Chapter Nine
“Gabe, you want lunch? I’m doing a deli run.” One of the part-time medics stuck his head into the break room of the Adirondack Region Ambulance Corps.
Gabe glanced up from the reports on his desk. “Sure. Gimme a foot-long Italian. Extra pickles on the side too.” He fished out a ten and passed it to the newbie, who was stuck with lunch patrol this week.
“You got it.”
“Thanks.” Gabe scrawled a signature across the last report and slid them all into a folder. Quiet morning, which was good for the EMTs on duty, but not so good for the thoughts rattling around inside his head. He reached for the remote and flipped on the TV in the corner. At eleven in the morning, it looked like his choices were bad talk shows or cartoon reruns. He left the station on Bugs Bunny laughing at Elmer Fudd and turned up the volume. Closing his eyes, he rolled his head from side to side. He tried to believe that seeing Summer Thompson yesterday didn’t have anything to do with last night’s lack of sleep or the tension now squeezing his neck in two. He wanted to call her. He didn’t want to call her. He had no idea what he’d say if he saw her again.
He changed the channel and tried to listen to a weepy teen tell the father of her baby she wanted him back.
The distraction didn’t work. All he saw was Summer’s face. That night. The accident and everything that happened after. Does she know? He slid open a drawer in the desk he shared with two other guys. A small blue ball lay inside, and he pulled it out. Hand to hand, back and forth, he tossed it in higher and higher arcs.
“Gabe, I’ll need you to stand over here.” Chief Walters’ double chin bobbed as he spoke. “Been drinking tonight, son?”
Gabe shook his head and chewed furiously on a stick of gum. “No, sir.”
“Mm hmm. Then you won’t mind blowing into this for me, will you…?”
“Shit.” Gabe squeezed the ball between his fingers until he thought it might split in two. He hadn’t thought about that night in years. He’d done his time, come back home and tried to convince Pine Point he wasn’t a bad guy. Some people in town believed him. Some didn’t. Of course, most people didn’t know what had really happened the night Donnie Thompson died, and Gabe wasn’t sure it was his place to tell them. He’d gone about his own business, slipped on the skin of a paramedic and blended back into his hometown the best he could. The job came easy, and he liked it most days, which wasn’t really a surprise. Rescuing made sense to him. It always had.
His fingers drummed the desk. Today’s early humidity had sunk into his knees, and they ached more than they had in a long time. Or maybe it wasn’t the humidity at all.
“Fuck it.”
He yanked his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number for Point Place Inn. Didn’t matter that it had been almost ten years. Didn’t matter that they hadn’t spoken or touched since that night under the stars. Some things, good or bad, just tied you to another person forever.
“Please read over this plea bargain, Mr. Roberts, and then sign at the bottom indicating your agreement…”
The voicemail in Summer’s room picked up, and Gabe left a message. She was leaving in a few days, that much he knew. Whether she’d return his call or agree to have a meal with him, he could only guess. He turned up the volume and threw the ball across the room, where it hit the wall just beside the TV. His headache grew.
The funeral. The sentencing. The nightmares. He glanced outside at the cars that drove down Main Street and the mothers who pushed their babies in strollers under the morning sun. For a moment, he imagined he could see her in the distance. He retrieved the ball, laid it back in the drawer and ran a hand over his forehead, slick with perspiration.
They needed to talk. From what he’d heard around town, Ron Thompson had sent his daughter to Chicago two days after the accident without telling her anything except that he didn’t want her to come back to Pine Point. Gabe grimaced. Not fair, the ghosts and the questions she must have been living with all this time. She needed to know things about the accident her father had never told her. Yeah, Summer Thompson deserved that much.
