Chapter 3
It was the beginning of spring in the sixth year since Summer had joined the Lewis household. Seth was thirteen years old, Summer eleven. It was a cold day in March, the frost having returned overnight.
Summer had spent the last week battling a nasty case of the flu. And even though she had been feeling better the last couple of days and was heartily sick of being cooped up indoors, Seth wouldn't even hear of her going for a walk outside. Allegedly, he didn't want her to turn into an icicle and have to deal with a return of her flu.
Still, if she had to spend another afternoon under house arrest, keeping warm, at least her best friend (and current jailer) was sharing her imprisonment. (Although, most annoyingly, he didn't seem the slightest put out because of it.)
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. Suddenly they 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 crouched down to check 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. 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," he said, "so you'll have to call and tell me immediately when you find out." He was holding her shoulders in a possessive grip and looking into her water-logged eyes with a burning gaze. He took her left hand and 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 been liable to go 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. Before she could try to call again, a disgruntled nurse came looking for her.
By 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; she had 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 and announced that the line had been disconnected. And this time, hearing that recorded message finally became too much.
The dams that had kept her grief at bay during the past week burst over her in a torrent. She was drowned in tears, her diminutive frame wracked 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 had 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 she contacted 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. Seth was forced to move 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 had chosen 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 had 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'd 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."
This time he stopped calling.
Then he waited and waited for his Sunny, and the more he waited in vain, the more remote he grew. His heart, that Summer had awakened, was gradually engulfed by the cold spreading inside him once again. Finally it was no more than a block of ice.
* * *
A week after the one-year anniversary of Summer's departure, on a Friday evening at the beginning of March, fourteen-year-old Seth stopped by the Anderson residence. Jessica, who was waiting for him, opened the door right away, gave him her wide smile, then let her expression turn sad.
"I'm sorry, Seth. There's been no letter," she told him softly.
His face turned to stone, then he spun around without a word and left. He never came back again.
That entire year, his friends had been inviting him to parties, wheedling and taunting him to go, but he'd always declined. Without Summer in his life, without having once heard from her, he had been in no mood to party.
But that evening after leaving Jessica, for the first time Seth didn't refuse his friends.
He went to his first party and got drunk on cheap booze. Though mostly numbed by the alcohol in his system, he noticed with a weird detachment that the pain inside him hadn't been numbed at all. So he drank some more and fucked a girl for the first time. When he was done with the girl, he realized he didn't even remember her name.
The pain was still there, shredding and throbbing, and he concluded resignedly that it probably always would be. But he would bury it deep, along with his memories of her.
It was time to say goodbye to his Sunny.
Forever.
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