Summer Island

Finally, he looked up at her; his attempt at a smile brought tears to her eyes. In that second, she saw pieces from the whole of his life. She pictured him at eight, sitting at her kitchen table, eating Lucky Charms, a shaggy-haired, freckle-faced boy with banged-up knees and soup-ladle ears.

“I’m going home,” he said quietly. “Hospice will help out . . . ”

“That’s great,” she said thickly, smiling too brightly, trying to pretend they were talking about where he was going to live . . . instead of where he’d chosen to die. “I’m way ahead on my newspaper columns. I’ll take the week off, visit you during the day. I’ll still have to work the show at night, but—”

“I mean the island. I’m going home. ”

“Are you finally going to call your family?” She hated his decision to handle his cancer privately, but he’d been adamant. He’d forbidden Nora to tell anyone, and as much as she’d disagreed, she’d had no choice but to honor his wishes.

“Oh, yeah. They’ve been so supportive in the past. ”

“This is different than coming out of the closet, and you know it. It’s time to call Dean. And your parents. ”

The look he gave her was so hopeless that she wanted to turn away. “What if I told my mother I was dying and she still wouldn’t come to see me?”

Nora understood. Even a thin blade of that hope could cut him to pieces now. “At least call your brother. Give him the chance. ”

“I’ll think about it. ”

“That’s all I ask. ” She forced a smile. “If you can wait until Tuesday, I’ll drive you—”

He touched her hand gently. “I haven’t got much time. I’ve arranged to be flown up. Lottie’s already up at the house, getting it ready. ”

Haven’t got much time. It was infinitely worse, somehow, to hear the words spoken aloud. She swallowed hard. “I don’t think you should be alone. ”

“Enough. ” His voice was soft, his gaze even softer, but she heard the barest echo of his former strength. He was reminding her, as he sometimes had to, that he was an adult, a grown man. “Now,” he said, clapping his hands together, “we sound like a goddamn Ibsen play. Let’s talk about something else. I listened to your show tonight. Mothers and daughters. That’s always tough on you. ”

Just like that, he put them back on solid ground. As always, she was amazed by his resilience. When life seemed too big to swallow, she knew he made it through by cutting it into bites. Normal things . . . ordinary conversations were his salvation.

She pulled up a chair and sat down. “I never really know what to say, and when I do offer advice, I feel like the biggest hypocrite on the planet. How would Marge feel if she knew I hadn’t spoken to my own daughter in eleven years?”

Eric didn’t answer the rhetorical question. It was one of the things she loved best about him. He never tried to comfort her with lies. But it helped her that someone recognized how painful it was for Nora to think about her younger daughter. “I wonder what she’s doing now. ”

It was a common question between them, one they speculated about endlessly.

Eric managed a laugh. “With Ruby it could be anything from having lunch with Steven Spielberg to piercing her tongue. ”

“The last time I talked to Caroline, she said that Ruby had dyed her hair blue. ” Nora laughed, then fell abruptly silent. It wasn’t funny. “Ruby always had such pretty hair . . . ”

Eric leaned forward. There was a sudden earnestness in his eyes. “She’s not dead, Nora. ”

She nodded. “I know. I try to squeeze hope from that thought all the time. ”

He grinned. “Now, get out the backgammon board. I feel like whooping your ass. ”

It was only the second week of June, and already the temperature hovered around one hundred degrees. A freak heat wave they called it on the local news, the kind of weather that usually came to southern California later in the year.

The heat made people crazy. They woke from their damp bedsheets and went in search of a glass of water, surprised to find that when their vision cleared, they were holding instead the gun they kept hidden in the bookcase. Children cried out in their sleep, and even doses of liquid Tylenol couldn’t cool their fevered skin. All over town, birds fell from phone wires and landed in pathetic, crumpled heaps on the thirsty lawns.

No one could sleep in weather like this, and Ruby Bridge was no exception. She lay sprawled in her bed, the sheets shoved down to the floor, a cold-pack pressed across her forehead.

The minutes ticked by, each one a moaning sound caught in the window air-conditioning unit, a whoosh-ping that did little but stir the hot air around.

She was lonely. Only a few days earlier, her boyfriend, Max, had left her. After five years of living together, he’d simply walked out of her life like a plumber who’d finished an unpleasant job.

All he’d left behind was a few pieces of crappy furniture and a note.

Dear Ruby: