Sam's Letters to Jennifer Read online

  Copyright © 2004 by James Patterson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  The Little, Brown and CompanyWarner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-1116-3

  First eBook Edition: June 2004

  Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Part Two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-one

  Fifty-two

  Fifty-three

  Fifty-four

  Fifty-five

  Fifty-six

  Fifty-seven

  Fifty-eight

  Fifty-nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-one

  Sixty-two

  Sixty-three

  Part Three

  Sixty-four

  Sixty-five

  Sixty-six

  Sixty-seven

  Sixty-eight

  Sixty-nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-one

  Seventy-two

  Seventy-three

  Seventy-four

  Seventy-five

  Seventy-six

  Seventy-seven

  Seventy-eight

  Seventy-nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-one

  Eighty-two

  Epilogue

  Eighty-three

  About the Author

  ALSO BY JAMES PATTERSON:

  The Thomas Berryman Number

  Season of the Machete

  See How They Run

  The Midnight Club

  Along Came a Spider

  Kiss the Girls

  Hide & Seek

  Jack & Jill

  Miracle on the 17th Green (with Peter de Jonge)

  Cat & Mouse

  When the Wind Blows

  Pop Goes the Weasel

  Black Friday

  Cradle and All

  Roses Are Red

  1st to Die

  Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

  Violets Are Blue

  2nd Chance (with Andrew Gross)

  The Beach House (with Peter de Jonge)

  Four Blind Mice

  The Jester (with Andrew Gross)

  The Lake House

  The Big Bad Wolf

  3rd Degree (with Andrew Gross)

  Special thanks to Florence Kelleher, who found out what little she didn’t already know about Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. And for Lynn Colomello. And most of all for Maxine Paetro, my friend and confidante, who helped to shape and maximize Letters from the beginning, almost to the end.

  PROLOGUE

  Just Like

  Always

  SAM AND I are sitting on a mostly deserted beach on Lake Michigan a little north of the Drake Hotel in Chicago. The Drake is filled with treasured memories for both of us, and we had dinner at our favorite table there earlier. I need to be with Sam tonight, because it’s one year since, well, everything happened that shouldn’t have happened—it’s one year since Danny died.

  “This is the spot where I met Danny, Sam. In May, six years ago,” I say.

  Sam is a good listener who holds eye contact beautifully and is almost always interested in what I have to say, even when I’m being a bore, like now. We’ve been best friends since I was two, maybe even before that. Just about everybody calls us “the cutest couple,” which is a little too saccharine for both of our tastes. But it happens to be true.

  “Sam, it was freezing that night Danny and I met, and I had a terrible cold. To make it worse, I had been locked out of our apartment by my old boyfriend Chris, that awful beast.”

  “That despicable brute, that creep,” Sam contributes. “I never liked Chris. Can you tell?”

  “So this nice guy, Danny, comes jogging by and he asks if I’m all right. I’m coughing and crying and a total mess. And I say, ‘Do I look like I’m all right? Mind your own blanking business. You’re not going to pick me up, if that’s what you’re thinking. Scram!’” I snorted a laugh Sam’s way.

  “That’s where I got my nickname, ‘Scram.’ Anyway, Danny came back on the second half of his run. He said he could hear me coughing for two miles down the beach. He brought me coffee, Sam. He ran up the beach with a hot cup of coffee for a complete stranger.”

  “Yes, but a beautiful stranger, you have to admit.”

  I stopped talking, and Sam hugged me and said, “You’ve been through so much. It’s awful and it’s unfair. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better for you.”

  I pulled out a folded, wrinkled envelope from the pocket of my jeans. “Danny left this for me. In Hawaii. One year ago today.”

  “Go ahead, Jennifer. Let it out. I want to hear everything tonight.”

  I opened the letter and began to read. I was already starting to choke up.

  Dear, wonderful, gorgeous Jennifer . . .

  You’re the writer, not me, but I had to try to put down some of my feelings about your incredible news. I always thought that you couldn’t possibly make me any happier, but I was wrong.

  Jen, I’m flying so high right now I can’t believe what I’m feeling. I am, without a doubt, the luckiest man in the world. I married the best woman, and now I’m going to have the best baby with her. How could I not be a pretty good dad, with all that going for me? I will be. I promise.

  I love you even more today than I did yesterday, and you wouldn’t believe how much I loved you yesterday.

  I love you, and our little “peanut.” . . . Danny.

  Tears started to roll down my cheeks. “I’m such a big baby,” I said. “I’m pathetic.”

  “No, you’re one of the strongest women I know. You’ve lost so much, and you’re still fighting.”

  “Yeah, but I’m losing the battle. I’m losing. I’m losing real bad, Sam.”