* * * * *
“Oh, Summer, it’s gorgeous,” Sadie Rogers gushed. In her yellow poly-cotton blend suit, the wide-hipped woman stood in the middle of the kitchen and waved a pen. “You could get much more than you’re thinking of asking. With this space and all the bedrooms upstairs, and the rental property out back…” She trailed off and scribbled something on her legal pad. Dots of mascara had fallen onto her cheeks, and her blouse had dampened at the collar. A good forty pounds heavier than back in high school, Sadie breathed heavily as she pushed curls off her forehead. A few gray hairs sprinkled her hairline.
“I just—I wanted to ask you about changing the listing.” Summer took a deep breath. This will change things. This decision—it will slow everything down. “I want to leave the rental house as a contingency. I want the Knights to be able to stay after it’s sold.”
Sadie stopped writing and clicked her ballpoint pen. “Oh, but—”
“I know what you said. I still want to do it.”
“You’re sure? I think it’ll be harder to find a buyer…”
“But not impossible.”
“No. Of course not. It’ll just take the right person.”
Summer nodded. “That’s okay, then.” Wasn’t everyone looking for the right person to do something? Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it.
“Well, okay, then. If you’re absolutely sure.” Sadie stuck her notepad into her enormous purse and tiptoed toward the back door in her three-inch heels. “I’ll have to draw up a new contract.” She struggled to pull a thick leather calendar from her purse. “I can have this ready for you tomorrow morning.” She wet one finger and flipped the calendar pages. Post-it notes stuck out in all directions like blue and yellow flowers. “Is nine-thirty okay? The twins have swimming lessons at eight.”
“That’s fine.”
Sadie scribbled something on a new Post-it and attached it to the page. “I thought you were leaving soon.”
So did I. “I’ll change my flight. Not a big deal to stay a few more days.” Yeah, like that wasn’t the biggest lie she’d told herself all week.
Summer crossed her fingers behind her back and hoped that a few more days in Pine Point wouldn’t be any better or any worse. She could keep the flashbacks at bay for a little longer. She could avoid Gabe and everything that churned up memories of her life here a decade ago. Couldn’t she?
* * * * *
As soon as Summer stepped inside Dolly’s Diner, Joe Bernstein waved a lanky arm from a corner booth. “There you are.”
“I’m late. Sorry.” She planted a kiss on the wrinkled cheek and slid into the seat opposite him.
“What can I getcha?” Margaret, the middle-aged waitress who had worked at Dolly’s as long as Summer could remember, sidled up from behind the counter. A large wad of gum moved around her mouth, and she jotted down their order with a stubby pencil that appeared from a thick reddish bun atop her head.
“So how’s work?” Summer asked after they placed their orders.
Joe smiled. “Ah, the office is fine.”
“But?”
“But I’ve decided that this will be my last semester teaching at the college.”
“You’re kidding.” She rolled her straw wrapper into a tiny ball. “I thought you loved working there.” The ball worked its way between her fingers, back and forth.
“I do. But I’m getting old, and—”
“Please. You’re barely sixty.”
“I’m getting old enough that I’d like to do other things with my life than convince young adults why they should care about ancient history.”
Summer flicked the paper ball into the ashtray and looked up. “Of course they should care! We can’t understand where we are, and who we are, unless we kn
ow where we’ve come from.”
He chuckled.
“Why are you laughing? It’s true.”
“Of course it’s true. I’m laughing because you sound like me thirty years ago, full of fire and ready to wrestle with anyone who couldn’t understand why studying the Civil War or the California Gold Rush was of any importance.”
“But you’re the reason I love it so much.” All the nights at her kitchen table, flipping cards with her father, Joe had woven story upon story of long-gone civilizations, of wars fought for love and money and power, as Summer sat beside them and listened with fascination. “You made it matter.”
He smiled. “You flatter me. But it’s time for me to go.” He raised a hand when she opened her mouth to protest again. “I can’t stay up past eight o’clock and they always give me those god-awful night classes that go until ten. They’ll hire someone else, someone younger. It’s only two classes a semester, anyway.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“Well, I’d like to think I’ll be tough to replace. Don’t know as that’s the case, though.”
