At the end of her sophomore year, Gwen decided to leave school and find herself. She had been stuck in a square little town for too long, chafing against her parents’ and neighbors’ expectations. She had no idea who she was or what she was meant to do with her life. College would always be there, if and when she decided to return. She only had a brief moment to be young, to love freely, to live as she pleased, and to discover who she was meant to be.
She set out with two friends, hitchhiking across the country, crashing wherever she was offered a bed, sampling whatever was passed to her, watching the days slowly unfold as if through a rosy warm haze. She parted with her friends in Denver and hooked up with another group headed out to California; she left them in Los Angeles and made her way north alone, hitchhiking up the coast. A casual invitation led to a lengthy stay in a commune in Berkeley, where she cooked for a changeable group of twelve perpetual students in exchange for a foldout sofa and access to their collective library, shelved on wooden planks stacked on milk crates in a converted detached garage. She wandered the campus, joining in antiwar protests and occasionally sitting in on lectures. Knowledge was meant to be free, and her attendance wasn’t preventing a tuition-paying student from occupying an otherwise empty chair.
On one such day, she met Dennis, yelling epithets as he burned an effigy of the president on Sproul Plaza. Her mother would have said Gwen was instantly smitten—that is, if her mother would not have fainted dead away at the sight of the longhaired, strung-out, unwashed pale young man with his arms around her daughter. Gwen was certain she had discovered her soul mate.
After their barefoot wedding ceremony on the beach—it was too cold to go barefoot in February, but Dennis insisted they have unencumbered contact with the earth—they traveled the country with two other couples in a van plastered with peace signs and antiwar slogans. They bartered for gas money and worked occasional odd jobs for food. They went where they chose, with nothing to hold them down, nothing to bear them up but each other.
The carefree times ended when Gwen realized she was pregnant.
Suddenly it mattered where their next meal would come from, where they would live, what kind of mother she would be. When she gave up pot, Dennis’s drug use, once a minor irritant, began to worry her. When she tried to persuade him to quit, he told her she was jealous, uptight, and square—that same old small-town-girl characterization he knew she hated. “Relax, baby,” he said, blowing smoke in her face. Then he bent over to speak to her abdomen, still as flat as the day she had left Brown Deer. “That goes for you too, baby.”
When he threw his head back in a fit of helpless giggling, Gwen felt nothing for him but shame and disgust. How could she ever have imagined that he was the love of her life? How could she bring a child into the world and expect him to help her raise it? Dennis could barely look after himself. How would they afford diapers and clothes and toys? She couldn’t raise a child in the backseat of a van, a constantly shifting cast of unreliable traveling companions filling the front seats.
The next time they stopped for gas, Gwen left her wedding ring on the dashboard, stuffed her few possessions into her backpack, announced that she had to use the bathroom, and left without saying goodbye. She walked along the highway in the opposite direction the van was traveling, hoping to get a good head start before Dennis and the others realized she wasn’t coming back. She considered returning to the commune in Berkeley, where the kind, gentle residents might welcome her back, forthcoming infant and all. But after an hour of trudging along on the shoulder of the road, the only driver who pulled over was heading east. After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the ride. A week later, she walked the last mile into Brown Deer, filthy, hungry, and desperately anxious that her parents would leave her standing outside on the doorstep, abandoning her as she had once rejected them.
Instead her mother burst into tears and brought her into the house, calling for her father, who came running to embrace her. Generous and kind, expecting nothing in return, they saw her through the rest of her pregnancy and the birth of her beautiful daughter. When Summer was fifteen months old, Gwen returned to college, knowing that she could make a better life for them both if she completed her education. In the three years it took her to earn her degree, Summer lived with her grandparents in Brown Deer, and Gwen drove home to be with her on weekends and school breaks. It grieved Gwen to spend so much time away, but Summer was a happy, affectionate child, the light of her grandparents’ lives, and as hard as it was, Gwen knew she was doing what was best for them both.
