Sam's Letters to Jennifer Read online

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked.

  I smiled and felt open to just about anything. “I’ve been ready for years.”

  He used a penlight to find a lever that actually lifted the floor until it sat still about five feet below the eyepiece of the telescope. Then he operated the cranks and winches that opened the dome revealing a wide swath of sky.

  “Look at that, Samantha. Just look at it. It’s heaven.”

  “Oh my God” was all I could manage to say at that moment, because I was spellbound.

  Doc stood close behind me with his hands on my shoulders as we peered through the world’s largest refracting lens. It did seem as if we were looking at heaven. The sky was bedazzling, to say the least. I didn’t know what to gaze at first, but my eye was drawn to a dappled red globe the size of a silver dollar.

  “That’s Mars,” said Doc.

  Doc told me that Mars and Earth were in opposition that night, lined up in their orbits so that Earth was between Mars and the sun. He pointed out polar ice caps, dark smudges called limb haze, and what might have been a dust storm blowing across the face of the planet under its misty pink sky.

  “The last time Mars was this close to Earth, cavemen were freezing their buns off in New Guinea, hoping someone would discover fire,” he said.

  Next Doc spread the blanket on the hardwood floor and led me to it. We sat down, shoulder to shoulder. I knew something good was coming, but I had no idea what it could be. “What?” I whispered.

  “I’ve been waiting for just the right moment,” he said. “You did say that you liked surprises, Samantha.”

  Seventy-six

  “Samantha, I am such a lucky person,” Doc said in the softest voice. “I found you a little late, but I love you more than anything else on this earth, and here you are in my arms. You are absolutely my best friend, my soul mate, my confidante, my sweet, sweet love. I don’t like it at all when you’re not around. I still can’t believe that I found you, or you found me, at that awful Red Cross dinner dance. I really can’t, Samantha—and now here we are.”

  I still didn’t know where this was going, but my heart was starting to beat uncontrollably. Ever since I had known him, Doc had always told me, quite beautifully sometimes, how he felt about me, but that night was even more special, more passionate, more touching, and sweeter—which, in my opinion, is a good thing. He showed me a small box, and I shone the penlight onto it.

  “Open it,” he said.

  I did, and my eyes widened immediately. Inside was a sapphire ring surrounded by small, gorgeous diamonds. It took my breath away, and not for the reason you think. Years before—once—I had pointed out this very piece in Tiffany’s in Chicago. I had loved it then, but now it brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t believe Doc had remembered and was giving it to me.

  He slid it onto my finger, then said, “I love you dearly, more than anything. . . . Will you marry me, Samantha?”

  My eyes were so wide with wonder, Jennifer. Doc’s face was framed by the sky and the stars above. I put my arms around him and held tight. I honestly had never expected this, never dared to think it could happen.

  I could barely speak. “I love you more than anything, too. I’m so lucky I found you. Of course I’ll marry you. I’d be a fool not to.”

  And then I said Doc’s real name, over and over again, as the stars looked down on the two of us, and everything seemed pretty darn good with the universe.

  Seventy-seven

  I HAD FALLEN asleep after reading Sam’s last amazing letter. But, boy, did I have questions to ask her when I got back to Lake Geneva. Or maybe even when I called her again from the hotel. Why hadn’t she married Doc? What had happened to them?

  I awoke to someone gently shaking my arm, calling my name. Morning light filtered through the plate-glass window of the waiting room. Adam Kolski hovered over me.

  “Good morning, Jennifer. We could have gotten a more comfortable place for you to sleep,” he said.

  “Is everything all right with Brendan?” I asked immediately.

  “He slept through the night, just like you. No promises, but he can move his toes,” the doctor said. “He knows his name, and he knows yours. Actually, he’s asking for you.”

  That perked me right up. “Can I see him?”

  “Of course. That’s why I came to get you. I want you to talk to Brendan. I need to find out if he really knows you. Come with me.”

  Kolski, the goddddd himself, opened the sliding doors to Brendan’s small room in the ICU. “Just five minutes,” he said.

  I could see Brendan behind Dr. Kolski as I eased myself into the room. There was a rolled-up washcloth in his right hand. I took it away and slipped my hand inside his.

  “It’s Jennifer,” I whispered. “Ready for our morning swim in the lake?”

  There wasn’t any response from Brendan, which didn’t surprise me but also didn’t make me feel reassured about his condition. I had no idea how much damage had been done during the operation.

  “I’m here. I just wanted you to know. And you’re here, too.”

  I was babbling a little but I didn’t care, and I doubted that it would make much difference to Brendan. If he could even recognize my voice.

  Then, as I stood by his bed, a miracle happened, or so it seemed to me. Brendan squeezed my hand, the slightest pressure, but it sent shivers through my body. I lowered my head. “I’m right here, Brendan. Don’t try to talk. I’ll talk for both of us. I’m here, sweetheart.”

  “Are you real?”

  My head shot up and I looked at Brendan again. My God, he had talked.

  “I’m here,” I said, my voice cracking with unbelievable emotion. Brendan had talked. “Can you feel my hand? That’s me squeezing.”

  “I can’t see you,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  “That’s because your eyes are swollen shut.”

  He was silent for a long moment, and I thought maybe he’d fallen back asleep.

  “I didn’t think . . . I’d make it,” Brendan said at last.

  I could see he was trying hard not to cry, but then tears leaked out of his tightly closed eyes. “We’re going to be okay,” he said.

