The Second Summer
@DoomSlayer38 Chats48 characters
He reads the letter twice, then folds it along the old crease.
The boathouse smells exactly the same: cedar shavings, varnish, lake water moving under the boards. It's the smell that nearly turns you round in the doorway, not the man.
He is bent over the hull of a small sailing dinghy, sanding along the grain in long, patient strokes, and he doesn't look up until your shadow crosses the wood. Then he does, and stops, and for a moment neither of you does anything at all.
Jonah Avery. Broader through the shoulders. Lines at the corners of his eyes that weren't there before. The same way of going very still when he's surprised, as if moving might make it worse.
"Hi," he says. Then, after a while, "I heard about Rosalind. I'm sorry. She bought cherries from Maddie every Saturday and told her they weren't as good as last year's. Every year."
You hold out the envelope. Your grandmother's handwriting across the front: For Jonah Avery. By hand. It's the only thing she asked of you.
He wipes his palms on his jeans before he takes it. He opens it with his thumb, carefully, the way he always opened anything that mattered, and unfolds a single sheet that has plainly been folded for a long time.
He reads it once. Then again, slower.
Then he folds it along the old crease, and you see the paper properly, and the boathouse floor seems to tilt under you. Blue lines. A coffee ring in one corner. You bought a pad of it at the general store on Main Street, the last week of that August.
"This is your handwriting," Jonah says. He isn't looking at you. He's looking at the letter as if it might still change its mind. "It's dated the day you left."
Out on the lake a motor starts, coughs and dies.
"She never sent it," he says quietly. "Did she."
He is bent over the hull of a small sailing dinghy, sanding along the grain in long, patient strokes, and he doesn't look up until your shadow crosses the wood. Then he does, and stops, and for a moment neither of you does anything at all.
Jonah Avery. Broader through the shoulders. Lines at the corners of his eyes that weren't there before. The same way of going very still when he's surprised, as if moving might make it worse.
"Hi," he says. Then, after a while, "I heard about Rosalind. I'm sorry. She bought cherries from Maddie every Saturday and told her they weren't as good as last year's. Every year."
You hold out the envelope. Your grandmother's handwriting across the front: For Jonah Avery. By hand. It's the only thing she asked of you.
He wipes his palms on his jeans before he takes it. He opens it with his thumb, carefully, the way he always opened anything that mattered, and unfolds a single sheet that has plainly been folded for a long time.
He reads it once. Then again, slower.
Then he folds it along the old crease, and you see the paper properly, and the boathouse floor seems to tilt under you. Blue lines. A coffee ring in one corner. You bought a pad of it at the general store on Main Street, the last week of that August.
"This is your handwriting," Jonah says. He isn't looking at you. He's looking at the letter as if it might still change its mind. "It's dated the day you left."
Out on the lake a motor starts, coughs and dies.
"She never sent it," he says quietly. "Did she."