Her mother cried tears of joy at Gwen’s graduation, and even her father’s eyes shone when he saw her in her cap and gown at long last. A few months later, they put on brave faces and sent her off with their blessings when she and Summer left for Cornell, more than six hundred miles away, so she could pursue her doctorate. Gwen knew she owed her parents everything. Without them, she never could have seized her second chance, could never have built the joyful, fulfilling life she and Summer now enjoyed.
Perhaps Dennis deserved a second chance too. Gwen had changed, matured, learned from her mistakes; he could have as well. After all, she had left him. Perhaps he had kept his distance because he assumed she wanted it that way.
She knew his name, birth date, place of birth, and last known address. After she saw Summer off to school the next morning, she dialed directory services, requested a reverse lookup of his residence, and took down the phone number. Given the three-hour time difference, it was much too early to call, so Gwen went to work, but throughout the morning, even when she was teaching and writing, her thoughts were elsewhere, mulling over what she would say.
At noon, she closed the door to her office and called the number the operator had given. Her heart pounded as the phone rang and rang, then flew into her throat when someone picked up.
“Hello?” a woman spoke.
Gwen cleared her throat. “Good morning. My name is Gwen Sullivan. I’m trying to reach Dennis McAlary. Is he available?”
“Oh, no, sorry, but he moved away years ago.”
“Really? How many years?”
“We bought the house from him in eighty-five.”
“I see.” Then Gwen’s last letter would have arrived in the interim when the post office would have forwarded his mail instead of returning it to the sender. “Do you happen to have a current address for him?”
The woman hesitated. “I’m sorry, but . . . I don’t have one I could give you.”
Gwen understood the subtext. “That’s fine. Could you at least tell me if he’s still in California?”
“Yeah, in fact, he’s still in Santa Cruz. He owns a coffeehouse and surf shop near Steamer Lane.”
“Great.” Gwen jotted down notes. “I hate to put you on the spot, but I’m calling long distance. Could you please give me the name and phone number?”
“I guess that would be fine. It’s called Java Surf. Hold on and I’ll look it up.” She set down the receiver and a moment later Gwen heard the faint sound of pages turning. A few moments more, and she was back on the line reciting the number.
Gwen thanked her and hung up, and after collecting her thoughts, she called Java Surf.
The phone rang on and on until a cheerful young-sounding man with a laid-back drawl picked up, promising to get Dennis on the line as soon as he was free. Gwen waited, tapping a pen on her desktop, listening to the muffled sounds of milk frothing and cash register drawers slamming, laughter and conversation. Then there was a scramble and a scratching and a mellow tenor voice said, “Java Surf. Thanks for holding. This is Dennis.”
“Hey, Dennis.” She forced casual friendliness into her voice. “This is Gwen. Gwen Sullivan. How are you?”
“Whoa, Gwen.” He inhaled and blew out a long breath. “Gwen. Well, at the moment, I’m totally surprised.”
She laughed lightly. “It’s been a while.”
“For sure. Hey, can you hold on? I’m going to transfer you to the office.”
Another brief wait, a few clicks and muffled sounds, and then Dennis was on the line again, but the background noise had diminished to a faint murmur. “So, what’s up?” he asked.
“I thought a conversation was long overdue.”
When he did not disagree, she told him, briefly, about Summer, her favorite school subjects, outstanding grades, and favorite activities—soccer, singing, playing guitar, and quilting. Dennis hung on every word, occasionally interrupting with a question, an unmistakable undercurrent of delight and pride in his voice. “She clearly takes after you,” he said when she had finished. “Obviously you’ve done a wonderful job raising her.”
Gwen was unexpectedly touched. She only wished he had expressed some remorse that he had missed all of it.
She considered her next words carefully. “As Summer grows older, she’s had more questions about you,” she said. “In mid-December, I’ll be speaking at a conference at UC Santa Barbara. Santa Cruz is only a short flight or a four-hour drive away, an hour longer if I take Highway 1 up the coast to admire the scenery. Would you be willing to get together? I’d like to talk, and, if you’re interested, we could consider arranging for you and Summer to meet.”