  Then Sam pulled me close and hugged me, and for the moment at least, it was all better—just like always.

  PART ONE

  The Letters

  One

  MY TWO-BEDROOM apartment was in a prewar building in
Wrigleyville. Danny and I had loved everything about it—the city views, proximity to the real Chicago, the way we’d furnished the place. I was spending more and more time there, “holed up,” my good friends said. They also said I was “married to my job,” “a basket case,” “a hopeless workaholic,” “the new spinster,” and “romantically challenged”—to name just a few of their more memorable jibes. All of them, unfortunately, were true, and I could have added some others to the list.

  I was trying not to think about what had happened, but it was hard. For several months after Danny’s death I kept having this terrible, obsessive thought: I can’t breathe without you, Danny.

  Even after a year and a half I had to force myself not to think of the accident, and everything that happened after it.

  I had finally begun to date—Teddy, a tall-drink-of-water editorial writer from the Trib; sportsaholic Mike, whom I met at a Cubs game; Corey, a blind date from the tenth circle of hell. I hated dating, but I needed to move on, right? I had a lot of good friends—couples, single women, a few guys who were just buddies. Really. Honest. I was doing okay, I told everybody, which was mostly crap, and my good friends knew it.

  My best friends in the world, Kylie and Danny Borislow, were there for me again and again; I loved Kylie and Danny and I owe them so much.

  So, anyhow, my deadline for that day’s incredible, awe-inspiring column in the Tribune was three hours away and I was in a jam. I’d already tossed three ideas into the recycle bin and was staring at a blank screen again. The really tricky thing about writing a “witty” newspaper column is that between Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and Dorothy Parker, everything worth saying has already been said, and said better than I could ever say it.

  So I pushed myself up from the sofa, put some Ella Fitzgerald on the Bose, and dialed up the air conditioner to high cool. I took a sip of coffee from my Uncommon Ground take-out cup. Found it sooo-ooo good. There is always hope in small things.

  Then I paced around the living room in my writer’s outfit du jour: one of Danny’s Michigan U. jogging suits and my lucky red writing socks. I was dragging on a Newport Light, the latest in a string of bad habits I’d picked up lately. Mike Royko once said that you’re only as good as your last column, and that’s the truth that dogs me. That and my anorexic twenty-nine-year-old editor, Debbie, a former London tabloid reporter who wears Versace everything and Prada everything else with her Morgenthal Frederics glasses.

  The point is, I really care about the column. I work hard to be original, make the words sing on occasion, and get the work in on time, without fail.

  So I hadn’t answered the phone that had been ringing on and off for hours. I had cursed at it a couple of times, though.

  It’s hard to be fresh three times a week, fifty weeks a year, but, of course, that’s the job the Trib pays me to do. And in my case, the job is also pretty much my life.

  Funny, then, how many readers write to say that my life is so glamorous, they’d like to swap places—wait, was that an idea?

  The sudden crash behind my head was Sox, my year-old mostly tabby cat, knocking The Devil in the White City down from a bookshelf. That startled Euphoria, who’d been snoozing on the very typewriter F. Scott Fitzgerald supposedly wrote Tender Is the Night on. Or something like that. Maybe Zelda wrote Save Me the Last Waltz on it?

  And when the phone rang again, I grabbed it.

  When I realized who was on the line, a shock ran through me. I called up an old picture of John Farley, a family friend from Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. The minister’s voice cracked when he said hello and I had the strange sensation that he was crying.

  “It’s Sam,” he said.

  Two

  I GRIPPED the phone receiver tightly with both hands. “What’s wrong?”

  I heard him suck in a breath before he spoke again. “Ah, there’s no good way to tell you this, Jennifer. Your grandmother has taken a fall,” he told me. “It’s not good.”

  “Oh, no!” I said, and sent my thoughts out to Lake Geneva, a resort community about an hour and a half north of Chicago. Lake Geneva was where I’d spent most of the summers of my childhood, some of the best times of my life.

  “She was all alone in the house, so no one knows for sure what happened,” he continued. “Just that she’s in a coma. Can you come up to the lake, Jennifer?”

  The news was a jolt. I’d just spoken to Sam two days before. We’d joked about my love life and she’d threatened to send me a box of anatomically approximate gingerbread men. Sam is a comedian, always has been.

  It took me all of five minutes to change my clothes and throw a few things into a duffel bag. It took me a little longer than that to catch and cage Euphoria and Sox for an unexpected journey.

  Then I was gunning the old Jag up Addison Street, heading toward I-94 North. The ’96 Jaguar Vanden Plas is a midnight blue sedan that was our pride and joy, Danny’s and mine. It’s a handsome thing with a quirky detail; the car has dual gas tanks.

