Summer Light: A Novel

by Rice, Luanne

  “The diary.”

  “Keeping track of her dreams. I don’t want to be the cause of more nightmares for her. I know she thinks about Natalie being dead. And she died in a horrible way.”

  “I’m so sorry. Thank you for thinking of Kylie,” May said.

  “I do. She’s my stepdaughter. You said yesterday that everything’s connected. Everything and everyone.”

  “I believe that’s true,” May said, and Martin held her. But she found herself thinking about the other person in the story, still as alive and as connected as any of them, the man Martin never talked about: his father.

  Chapter 10

  AS THEIR TIME IN LAC VERT drew closer to its end, every day seemed more important. Summer seemed shorter this year than it ever had before. On their last day, Martin asked Kylie if she wanted to take an early morning row out to the fishing hole, to see if they could find the great-granddaddy trout.

  “Sure,” Kylie said, with a certain reluctance dating back to the very bad dream-day, out in the boat, when Martin had yelled so loud. Although there had been hikes, rows, and picnics since then, Kylie had mostly made sure her mother was along, too. But today she was eager to go with him. Lately he had been as nice as he’d been at the beginning.

  “Come on, then,” Martin said, grabbing the oars, rods, buckets, and filed-down hooks. Kylie dug worms in the old potato patch while Martin loaded the rowboat. Her feet were bare, and the dirt wedged up between her toes.

  They headed straight out, gliding over the smooth water. A rippling V formed behind them as the oars dipped and rose. Kylie leaned back in the old wooden boat and smelled summer: lake water, dried mud in the bottom of the boat, pine needles sparkling on the trees. Loons and swans swam along the shore.

  Martin didn’t speak, so neither did Kylie. She stared at him and wondered what made people get lines around their eyes and mouth. Absently, she touched her own smooth face. Martin saw what she was doing and smiled. But he just kept rowing.

  When they got to the fishing hole, Martin baited their hooks and they dropped their lines in. When the sun came out from behind the trees, Martin pulled two caps out of the bucket. He stuck one on his head and held the other out to Kylie.

  “Put this on,” he told her.

  “What is it?” She held the cap in her hand. Navy blue felt, with a blue-jay insignia, it was identical to Martin’s, only smaller. The felt was worn, the leather strap in back slightly curled. Holding it, a slight shock went through Kylie’s fingers, and she knew that the hat had belonged to Natalie.

  “A baseball hat,” he said.

  “But you play hockey.”

  “True,” he said. “But a hockey helmet would be pretty hot out here on the water. In summer, we wear baseball hats.”

  “This was Natalie’s?” Kylie asked, staring up at him.

  “Yep, it was.” Martin squinted as he cast his line again.

  Kylie thought back to that day, when he’d yelled at her in the boat. Soon afterward, he and Mommy had told her why: He missed Natalie so much, he sometimes got upset when he thought about her. Then Mommy had told Kylie how Natalie had died, that she had tripped and hit her head while visiting her grandfather, that Martin hadn’t known how serious it was and hadn’t taken her to the doctor in time to save her. And he felt very, very bad about that.

  “Why are you letting me wear it?” Kylie asked now.

  Instead of answering, he just squinted and frowned harder, staring at the lake’s surface as if he could see every trout swimming below.

  “Martin?” she asked.

  “So the sun won’t be in your eyes,” he said finally.

  “Oh.” Kylie nodded as she jammed the hat onto her head. His answer made perfect sense; the sun was getting higher, and Mommy didn’t like her getting too sunburned. Martin smiled to see her wearing it. He reached out, adjusting the peak.

  “Voilà,” he said.

  “Thanks, D—” Kylie said. For the first time since he’d yelled, she had nearly called him Daddy. But she held the word in. “Thanks, Martin,” she said instead.

  “You’re welcome, Kylie,” he said.

  Was it Kylie’s imagination, or did he look disappointed? No matter; they both got on with their fishing. Martin wasn’t mad anymore. Kylie felt peace in the boat, coming from Martin, especially when he looked at the hat on her head. It was almost as if, by looking at the baseball cap, he was able to see Natalie.