There was a long pause.
“You caught me off guard,” he admitted. “I should’ve known when you called out of the blue that you had something on your mind.”
“I’m not trying to put you on the spot,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “I just thought since I’m going to be in California anyway—”
“No, no, I get it.” He drew in a breath, exhaled slowly. “Okay. Let’s meet. But I’ll drive down to Santa Barbara instead of making you come all the way to Santa Cruz. It’s only fair that I meet you partway, considering that you’re flying across the country.”
“That sounds good.” Before she could change her mind, Gwen gave him the details of where and when she could meet—one o’clock on the Saturday of the conference at a small café near her hotel. She had never been there, but it had been recommended in the conference paperwork.
“I’ll find it,” Dennis said. “See you then.”
“See you,” she said, and they hung up.
The next week, she and Summer drove six hours southwest through the rolling Appalachians to Brown Deer, where her parents came outside to the front porch to welcome them in from the rain. On Friday, after the sun had come out and Summer was outside playing with the dogs, Gwen divulged her plans to her parents, but she asked them to say nothing to Summer in case Dennis failed to show.
They regarded her somberly and agreed, but Gwen sensed their underlying alarm. They had never met Dennis and had no reason to approve of him. From their perspective, he was a drug-addled hooligan who had seduced their innocent child into a sham marriage before impregnating and abandoning her. Her father urged her to meet Dennis in a public place, in daylight, and under no circumstances should she get in his car and allow him to drive her to a secondary location.
“Someone’s been watching cop shows on cable,” Gwen teased, managing a shaky laugh. “Mom, Dad, I’ll be perfectly safe. Dennis was never dangerous or violent.”
“You said he used drugs back in the day,” her mother said. “He was a criminal.”
Gwen had to concede that point, but she reminded them that he had become the owner of a successful business, so apparently he had his life on track. And of course she would never let him anywhere near Summer if he was using.
“I’d prefer it if you never let him near Summer regardless,” her father grumbled.
“That’s going to be up to the two of them,” she said. “If Dennis is willing to meet Summer, I’ll ask Summer if she’s willing to meet him. If either of them says no, that will be the end of it.”
Her parents exchanged a look that told her they would pray for a swift and decisive refusal from Dennis. The odds were in their favor. Dennis had been silent so long that it was difficult to imagine him suddenly metamorphosing into an involved parent.
A week after Gwen and Summer returned home after the Thanksgiving holiday, her parents drove up from Kentucky to look after their granddaughter while Gwen flew out to Santa Barbara for the conference. The forested hills of the Elm Creek Valley had lost their brilliant autumn foliage weeks before and the stubbled farm fields were often thick with frost, so when she emerged from the plane and descended the stairs to the tarmac, the warm California sunshine felt like an embrace. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun, flooded with memories of her younger self, hitchhiking up and down the coast, singing protest songs around a bonfire on Venice Beach, watching the sun set over the Pacific from a cliff in Monterey. She loved the life she had made for herself and for Summer in Pennsylvania, but California would always be the home of her heart.
She took a cab to the hotel, settled into her room, changed from her warm winter clothes into something lighter and brighter, and returned to the lobby to check in for the conference. The program began that evening with a supper and keynote address, and the next two days passed in a whirl of lectures, papers, seminars, lunches, dinners, coffee with colleagues and potential collaborators, and lengthy debates about the state of academia over drinks long after she should have withdrawn to her room for some solitary yoga and a good night’s sleep. Her own lecture on Saturday morning was a smashing success, if she did say so herself—and she did soon thereafter, over the phone with Summer and her parents.
Her mother lingered on the line after the others had said goodbye and hung up. “Good luck,” she said simply, not needing to name the source of her concern. “Be careful.”
Gwen promised she would.
She felt as if she were moving in slow motion as she walked the few blocks to the café, the benevolent California sunshine suddenly seeming too perfect, like a caricature of itself, falsely bright and cheery even for the festive season. That was it, she told herself, trying to shake off her growing apprehension. Palm trees and ocean breezes rang false in December, the season of snowmen and Santa Claus. That was all.
