Authors: Olivia Lynde
The two of them were horsing around on
the living room floor—with the door to the kitchen, where Grandma was cooking
dinner, left open—when they suddenly heard a plate breaking, followed by a
mighty crash. They both rose to their feet, Seth in a graceful leap and Summer
in a stumble, and ran to the kitchen. Grandma was lying on the floor, unmoving.
Seth immediately checked her pulse and yelled at Summer to call 911.
All too late.
Massive heart
attack, Seth would later read in the coroner's report. Grandma was dead before
she hit the floor.
In the moment after the EMT pronounced
Grandma dead, when Seth's stricken gaze flew to a devastated Summer, his first
horrified thought was,
What will happen with Sunny now? They can't take her
away from me!
But take her they did.
Someone from social services—but not Ms.
Owens—was there the next day; and in spite of Summer's crying and pleading to
stay with Seth, and Seth's railing and threats, Summer was swiftly packed,
bundled and dragged away. There wasn't even enough time for him to go out and get
her a cell phone, and in his mind he used the foulest swearwords imaginable to
curse Grandma's intransigent stance against modern gadgets—there had been none
allowed under her roof.
Seth and Summer had moments only, for a
brief farewell.
"We don't know where they'll send
you, so you'll have to call and tell me immediately when you find out," he
said, holding her shoulders in a possessive grip and looking into her water-logged
eyes with a burning gaze. Taking her left hand, he placed in it a thin stack of
low-denomination banknotes (the entire small amount that his Grams had kept in
the house, spread among her various purses). "Use this money to buy a cell
phone as soon as you can and call me at the house. I'll get a cell too, and once
we have each other's numbers, we'll talk and figure things out."
"But Seth... What if I can't call
you? Or you can't answer? Or..."
"Shh, Sunny, it'll be okay. Besides
calling, you should also write—a letter each day until you hear back from me. I'll
write back or I'll call back, and somehow we'll fix this. We'll find a way to be
together again. You hear me, Sunny?"
"I hear you," she whispered.
"Promise to do like I said?"
"I promise, Seth. On my life. But you
promise me too... that we'll find a way back together."
"I promise." His voice rang
with soul-deep resolve. "I promise you on my life."
And then he drew her in his arms and she
burrowed into him one last time.
* * *
Five days later, Summer awoke in a
hospital bed, disoriented. Her lips felt dry and her chest tight, but the previous
stabbing chest pain was gone, finally, and so were those awful chills.
What a wretched time for one's harmless
flu to turn into life-threatening pneumonia!
she thought wearily. At least,
Seth had been spared the sight of her so ill; otherwise he would have likely gone
crazy worrying...
Oh God, Seth! And Grandma!
Summer had trouble
breathing once more as a crushing wave of sorrow and yearning rushed over her.
Slowly, she rose from her bed on
trembling legs, glad that there were no nurses around to stop her. Endless
minutes later she was leaning outside in the hallway next to a pay phone, holding
the phone to her ear and hearing it ring. But nobody picked up on the other
side of the line, and a disgruntled nurse came looking for her before she could
try to call again.
B
y the time three more days had
passed, Summer was settled in a new foster home hundreds of miles away from her
previous one. Each day since waking up in the hospital, she had bought or
borrowed or begged for the opportunity of at least one phone call to Seth. That
day was different only in that, for the first time, she was using her own cell
phone after having finally managed to buy one a few hours earlier.
And yet the call itself was no different
than all the other ones she had made to Seth's house over the past three days: a
voice—already well familiar and intensely hated—came on, telling her that the
line had been disconnected. And this time, hearing that recorded message
finally became too much.
The dams which had kept her grief at bay
during the past week burst over her in a torrent, drowning her in tears and
wracking her diminutive frame with the force of her sobs. Frantically, she
clutched at her heart necklace for comfort—but no comfort was to be found.
Once more death had come into her life
and taken away someone she loved; was it her fault this time as well? Was she meant
to bring nothing but death and misfortune to everyone she had ever let herself
love? To everyone who had ever loved
her
?
Was she cursed to lose all her loved
ones?
But please, not Seth, too!
She would rather die herself than give
him up too.
She missed him like a vital part of
herself, and the pain of losing him increased further with each passing day.
Her night terrors were back as well; she hadn't had a decent night's sleep
since she left Seth. But she could live with her nightmares, if she had to; they
were her price to pay and so she would pay it. She didn't think, however, that
she could live without Seth. More importantly, she didn't
want
to.
So she dried her tears and wrote her
first letter to him.
She continued writing him a letter each
day, and with each day the weight on her chest grew heavier, until she
sometimes thought that it would squash and suffocate her. Her heart already
felt like a crushed pulp.
For Seth never replied.
After a year, numb with grief, Summer stopped
sending him letters. And she vowed to never again let herself care for anyone—to
never give anyone else the power to savage her so deeply.
* * *
When Seth's Mom heard about Grandma's
death, she quickly descended like a ravenous crow to pick at the remains, he observed
with contempt.
It was her own mother lying lifeless in
a coffin, yet his Mom took no more time than to squeeze a couple of crocodile
tears before contacting a real estate agency to put her childhood home on the
market. Seth's angry protests fell on deaf ears. And legally, as a thirteen-year-old
in his mother's custody, he could do nothing to stop her from her course.
His Grandma wasn't even cold in the grave
before the house was sold and Seth was forced to move out of it and into a
dingy city apartment with his Mom. The money from the sale, she spent in six
months. Six months—that was all it took for his Mom to throw away his grandparents'
entire lifework on drugs and booze and men.
