’t aware she made when she was nearing climax. And he loved the way she loved him, the tenderness, the playfulness, the teasing, the stroking, the sexy nightgowns, waiting up for him after a late meeting. She was the only woman he had ever wanted.

  And she wanted him again.

  He hovered over her, looking into her eyes in the light of the full moon streaming in through the window. “I’ve been lost without you.”

  “I know … me, too.”

  He entered her in one long, slow stroke. She was wet and warm and tight with anticipation. Her hips rose to me
et his thrusts. He tried to hold himself back, to make this first time together again the best Ann had ever known, but it was asking too much. He didn’t have that kind of control, not now, not ever with her. He heard her soft cry of readiness and he was lost and found at the same time.

  He was home.

  10

  ANN NESTLED INTO CRAIG’S SHOULDER AND listened to the sounds of the incoming tide. There was something reassuring and fundamental in the soft roar, a continuation that brought acceptance. Life went on, no matter how heartbreaking the journey.

  Angela had been given three and a half months of life. She and Craig had been given thirty-five years–so far. What they did with the time remaining would mark their success or failure at the end.

  Mourning would not bring Angela back. Neither would guilt.

  She looked at Craig and saw that he, too, was deep in thought, his eyes staring unseeing at the shadows moving across the ceiling. She would never be rid of guilt or accept it until she shared her dark secret with him.

  “I could have saved her,” Ann said.

  He turned to look at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Angela. If I had taken her to the doctor sooner, she wouldn’t have died.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I overheard the intern talking to a nurse. She said antibiotics should have been started right away. But I didn’t bring her in right away. I waited …” She caught her breath in a stifled sob. “I thought she had a cold …” Her throat tightened as she fought the tears. “I didn’t want anyone to think I was a panicky new mother.” She lost the battle. Tears filled her eyes and spilled onto Craig’s shoulder. “I cared more about what people thought than I cared about Angela.”

  Craig brought her to him and held her tight against his chest. “You loved our little girl more than your own life. You would have traded places with her if you could.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, and softly added, “I know that as well as I know you would do the same thing for Jeremy or for me.”

  “I can go on,” she said. “I know that now. But I can never forgive myself.”

  “I’m going to tell you something.” He leaned away from her so that she was forced to look at him. “And I want you to listen carefully.”

  She nodded.

  “For a long time I beat myself up for not being with you when you and Angela needed me. I even convinced myself I could have done something if I had stayed home and not gone off looking to have my ego stroked at that conference.”

  She started to turn away. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  He caught her chin and turned her back to face him. “Listen to what you just said. Really listen. Why was there nothing I could have done, but something you should have done?”

  She didn’t have an answer.

  “I went farther with my guilt. I wanted confirmation, so I made an appointment with the doctors and nurses who took care of Angela. By then they’d had a meeting to go over her treatment and what they could have done differently to try to save her.”

  She needed what would come next but couldn’t bear hearing the words.

  “Nothing,” he said. “We’ve come to believe there’s always an answer, always a cure, always a way. Sometimes there just isn’t. There was nothing I could have done, nothing the doctors could have done–nothing you could have done that would have made a difference.”

  They were different words, but the same thoughts the old woman had expressed. Ann had carried her guilt for so long it was hard to let go. “How do they know?”

  “We weren’t the only ones devastated by Angela’s death. The people who tried to save her at the hospital were, too. Only their way of dealing with it was to try to understand it while we were looking for a way to get from one day to the next.”

  “I can’t bear to think of her all alone waiting for us.”

  “I know,” Craig said. Tears pooled in his eyes, shimmering in the moonlight. “I let myself believe she would live a long and wonderful life. I imagined her growing up. I made all these crazy plans about things we would do together, places we would go. I was her father. The most beautiful little girl in the world would walk by my side and hold my hand and call me ‘Daddy.’ “ A lone tear escaped his eye and slid down his cheek. “I allowed myself to dream, and those dreams are a part of me for the rest of my life.”

  Ann put her arms around Craig and held him. For the first time since the funeral they cried together instead of apart.

  THE NEXT THREE WEEKS WERE A TIME OF REnewal, discovery, and healing. Craig and Francis worked out their territories, the basic tenent being ignoring each other as much as possible. Only Francis kept pushing the envelope, first sitting beside Craig’s chair at breakfast, then next to him on the sofa while he was reading the newspaper, then boldly climbing onto his lap and curling up for a nap during a video movie.