  “Oh, wow,” Kylie said suddenly.

  “What?” Martin asked.

  Natalie stood on the eastern side, dressed in cool white, her wings flapping up a storm. Kylie moved over to fish off the boat’s left side, and she never looked away from Natalie.

  “I love my father,” Natalie said, her lower lip wobbling.

  “I know,” Kylie whispered.

  “Just seeing him makes me remember how much.”

  Kylie listened and stared, but she couldn’t talk in a normal voice because Martin was there, fishing off the other side of the boat. She wouldn’t take her eyes off Natalie for a second.

  “He gave you my cap,” Natalie said.

  “Do you want it?”

  Natalie bowed her head and began to cry. Her answer didn’t seem to be yes, but it wasn’t no either.

  “Please tell me,” Kylie said.

  “He gave me so many things,” Natalie said. “It used to be so much easier, when I thought things were what mattered.”

  “Don’t they?”

  Natalie shook her head. “I’m trying to tell you…you’re learning. But boats and toys and even that cap aren’t very important compared with love.”

  Kylie laughed. “Of course they’re important! I can touch them and see them.”

  “Some things you can’t see with your eyes,” Natalie said, starting to fade. “Help Daddy to understand.”

  “What?” Kylie asked as Natalie disappeared. How could she say the cap was not important? Hadn’t it made her cry?

  Kylie wondered if the cap would float across the lake. She took it off her head, dipped it in the water. Letting go, she watched it tilt like a small boat, then quickly fill and start to sink.

  “Whoa, you lost your cap,” Martin said, reaching out to grab it.

  “Sorry,” Kylie said.

  “I didn’t feel the breeze come up,” he said, drying off the cap, securing it on her head. He gave her a funny look, as if maybe he suspected something.

  “My head was hot,” Kylie said, scanning the shore. “I wanted to get it wet.”

  “We’ll go for one last swim when we get back to shore,” Martin said, starting to row for home. Standing under the pine trees, Natalie materialized. Kylie thought of what she had said about things you can’t see with your eyes. Just then, Natalie blew Kylie a kiss, and confused, Kylie blew one back.

  Leaving Lac Vert that summer meant saying farewell, after one final dinner at the Gardners’, to Genny and Ray, Charlotte and Mark. The Cartiers didn’t want to leave, and the Gardners didn’t want to say goodbye. But while Tobin and Aunt Enid had been holding down the office, May knew she had to get back to work.

  Martin had decided to drive to Toronto with them for Kylie’s July appointment, and continue on to Connecticut from there.

  They took their time, driving along the St. Lawrence River, staying in small towns along the way. In Toronto, Martin pointed out the hockey and baseball stadiums. He told them about the Hockey Hall of Fame, where all the great players were immortalized. May tried to listen, but all she could think about was the little blue notebook in her purse.

  Finally they arrived at Twigg University, a campus of wide greens and ivy-covered brick buildings north of the city.

  Dr. Ben Whitpen’s office was in the Psychology Department, in an old building with leaded glass windows. The hallways were dark and cool, the classroom doors made of heavy oak. Martin stood there blinking, trying to focus.

  “Don’t be scared.” Kylie was holding Martin’s hand. Helping him seemed to make her forget her
own unhappiness at coming here. “I was the first time.”

  “I’m not scared,” he said. “But it’s dark in here.”

  “Not that dark,” Kylie said.

  “Are you okay?” May asked, watching him rub his eyes.

  “My eyes itch,” he told her. “It’s hard to focus. Maybe I got something in them.”

  “Do you want to wait outside?” May asked. “Kylie and I will meet you afterward.”

  “Maybe I will,” he agreed. “I’ll go check out the hockey rink. See you back here in, what? An hour?”

  “Make it two,” May said.

  It seemed strange to May now, coming in from a bright summer day to this gloomy place, with a notebook filled with her daughter’s bad dreams. While Martin went out, May and Kylie climbed one flight to the Dream Research Lab and opened the door.