Margaret delivered two cups of coffee, and Joe fumbled with the chipped plastic box of sugar packets. “Still leaving town so soon?”
Summer didn’t answer for a moment. She wasn’t sure how to explain the thoughts that had consumed her for the last three hours. “I’m not sure.” She sighed. “Actually, I have to change my flight.”
“Really? Why?”
“I decided to sell the house with a rental contingency, which is gonna take a little longer to work out. I don’t want to evict the Knights.”
“That’s rather kind of you.”
“I’d like to think I’m a kind person once in a while.”
He took a long sip of coffee. “Ever think about keeping the place for yourself?”
One corner of her mouth twitched. Second person to ask me that in less than a day. “No. Why would I?”
“You have friends here. A past. It’s the place where you grew up.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care. That—it’s all gone.” Her chest tightened. “My father told me never to come back, Joe. He made that clear the day I left.” And the two times she’d spoken to him on the phone years later.
“He had a hard time dealing with your brother’s death.”
“And I didn’t?” Her voice broke.
“He thought it would be better for you someplace else. Easier.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. I think he hated knowing I was alive and Donnie wasn’t.” She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “So why the hell leave me a house here? I still don’t get it. It’s almost like…” She stopped. Like he wanted to make me pay. Like he wanted to make me suffer after all.
Joe drummed his fingers on the table. “Maybe it isn’t exactly what you think. Maybe he was trying to—”
“Make peace? Apologize for throwing me away like I didn’t matter?” She drew in a deep breath. “More like he wanted to drag me back here and remind me what I did. How Donnie dying was my fault…” Her eyes filled.
Joe set his mug on the table hard enough that coffee sloshed over the side. “Your brother’s death was not your fault.”
“You don’t know that.” Summer reached for a napkin and blew her nose. No one did except Gabe Roberts. No one else had been there that night. No one else could bring back the memories that her own brain had tucked away for good. A stone pressed down on her chest, and she tried to find a normal rhythm to her breath. She couldn’t. Instead, the tears came harder. A couple sitting at the next table glanced over but she didn’t care. She didn’t recognize them anyway. Tears flowed between her fingers and down her wrists.
“What’s this really about? Your brother? The house? Or something else?”
Joe’s voice sounded far away and Summer fought against the dots that swirled at the edges of her peripheral vision. One hand gripped the table so tightly she thought she might break off a piece of Formica. “I can’t remember,” she whispered.
Joe’s face, at the end of a long tunnel, leaned closer. “Remember what?”
“Summer, look at me. If anyone asks, this is what you have to say…”
She tried to nod and agree. But her head ached, and she couldn’t pay attention to Gabe, even though he held her quivering chin in one hand and stared straight into her eyes as he spoke. His words didn’t make any sense, anyway. They were mixed up, backwards, not the truth at all.
Summer tried to focus on the lawyer’s craggy face. More flashbacks. They came more frequently now, almost every few hours. And yet—
“I can’t remember what happened that night.”
Joe blinked, and for a long time he said nothing. Margaret delivered their sandwiches, greasy Reubens with greasier fries on the side. Joe harrumphed, and his mouth twitched a little. Summer realized after a moment that he was trying to figure out how to shape his next words in just the right way.
“I think you’re very lucky that time, or pain, or a combination of both, has blocked out the accident.”
“No.” She shook her head. That might have worked for the last ten years. But now that she was back… “I want to remember,” she whispered. “I need to know.”
Why the urge had gripped her so tightly in the last forty-eight hours, she had no idea. Maybe it was the memories leaking through the veil of consciousness more and more since she’d set foot on the East Coast. Maybe it was seeing the spires of the cemetery gate rising out of the trees behind the damn house. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above, along with being thrust back into her past without realizing she was missing so many of the pieces that made it up.
“Tell me,” she said.
He laid a hand on hers. “You don’t need to hear it.”
“Please.”
