Page 54 of Stony Point Summer
“You know it. Wheedled the guy down some. Thought you and I could tinker with it together. Restore it on your breaks, maybe?”
“Can’twait. Shit, I don’t even want to go back to campus now. The hell with college.”
“Nice try, son. But you’re going.”
“I’d rather get started on the car.”
“In good time. That nifty Nova’s safe at home, parked in the garage.”
“Sweet.” Denny shakes his head in disbelief. His smile, though, is wide and contagious. It lights up his whole face. “Can’twaitto check it out. We’ll get some inspiration at the car show tomorrow.”
“Absolutely.” When Cliff extends his hand to his son, Denny puts the photo in his sweatshirt pocket, then leans over and clasps his father’s hand with both of his. “Happy birthday, son,” Cliff tells him.
“You’re the best, Dad.”
Meanwhile, the moon rises over the dark shadows of trees around them. Cliff eventually gets up and grabs a box of graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows and some chocolate bars from their picnic table. He sets them on a folding camping table beside their fire.
“Can’t help but think of your mother on this day, Denny. The day you were born. She’d have loved sitting out here in the wilderness like this, around a campfire. Hearing the crickets. Seeing a deer in the moonlight across the lake.”
Denny’s looking only into the flickering campfire. “Funny, but I miss her sometimes, you know? Even though I never even met her.”
“Oh, but you did.” Cliff sits at the picnic table now. “You met her when she was lying in her hospital bed. It was a little while after you were born, and the nurses brought you in to her. Oh, she held you so close. Just for a few minutes, but by golly, she did. She found the strength. Couldn’t take her eyes off of you. Touched your head. Your hands. Kissed you with a teary smile.” Cliff looks out into the dark night. “You have her smile, Denny. She gave you that. And she held you that one time, before she passed from those complications the next day.”
“It’s a crying shame, is what it is,” Denny quietly says. “A crying shame.”
Cliff looks up at the night sky and gives a slight nod in the darkness. He slaps the picnic table and stands quickly then. “Well!” he says. “It’s your birthday, and Mom would want us celebrating. So how about a s’more for your birthday cake?”
“That’d be awesome.”
Cliff nods and hands Denny a long stick for roasting marshmallows.
He does something else, too. Walking past his son, with the campfire burning and stars shining far above the tall pine trees, Cliff pauses beside him. At that nearby campsite, someone still strums a guitar; burgers are smoking on a distant grill; glimmering sky-lanterns float up to the stars.
Cliff pats Denny’s shoulder before sitting in his sling-chair again and raising his beer can in a toast. “Here’s to you, Denny.” He touches his can to his son’s. “Here’s to you.”
nineteen
— Now —
ONE THING WAKES MARIS UP early Friday morning. A thought.
It’s the same thought that’s woken her up ever since her picnic date with Jason three days ago.
It gets her out of bed today, restless, before sunup. She showers, eats breakfast and gets dressed—all with that one thought bothering her.
Could she go back and take another look?It might help her better understand Jason, and where he’s coming from this summer.
Standing in front of her dresser mirror now, she half-tucks a white sleeveless button-down into her faded denim skirt. Her fingers straighten the skirt’s frayed edging, too. Leaning close to the mirror then, she puts on dangling sea-glass earrings.
If she’s going to do this, it has to be right now. Right as the sun rises. No one will be out at the crack of dawn. No one will see her. So she slips into her flip-flops and walks across the bedroom to Jason’s dresser. Somewhere in that top drawer he keeps a stash of old keys—keys to open God only knows what. She really hopes the onesheneeds is on that crammed key ring.
After grabbing the jangling keys and a flashlight from the kitchen, she hurries out the slider door to the deck. The eastern horizon is just lightening as the sun nudges the day awake. Glancing at the still dusky sky, Maris decides to take her golf cart instead of walking. It’s quicker. And this way, there’ll be enough unnoticed time to do what she has to do.
* * *
Dawn’s light is still pale when she pulls up to Jason’s secret run-down shanty. When Maris looks at the desolate cottage, her breath catches. Because the first time she’d seen this place, it was night. The sun had set. It was dark out.
Now the sun rises. And beneath the early light of day, the contrast between lightness and the dreary structure is startling. More wood than paint shows on the faded clapboard siding. The top pane of a murky porch window is shattered. Weeds and tree seedlings sprout from clogged gutters.