  Dr. Whitpen greeted them. Dressed in jeans and an untucked polo shirt, he looked more like a graduate student than a doctor with a big research grant. Leading Kylie straight to the toy box, he told her to make herself at home while he talked to her mother. Other doctors sat in small cubicles, working on computers or talking on the phone.

  May followed Dr. Whitpen into his office. Watching Kylie through the door glass, she passed him her notebook.

  “More angel dreams,” he said, reading. “Good, you included the incident on the plane. She heard noises, smelled smoke before anyone else. Approached a man, asked him for help when the time came. Said his daughter told her to—his daughter?”

  “She’s dead,” May told him.

  “Ahh.” Dr. Whitpen raised his eyebrows. He continued reading. “Mute angels in a dream, surrounding her head like moths. Interesting. Natalie’s doll, wanting to bring the doll to the wedding. Wedding?” he asked, looking up.

  “I told you I got married,” May said.

  “Oh, yes, that’s wonderful. Best wishes.”

  “I married the man on the plane.”

  “The man Kylie approached?” Dr. Whitpen seemed shocked.

  “Yes,” May said. “We fell in love. It has nothing to do with what happened that day.” As she spoke, she felt protective of her relationship with Martin.

  “It’s an unusual story,” he commented.

  “I know,” she agreed. “But we’re here to talk about Kylie. As I told you on the phone, I’m not as worried as before. Maybe I’ve made a mistake, taking her to so many doctors. As if she’s a curiosity, with something wrong with her.”

  “You were very upset when we first met,” he reminded her.

  “I know,” May said, remembering how desperate she had felt. “I’d taken her to that group in New York, and all it took was one person mentioning schizophrenia…”

  “Kylie’s not schizophrenic,” Dr. Whitpen said sharply, with certainty. “But you were troubled about more than that.”

  “We had just found that—” May recoiled from the memory. “That body. Just a bag of bones, really. A skeleton held together by rags, old clothes, just rattling in the wind. I’ll never forget it. I know Kylie won’t, either.”

  “She dreamed about it every night at first—and then she started seeing angels,” Dr. Whitpen said, consulting his notes. “Her second encounter with death very soon after losing her great-grandmother.”

  “She’s so sensitive and caring,” May said. “She can’t stand seeing things hurt. When she and my husband caught that fish this summer, she said she heard it crying. She stares when she sees animals killed on the side of a road, and she asks me about parents and babies left behind.”

  “That was her concern about the hanged body—Richard Perry,” Dr. Whitpen said, reviewing the chart. “About the family left behind.” He looked up. “The investigation revealed that he’d been a suicide, right? A loner in trouble with the law. Parents out west, no wife, no kids.”

  May nodded. “Kylie made his parents a sympathy card.”

  “I remember,” Dr. Whitpen said.

  “She’s compassionate,” May went on. “And she has an amazing imagination. I’m inclined to think that explains the rest. Or enough of the rest. I think we’re going to stop coming after this visit.”

  “If that is your wish, I’ll respect it. Although I hope you decide to continue,” Dr. Whitpen said. “Let me talk to her, okay? Get a feel for how things are going from her perspective. I’d like to ask her about the mute angels in her dream.”

  Carrying the blue notebook with him, Dr. Whitpen led May back to the play area. He took out the deck of cards, and Kylie watched him. She shuffled, then he did. The deck went down on the table, and he cut it in half.

  “Top card,” he said.

  “Red.”

  He checked: red.

  “Again,” he said.

  “Blue.”

  Dr. Whitpen showed her that she was right, and she clapped her hands. They went through the whole deck. Kylie got three wrong. He started from the top, but she seemed bored and wandered over to the dollhouse.

  He crouched on the other side, joining in as Kylie arranged the doll family, their pets, and their furniture. May sat back, watching Kylie fly the girl doll around the house like a bird.

  “Who’s that?” Dr. Whitpen asked.

  “Natalie,” Kylie said.

  “Her doll, you mean?”

  “No, Natalie. My sister.”

  “What’s she doing?” Dr. Whitpen asked, watching Kylie move her arms up and down.

  “She’s talking.”

  “With her arms?”

  “Maybe,” Kylie said.