* * *
The Andersons, the family who had
purchased Seth's former home, were new in town. The husband was a doctor from Grand
Rapids who chose to move to Rockford in search of a more quiet life. The wife was
a part-time legal secretary and, it quickly became obvious to the local folk, a
full-time social butterfly. She hadn't wanted the quiet life but her husband
prevailed.
They had an only daughter.
One week after Grandma's death and on
the very next day after the Andersons moved in, Seth was standing before his former
home, ringing the doorbell. The door opened and, framed in the doorway,
appeared the Anderson daughter: Jessica.
She was a thirteen year old brunette
with gray cat eyes, pretty in an eye-catching way that she emphasized by
wearing the fanciest clothes.
Her first time seeing Seth Lewis
standing tall in the dusk outside her house, dressed in faded jeans and a black
leather jacket, with strands of his black hair blowing in the wind and falling above
deep blue eyes that regarded her with an aloofness which irritated her, Jessica
instantly decided that she wanted this beautiful boy to belong to her. And he
would, of course—for as long as she wanted him. After all, there had never been
anything that
she
wanted that she didn't eventually get.
So she aimed her most dazzling smile at
the boy... and was miffed to see that he wasn't the least dazzled.
"Hello," he said.
"I'm Seth Lewis. I used to live in this house."
For real?
He
sounded so polite and distant it was like he was talking to some old lady who
asked him for help in crossing the street! But no problem, she could teach him
some enthusiasm.
"Hey there! I'm Jessica Anderson
and I live here now." She giggled. "So you stayed here before? Too
bad you didn't come with the house; it would've been
sooo
worth the
extra money!" Her eyes stroked over his body in overt appraisal.
His aloof gaze cooled even more. "The
house was the only thing for sale. I'm not."
Jessica flinched in chagrin.
Why couldn’t she
crack
this boy?!
"Oh no, that's
not what I meant! I just wanted to say... I meant..." She faltered,
subsiding into awkward silence.
He let her squirm for a few moments
longer, then finally broached the purpose of his visit. "I'm here because
I'm waiting for a letter and it'll come at this address. The sender doesn't
know about the house being sold," he explained. "Any letters for me—I
want to ask your family not to throw them away but just hand them to me
instead."
"Oh... oh, of course I'll give you
your letters! I'm happy to help you
any
way you want!" She smiled
invitingly.
Still, he remained impervious.
For real, still? Maybe he was gay.
"Okay then," he said, "thanks
for your help. Could you look if there's already a letter here for me?" A noticeable
thread of hope had entered his voice. "Honestly, it's a bit early yet, but
maybe you could still check. The sender's name is Summer Moore."
Not gay, then. Just that he
had some stupid girl already!
Jessica's expression froze for a
second, then relaxed again.
Actually... this could sooo be a good thing! Yeah...
I'll help you, sweetie—I'll help you forget this Summer biatch ever existed!
In a helpful tone, she said, "I'm
sorry, there've been no letters from Summer Moore yet. But be sure to stop by
again in a few days."
So that she could work on
him some more.
"Maybe something will come with the post soon."
His eyes flashed with disappointment, but
he rallied with an easy grin that made Jessica weak in the legs. "Thanks,
I will. See you soon."
After that he turned and left with quick
strides. Jessica watched him until he disappeared from view, willing him to
look back at her.
He never did.
Two days later, the first letter from
Summer Moore addressed to Seth Lewis was delivered at the Andersons' address.
Jessica, having expected this letter, managed to extract it from the mail box
almost before the postman had placed it there.
The next 364 letters, each one arriving
with religious regularity day after day, fell into her hands as well. She read
them, smirking at the increasingly confused then pained and finally desperate
tone of that cow Summer. Then she hid the letters at the back of her closet.
With the same religious regularity as
the arriving letters, Seth came by every couple of days in the afternoon or evening
to ask if Summer had written to him. Each time, Jessica assured him with a
sympathetic expression that, unfortunately, there had been no letters from his
friend.
Then she always tried to coax him inside
her house. He always refused.
With each passing day with no word from
Summer, Seth became more and more withdrawn. His Grams was dead, his Mom was a
conscienceless junkie who would sell her own son for profit, so his life with her
was sheer hell—and his Sunny had broken her promise to him. This latter fact he
just couldn't fathom.
At first he agonized endlessly over the
near-certainty that something bad had to have happened to her. She'd been in an
accident or become ill or someone had hurt her... He hadn't lived a sheltered
life, so he could easily imagine hundreds of horrifying reasons why Summer didn't
contact him. He couldn't sleep at night for imagining them.
He called social services incessantly
asking about her, but they wouldn't tell him anything. From Ms. Owens, after he
finally obtained her number, all he got was an unfeeling, "Well, I'm not Summer's
caseworker anymore, you know. So I wouldn't know where and how she is. Besides,
that kind of information is confidential. Really, stop calling!"
He didn't stop calling so Ms. Owens
stopped taking his calls. Still, he kept phoning her office every day. Finally,
about a month after Summer's departure, Ms. Owens—driven to the edge of
exasperation or maybe roused to a flicker of pity at last—talked to him again.
"Look, Seth, I inquired, and she's fine. She has a new foster family and
she's enrolled in a new school. Just be patient, you know, until she decides to
contact you herself. And
please
don't call my office anymore!"