One Summer Read Online Free PDF Page A

been largely superficial.
    Fred was a big man with a waistline large enough to portend a host of health problems down the road. He tended to defer to his wife in all things other than sports and selling cars, which was the line of work that had brought him to Cleveland. He was a man who would prefer to look at the floor rather than in your eye, unless he was trying to sell you the latest Ford F-150. Then he could be animated enough, at least until you signed on the dotted line and the financing cleared.
    Bonnie was shorter than her daughter. The mother of four grown children, she was now well into her sixties, and her figure had lost its shape. Her waist and hips had turned into a solid wall of flesh. Her hair was white, cut short and rather brutally, and her eyeglasses filled most of her square face. Fred kept sighing, rubbing his big hands over his pressed suit pants, as though attempting to rub some dirt off his fingers. Bonnie, who had kept on her black outfit, was sitting very still on the couch, her gaze aimed at a corner of the ceiling but apparently not actually registering on it.
    Fred sighed again, and this seemed to rouse Bonnie.
    “Well,” she said. “Well,” she said again. Fred eyed her, as did Jack.
    She looked over and gave Jack a quick glance that was undecipherable.
    Then came more silence.
    Finally, a few minutes later Fred helped Jack get into bed, and then he and Bonnie went up to Jack and Lizzie’s room. They would be staying here full-time until other arrangements were made.
    Jack lay in the dark staring at the ceiling. The days after Lizzie had died had been far worse than when he’d received his own death sentence. His life ending he’d accepted. Hers he had not. Could not. Mikki and Cory had barely spoken since the police officer had come with the awful news. Jackie had wandered the house looking for his mother and crying when he couldn’t find her.
    Jack slid open the drawer of the nightstand and took out the six letters. He obviously had not written one on Christmas Eve. In these pages he had poured out his heart to the person he cherished above all others. As he looked down at the pages, wasted pages now, his spirits sank even lower.
    Jack rarely cried. He’d seen fellow soldiers die horribly in the Middle East, watched his father perish from lung cancer, and attended the funeral of his wife. He had shed a few tears at each of these events, but not for long and always in a controlled way. Now, staring at the ceiling, thinking a thousand anguished thoughts, he did weep quietly as it finally struck him that Lizzie was really gone.

7
    The next morning Bonnie took charge. She came to see Jack with Fred in tow. “This won’t be easy, Jack,” she cautioned, “but we really don’t have much time.” She squared her shoulders and seemed to attempt a sympathetic look. “The children of course come first. I’ve talked to Becky and also to Frances several times.”
    Frances and Becky were Lizzie’s older sisters, who lived on the West Coast. The only brother, Fred Jr., was on active military duty, stationed in Korea. He had not been able to make it to the funeral.
    “Becky can take Jack Jr., and Frances has agreed to take Cory. That just leaves Michelle.” Bonnie had never called her Mikki.
    “
Just
Michelle?” said Jack.
    Bonnie looked momentarily taken aback. When she spoke, her tone was less authoritative and more conciliatory. “This is hard on all of us. You know Fred and I had planned to move to Tempe next year after things were more settled with Lizzieand the kids. We were going this year, but then you got sick. And we stayed on, because that’s what families do in those situations. We tried to do our best, for all of you.”
    “We couldn’t have gotten on without you.”
    This remark seemed to please her, and she smiled and gripped his hand. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
    She continued, “We’ll take Michelle with us. And because Jack Jr. will be in Portland with Becky