Summer Harbor Read Online Free PDF Page A

declared that nothing could persuade him to spend one minute longer in this place than he had to.
    Of course, that was when his father was still alive.
    Kiley set the rocker into slow motion, the thoughts of Grainger and Mack and of herself as a young girl a little disorienting. Here she was, where they had rocked so often, and so vigorously that her mother would yell at them; there was where Mack fell off the railing and skinned his arm. Over there, deep in the privet hedge, Grainger had found a bird’s nest with eggs in it. Those moments felt dreamed, not real. Had the three of them ever been so easy and free? The balance of their friendship so perfect? If only it were possible to edit out the summer of 1984, to know only those better memories of other summers, then maybe they could recover the equilibrium of their friendship.
    The motion of her rocker increased as her thoughts wandered. Maybe she should see Grainger. Just call him, say, “Hi, how are you. Yeah, it’s been a long time, yeah, bygones are bygones.”
    Bullshit. Kiley put out a foot and stopped the motion of her chair. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out that she’d be the last person in the world he’d want to see. How could they make small talk when they’d never dealt with that awful night? They had never seen each other again, never talked, or even written. The image of Grainger’s face filled with an admixture of pain and anger, and the contempt with which he’d last looked at her, had kept her from ever trying.
    She’d lost them both that night. Mack and Grainger.
    But she did have Will.
    The first time she’d seen his face, wrinkled and squalling and more precious than any other sight, Kiley knew that she’d done the right thing. Though her world was irrevocably changed, and she was no longer the girl she’d been, the mysterious hand of God had rewarded her ignorance with this gift.
    Over the years, aided by this funny, charming little boy, Kiley had regained much of the youthful joie de vivre lost during those lonely and terrible months before Will’s birth. In reparation for her mistakes, she’d been charged with the responsibility of raising this boy to be a good man. And with one or two bumps in the road, she had. She’d made her peace with her fate.
    Only now, sitting in this familiar and yet foreign place, only now did Kiley wonder if Grainger ever had found his peace.
    Her thoughts were interrupted as Will flopped down on the other rocking chair.
    “The living room looks like a confetti factory.”
    “It’s going to be harder than I thought.”
    “Lots of memories?”
    Kiley nodded, her eyes on the horizon. A pair of motorboats passed each other, one heading into Hawke’s Cove, the other coursing for Great Harbor.
    “I found this.” Will held out the photograph from 1976.
    She couldn’t hide her smile at the sight of them. “Oh, my God, how cute we were! Just little kids, ten years old.” Kiley pointed at her red, white, and blue bathing suit. “It was the Bicentennial summer.”
    “Who were they? The boys? Cousins?”
    “We were pals. Playmates.” Kiley felt the understatement redden her cheeks. She remembered the photo being taken. Her father had snapped them with his new Instamatic camera. Merriwell had liked the boys; it was her mother who didn’t encourage the friendship. Kiley looked closely at the faces of the threesome caught on the beach. Could she see Will in either boy’s face? Grainger was laughing in this picture, but he would soon turn into a solemn little boy. “Poor Grainger.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “This was taken just before his mother disappeared.”
    “What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”
    “She left. Ran away.” Will was so hungry for details of her youth she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with a skimmed version. “Her husband was abusive. He was awful. Although he never admitted it, I think Grainger was afraid of Rollie Egan.”
    “And she left the kid with