  “Can’t she speak?” Dr. Whitpen asked, and May knew he was referring to the mute angels.

  Kylie smiled at him, as if he’d just told a good joke. “She doesn’t need words with me,” she said. “I understand her.”

  “What’s she saying?”

  “ ‘Help me,’ ” Kylie said in a voice not her own.

  “What kind of help does she need?” Dr. Whitpen asked, leaning closer.

  “I’m not sure. She doesn’t want her hat. And some people can’t see with their eyes,” Kylie said, looking as if she might cry. Placing the doll back inside the playhouse, Kylie let them know the game was over. She ran to the low table where paper and crayons were kept, and she began to draw.

  “Your mother got married,” Dr. Whitpen said, following her.

  “I have a father now.” Kylie was drawing fast and hard. “And a sister.”

  “Natalie,” he said.

  “That’s right!” Kylie beamed with pleasure to hear him say her name.

  “What does she look like?”

  “Pretty.” Kylie started drawing again. “With wings and a white dress.”

  “Like the other angels you’ve seen?”

  Kylie shook her head. “No one looks like Natalie. She’s real.”

  “The others aren’t?” Dr. Whitpen asked, smiling.

  “No, but I love her, and that makes everything more real,” Kylie said, looking him in the eye. “I don’t know the others’ names, and I do know hers: Natalie Cartier.”

  May watched her go back to work, drawing pictures on the white paper. Dr. Whitpen stood up, came to sit beside her. He raised his eyebrows. “Natalie Cartier? You married Martin Cartier?”

  “Yes.” May had known Martin was famous, but somehow she hadn’t expected his name to mean much to the researcher. “You’re a hockey fan?”

  “Not much of one. I know the name for another reason. His daughter died a tragic death.”

  “You know about it?” May asked.

  “Everyone in Canada does,” he said. “Her grandfather was responsible. He was a great player himself, and he became involved with criminals. He caused Natalie’s death indirectly, later went to prison for fixing games, hiding money. It was a national scandal.”

  May watched Kylie, to see whether she was listening, but she was drawing furiously, talking out loud to herself. The picture took shape: the lake, the gazebo, pine trees, a girl, a cap floating in the water.

  “Martin doesn’t
talk about him. Or about Natalie.”

  “At all?”

  “Hardly at all. It’s too painful for him. Why?”

  “That might explain why Kylie picked Martin out in the first place—there might be a connection,” he said, sounding excited.

  “What kind of connection?” May asked, bristling.

  “The terrible death, the father’s inability to face it—”

  “What are you saying? That Martin married me because Kylie’s clairvoyant?” May stood up. “He didn’t even want to come inside. He’s on campus right now—he came into this building with us and wanted to go right out. He wants no part of this.”

  “Ms. Taylor—I mean, Mrs. Cartier,” Dr. Whitpen said. “Please. Sit down. Forgive me, that’s not what I mean at all. Please.”

  Not wanting to upset Kylie, May lowered herself into the chair again. She watched as Kylie drew mountains around the lake, clouds in the blue sky, one big fish under the water’s surface.

  “What, then?” May asked.

  “Your husband might not be aware of anything. He probably isn’t. It’s Kylie I’m thinking of.”

  “Kylie?”

  “Your daughter is gifted.”

  “We knew that already.” May’s heart was racing. She wanted to leave and not come back. Martin would be waiting downstairs. She’d leave the notebook with Dr. Whitpen, let him make whatever he wanted of it.

  “Of course, but—”

  “I’ve had enough of this,” May said. “Cards, dolls, keeping track of her dreams. Kylie’s gifted, I agree. Our whole family believes in magic—a certain kind, anyway. As long as Kylie’s not ill, not schizophrenic.”

  “No, she’s not. But she’s not like anyone in your family either. She sees through the veil.”

  “The veil?” May had never heard this before.

  “Between worlds,” Dr. Whitpen said. “This world and the next.”

  May sat very still.

  “What made you take that trail at the Lovecraft the day you and Kylie came upon the hanging?” he asked. “You had to hike through some deep woods to get there. The body had been hanging there a long time. It wanted to be found.”