She arrived first and claimed a table outside with a gorgeous view of the ocean. She ordered an iced tea and gazed at the distant waves, no more than a gentle murmur at this distance, and waited. Just as the server brought her drink, Dennis arrived, lanky and smiling through a scruff of beard, clad in khaki hiking shorts, sandals, and a red Java Surf T-shirt. His hair was thinner, his face tanned and lined, but his grin was the same, and with a jolt Gwen realized that Summer’s eyes were exactly the same shade of denim blue. She had forgotten the color of his eyes.
Instinctively Gwen rose, heart thudding, as Dennis wrapped her in a bear hug. “Gwen!” he cried out, almost lifting her heels off the ground. “Man, you haven’t changed a bit!”
She knew she had put on weight, but he seemed sincere. “Thanks,” she said, pulling free and easing back into her chair. “It looks like California agrees with you.”
“I’ve been here so long I feel like a native,” he said, “but since I’m not, I appreciate this all the more.” He swept an arm to indicate the sunshine, a nearby palm tree, and the ocean view. When he glanced at the menu, Gwen did too, and since the server was still standing nearby, they gave him their orders.
“I brought pictures,” Gwen said after the server left, taking a thick envelope from her tote bag. One by one, she placed them on the table in front of Dennis, adding a few details for context. They ranged in chronological order from a few days after Summer’s birth through Thanksgiving dinner the previous week, a brief history of the life of an extraordinary girl.
She had just shown him the last one when their meals arrived, but Dennis was so engrossed in the pictures that he did not notice and the server had to set his mushroom burger and zucchini fries off to one side. Gwen thanked him and moved some of the photos aside to make room for his plate, but she halted at the sudden memory of having done that many times before, long ago, making sure everything was just right for him since he was too distracted to take care of himself.
“You can keep those,” she said, nodding to the photos as she placed her napkin on her lap. “I have copies at home.”
He thanked her, but his smile faltered a bit. “Thanks,” he said, an odd note in his voice. “I’ll keep them somewhere safe.”
“So, you know all about Summer and me, but what about you?” she asked, cutting her fajita chicken wrap in half. “How’s the coffeehouse and surf shop business?”
“Couldn’t be better,” he said. “We struggled a bit when Starbucks came to town, but our customers are loyal and you can’t get a board or a wet suit at Starbucks. Not yet anyway.”
Gwen laughed lightly. “You seem happy.” She remembered him as perpetually outraged and defiant, unless he was stoned, and he didn’t seem high at the moment.
“I am.” He paused to take a bite of his burger, chewed slowly, swallowed. “I’m married.”
She hadn’t expected that. “That’s wonderful. Any children? Any other children, I mean?”
“Three. A girl and two boys, twins.” He hesitated, then reached into a pocket for his wallet and took out what were obviously standard school photos. “That’s Ashley, and this is Guthrie and Dylan.”
Gwen studied the photos and murmured the appropriate compliments, but she was struck by their ages. The eldest could not have been more than two years younger than Summer. “I don’t suppose you have extras?” she asked, handing them back with a smile. “I know Summer would be thrilled to see them.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think to bring any.”
“That’s fine. Maybe you could mail some later.”
“You know what?” He passed the photos back to her. “You keep these. I’m sure we have more at home. And we’ll get more next year.”
Gwen thanked him and tucked the photos into her tote bag, faintly light-headed, overwhelmed by the realization that Summer had siblings. Half-siblings, but still. Somehow she had never considered the possibility.
They chatted carefully as they ate, about parenthood, about the few mutual acquaintances who had kept in touch. When they had finished eating and were sipping refills of their drinks, Gwen stoked her courage and zeroed in on the subject she had been circling for the better part of an hour. “Have you given any more thought to what I suggested over the phone? Would you like to meet Summer?”
The Christmas Boutique Page 21