  I was trying to think about everything but Sam. My grandmother was the only one I had left now, the only family.

  Sam was my best friend after my mother died when I was twelve. Her own marriage to Grandpa Charles made me and everyone else want whatever it was that they had. My grandfather wasn’t the easiest guy to get to know, but once you broke through to him, he was great. Danny and I had toasted and roasted them at their fiftieth-anniversary gala at the Drake. Two hundred friends stood to applaud when my seventy-one-year-old grandfather dipped Sam low and kissed her passionately on the dance floor.

  When Grandpa Charles retired from his legal practice, he and Sam stayed at Lake Geneva more than in Chicago. After a while, they didn’t get so many visitors. Even fewer came after my grandfather died four years ago and she moved to the lake full-time. When that happened, people said that Sam would die soon, too.

  But she didn’t. She’d been doing fine—until now.

  At about 8:15 I got on Route 50 West and took it to 12, a local two-laner that skirts Lake Geneva—the BPOE, “best place on earth.” After three miles, I turned off 12 onto Route NN. Lakeland Medical Center was just a couple of minutes away and I tried to prepare myself.

  “We’re close, Sam,” I whispered.

  Three

  REALLY BAD THINGS happen in threes, I was thinking as I arrived at the Lakeland Medical Center. Then I tried to banish the thought from my mind. Don’t go there, Jennifer.

  I got out of the car and started uphill to the main entrance. I remembered that many years before, I had been there to have a fishing hook removed from just above my eyebrow. I was seven at the time, and it was Sam who brought me.

  Once I was inside, I tried to get my bearings, taking in the horseshoe-shaped ICU with patients’ rooms on three sides. The head nurse, a thin, fortyish woman with pink-framed glasses, pointed out my grandmother’s room. “We’re so glad you’re here,” she said. “I enjoy your column, by the way. We all do.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and smiled. “You’re very kind. That’s nice to hear.”

  I walked quickly down the corridor to Sam’s room. I slid the door open and entered. “Oh, Sam,” I whispered the second I saw her. “What happened to you?”

  It was so awful to see the tubes in her arms and the banks of beeping medical equipment. But at least Sam was alive. Though she looked diminished and gray, and as fragile as a dream.

  “It’s Jennifer,” I whispered. “I’m here now. I’m right here.” I took her hand in mine. “I know you can hear me. I’ll do the talking for now. I’m going to keep talking until you open your eyes.”

  After a few minutes, I heard the door slide open behind me. I turned to see the Reverend John Farley. His thick white hair was askew, his smile tremulous. He was still a handsome man, though stooped now. “Hello, Jennifer,” he whispered, and welcomed me with a warm hug.

  We walked out into the hallway and suddenly I was remembering how close he had been to my grandparents.

  “It’s so good
to see you. What have you heard about Sam?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Well, she hasn’t opened her eyes, and that’s not a good sign, Jennifer. I’m sure Dr. Weisberg will have more to tell you tomorrow. I’ve been here most of the day, ever since I heard.”

  Then he handed me a key. “This is for you. Your grandmother’s house.”

  He hugged me again, whispering that he had to get some sleep before he wound up there as a patient. Then he left and I slipped back into Sam’s room. I still couldn’t believe this had happened.

  She had always been so strong, almost never sick, always the one who took care of everybody else—especially me. I sat for a long while just listening to her breathe, looking at her beautiful face, remembering all the times I’d come to Lake Geneva. Sam had always reminded me a little of Katharine Hepburn, and we’d seen all her movies together, though she vehemently denied there was any resemblance.

  I felt so scared. How could I lose Sam now? It seemed as if I had just lost Danny. Tears began to stream down my cheeks again. “Shit,” I whispered under my breath.

  I waited until I got back some control and then I moved close to her. I kissed both of her cheeks and stared at her face. I kept expecting Sam’s eyes to open, for her to speak. But she didn’t. Oh, why was this happening?

  “I’m going back to the house. Pancakes for breakfast,” I whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning. You hear me? I’ll see you in the morning. First thing, bright and early.”

  One of my tears fell onto Sam’s cheek, but it just trickled down her face.

  “Good night, Sam,” I said.

  Four

  I HAVE LITTLE or no memory of the drive from Lakeland Medical to Knollwood Road on Lake Geneva. I was just suddenly there at my grandmother’s house, and it felt incredibly familiar and safe.

  A century of parked cars had worn away the grass under an ancient oak in the side yard, and that’s where I brought the Jag to a stop. I shut off the ignition and just sat for a minute or two, hoping to gather myself before I went inside.

  To my left, the lawn flowed downhill to the shoreline. I could see the long white dock jutting out onto the moonlit and glassy surface of Lake Geneva. The water was a mirror for the star-pricked sky.