He sighed. “I don’t know much, really.” He stopped until she squeezed his hand to urge him on. “You and Gabe had taken Donnie to the drive-in the night after graduation.”
“He wanted to see the new Bruce Willis movie,” she murmured. “Donnie thought Gabe was the coolest guy on the planet.” So did I.
“It was eleven-thirty or so, and you were all headed home, far as anyone can tell.”
She nodded. We were going to drop Donnie off with Dad and then go back to Gabe’s lake house…
“Mamie and Herb Talbot were on their way home from visiting their grandkids over in Silver Valley. Got to you a few minutes after it happened and called it in.”
“I don’t remember that. Or them.”
“Probably in shock already.” Joe spread his hands wide on the table; gnarled knuckles and graying sprouts of hair stuck up from each finger. “You and Gabe were out of the car by the time they got there, banged up but okay.” His brows drew together. “Cops couldn’t figure out why you both got out so fast, but then…”
She pressed her fingers against his. “But then what?”
He blinked. “You were looking for Donnie, of course. He was thrown from the car.”
“Wait—what?” Summer closed her eyes. I didn’t know where Donnie was. I thought he was in the backseat. “He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt?”
Joe shook his head. “He didn’t survive the crash.” He said the words quickly.
But that wasn’t true. “I heard Donnie talking, calling for me, after we were hit.”
Joe frowned. “I don’t know if that’s possible. Maybe.”
Summer didn’t speak, though she’d just realized something else. She and Gabe hadn’t gotten out of the car to look for Donnie. She would put her hand on a Bible and swear to that. They both thought he was still strapped into the backseat. Then why? Bleeding and dizzy, why on earth would they have unstrapped their seatbelts and crawled out of a twisted piece of metal?
“Summer, get out of the car. Now.” Gabe pulled at her arm, hard
.
“I can’t.” Things hurt, like her head and her left arm. And her ankle.
“Yes, you can.” The seatbelt snapped free from her shoulder. “Come on.” He dragged her across the seat and out the open door.
Did he think the car was going to explode? Then why not pull Donnie out too? There’d been no smell of gas, no smoke that she remembered. Summer grabbed at it, a murky reason that swam at the very edge of her memory. There was something wrong that night. She tried again to recall it. She and Gabe had taken Donnie out before. As long as they were home before midnight, her father didn’t care. Gabe was the best driver she knew. He never sped or took turns too fast, not with her or Donnie in the car. That was part of the reason she hadn’t fought too hard when her father made her wait to get her junior license. She’d rather be with Gabe, going anywhere at all, than driving herself down a road that led in circles.
Joe picked up his sandwich. “You had a sprained ankle and some bad cuts from hitting the windshield. Nothing too serious. But then you went into shock as soon as they got you to the hospital. They kept you a couple days, for observation.” He paused. “And Gabe—”
“Where is he buried?”
Joe wiped his mouth. “Sorry?”
“My brother. Do you know where his grave is?”
“Ah, yes. Of course.” And he told her, right down to the last detail about the funny tufts of grass and the spread of wildflowers that grew under the biggest oak tree in the town’s cemetery.
* * * * *
The road curved away from town and became more overgrown the farther in she drove. Pine trees arched down toward her car and blocked the sun. They scraped their branches along her windows. A dust cloud rose up behind her.
By the time Summer parked in front of All Saints’ solid black gates, clouds had gathered and turned the whole afternoon gloomy. Thunder rumbled as she opened the door and tested the ground. Good thing she’d worn sensible running shoes today rather than designer heels. She picked her way across the rutted road and stopped under the curved wrought iron letters. Her chest tightened.
“Miss Thompson, can you tell us who was driving the car?” Chief Walters put one hand on her shoulder. She stared at a mangled piece of metal at her feet. It looked like it might have been a mirror, or part of a door panel ripped away in the impact. Her head hurt.
Summer's Song: Pine Point, Book 1 Page 8