  Ann and Jeremy had dutifully searched old lost-and-found columns in the newspaper and called local veterinarians and a couple of outlying shelters. As Ann had predicted, no one had actively looked for Francis.

  They finally made it to the aquarium the last week in July. Jeremy touched the bat rays and sea slugs and left his fingerprints on dozens of exhibits. On the way out he stopped by the gift shop to buy a present for Timmy–a plastic shark that shot water out of its mouth when you squeezed its stomach.

  Ann and Craig held hands and exchanged smiles and made love without protection, believing it impossible to get pregnant without the help of the fertility specialist who had helped them get pregnant with Angela. On their last day she put off the queasy feeling that had come over her during breakfast to the clams she’d had the night before.

  Every day she watched for the old man and woman as she went on her morning walk on the beach. She never saw them again.

  As they were packing to leave, Ann spotted Andrew outside cutting back the nasturtiums that grew wild around his house. She went over to tell him good-bye.

  He saw her walking toward him and came down the path to meet her. “Leaving a day early?”

  “We thought we’d try to beat the traffic on I-80. It’s awful going over the mountains on the weekends.”

  “I used to go that way to ski at Squaw Valley but haven’t been up there in years.”

  “I wouldn’t leave here either if I were you. I’d stay another month if we could arrange the time off for Craig.”

  “I’ll pass that on to Julia.”

  She frowned.

  “The woman who owns the house,” he explained. “She’ll like hearing you had a good time.”

  “There is one thing–the first week we were here, Jeremy and I met an old couple who said they’d been coming here for years. I was wondering if you knew them. What I’d really like is an address where I could write to them.” She wanted to thank them for their kindness and wisdom and to let them know her and Jeremy’s story had a happy ending.

  “How old?”

  “Eighties? Maybe a little younger.”

  He thought for several seconds, then shook his head. “What did they look like?”

  She described them, the warm smiles and caring eyes given as much importance as their age and gray hair.

  “They sound like the couple that used to own the house you’ve been staying in, but that’s impossible. They’ve been dead for over three years.”

  She held out one of Craig’s business cards. “If you should run into them, would you give them this and tell them we’d love to hear from them.”

  Andrew took the card and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  She smiled her thanks. “We’re going to try to come back next year. Hopefully we’ll see you then.”

  “Have a safe trip home.”

  Ann went back in the house for one last walk through to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. Jeremy was talking to Francis, who was stretched out on the mantel wisely steering clear of the packing.

  Jeremy reached for the photograph on
the mantel. He looked long and hard at the man and woman. A slow smile of recognition formed. They were his friends. Much younger, of course, about the age his mom and dad were now.

  He and Francis had been alone on the deck one morning when they had stopped to say good-bye. Jeremy had wanted to tell his mom and dad where his friends had said they were going but decided it was better to wait until they were back home again. He didn’t know whether it would make them happy or sad and selfishly didn’t want to take the chance it might be sad.

  Jeremy hoped the news would make his mother stop worrying about Angela being alone. After all, the man and woman weren’t strangers anymore, they were friends. And friends took care of him sometimes when his mom and dad went places. Shouldn’t it be all right if these new friends took care of Angela, even if they were kind of old?

  His mother was at the door telling him it was time to leave. Jeremy put the picture back on the mantel, started toward her, and stopped to call Francis. He stood and stretched and took a minute to look at the photograph, as if he were saying good-bye, too. Then, without a backward glance, he jumped down and followed Jeremy to the car.

  August

  1

  ANDREW LOOKED UP FROM THE ORCHID catalog he was reading and glanced out the window. Cheryl was late. She was supposed to leave Oakland at ten. Even taking morning traffic through the bay area into account and figuring a fender bender or two on Highway 17, she still should have been there an hour ago.

  It had taken a week of phone calls and a weekend with her in Oakland to convince her to stay the month in Julia and Eric’s house. She’d finally admitted she was afraid he would get the wrong signal if she agreed to come. She liked the way things were between them, slow and easy, and didn’t want to mess things up by forcing the situation.

  Then, for some unfathomable reason, at least to Andrew, she’d changed her mind. He’d almost asked her about it a couple of times, but decided to leave well enough alone.