  Suddenly I was seized with such an overpowering feeling of humility, but also love for this man. Brendan was reassuring me. He was there for me, even now, after his terrible operation. His voice was kind of faraway, but it was Brendan, definitely my boy. And he wanted to talk. “I was thinking . . . you sitting on the dock . . . shielding sun from your eyes . . . looking at me . . . I held that thought.”

  I looked at Brendan’s face, loving him so much. And then another miracle happened. His eyes opened to slits. And he struggled to make a cracked, semidrugged smile.

  It was only the best smile I’d ever seen in my life.

  “I love you so much,” I whispered. “Oh my God, do l love you.”

  “Don’t fight me on this . . . I love you more.”

  And at that moment I understood something that had seemed impossible—Brendan was going to live.

  Seventy-eight

  DURING THE NEXT few weeks everything in life seemed incredibly precious and had more meaning for me. Suddenly I was a regular at the Mayo Clinic and Lakeland Medical Center in Lake Geneva. All I was missing was a candy striper’s outfit.

  Brendan’s recuperation was slow and excruciating, but he kept getting a little stronger every day, week after week. He was a favorite with his therapist, partly because he wore a different goofy hat every day, partly because he went three weeks without letting them know he was a high and mighty doctor, but mostly because he has such endearing ways.

  And then one rainy morning in October, we were summoned to Adam Kolski’s office in the St. Marys building. The godddd showed us some X-rays, then abruptly told Brendan that he could go home. He was in remission.

  “You can go home, too, Jennifer,” Kolski said, and offered a rare smile.

  The next day Brendan and I set sail for Lake Geneva.
On the way to Wisconsin, I was jumpy with excitement and maybe even a little case of the nerves. We were going to see Sam. She was back at her house, and there was something else. When I called and told her the news about Brendan, Sam said she wanted us to meet Doc.

  Early October was a time of year I had never loved, because the sun drops below the horizon a little earlier every afternoon. But I was happy to see this particular October. I had so much to be thankful for. Brendan and Sam, and now I would get to meet Doc.

  And then there was Sam’s house—straight ahead. I could see Henry’s old pickup parked by the garden. Hmmm.

  Brendan climbed out of the Jaguar and took a deep breath of lake air. I called out in a loud voice, “Sam! We’re here. You have company.”

  Then Brendan let loose with one of his whoops—not quite the usual volume but noisy enough to scare some bluebirds from overhanging tree branches.

  “Race you to the lake?” he said, and grinned. I knew he was still a little weak, but he looked good and his famous smile was working just fine.

  When Sam didn’t answer, I slipped into the dark of the house to look for her. I called her name in every room I came to, my voice rising as my footsteps rang out on the hardwood floors. Fear came over me a little too quickly those days. Too many bad things had happened, or maybe it was that lately things had been going too well.

  “Jen,” I heard Brendan call from the porch. “She’s out here. Sam’s down by the lake.”

  Heart booming, with an almost girlish delight, I rattled down the stairs again, then burst out the back of the house. I saw that Sam had set up chairs under the shade tree—and she wasn’t alone.

  A man sat beside her in the shadows. He was wearing a golden ball cap with a V, probably Vanderbilt, which made all the sense in the world suddenly.

  “Doc,” I said under my breath. “I should have known.”

  Seventy-nine

  I HURRIED down the sloping lawn as fast as I could go, right into Sam’s outstretched arms. It felt so right to be there again. A moment later Sam moved over to Brendan and gave him a long hug. It was as if they’d been best friends for life.

  Then she turned toward the man of her dreams. “I’d like you to meet Doc,” she said to me. And to Brendan, “This is John Farley. He is a doctor, actually. In philosophy, from the Vanderbilt School of Divinity. Everything is coming together beautifully, Jennifer. Life does that sometimes.”

  My God, the Reverend John Farley was Doc, and he and Sam were such a handsome couple. I loved seeing them together like that. It just made my heart sing.

  The four of us settled in under the shifting shade of an old maple tree. I said, “Wow,” and my mouth kept stretching into grins as I watched Sam and Doc—John—exchange touches and glances.

  I hugged Brendan, and he whispered in my ear, “I agree—wow.”

  Everything was coming together pretty well, I had to admit. A while later the four of us were cluttering up Sam’s kitchen. Doc peeled potatoes in maddeningly thin, unbroken curls. Brendan alternated between shelling peas and eating them. I was getting flour all over everything.

  Until Sam finally said, “Everyone out of my kitchen. Leave the cooking to the professionals!” We laughed and moved the party out to the dining room. Forty minutes later we helped Sam put the meal on the table. Roast beef, sweet potatoes, onions and peas, homemade biscuits.

  Over dinner I asked John Farley a question that I had been saving up. “You asked Samantha to marry you. Sam, you said you’d be a fool not to.” I looked from Sam’s face to his. “So what happened?”

  Sam looked at Doc. “Well, I talked her into it; then I talked her out of it,” he said.

  Sam laughed. “He just raised some good questions and issues. Like the fact of life that some busybodies around town would have questions, and opinions, and judgments. They’d make jokes about the two of us being The Thorn Birds. I didn’t think I’d like that so much. We were too used to our privacy. It also might be hurtful to John’s congregation. Then he had a really good idea.”

  He tilted his head at Sam. “I said, what if we didn’t tell anyone? What if we keep our love between the two of us? We talked about it, and that’s what we decided to do. Everything about us had always been different anyway.”

  Sam reached over and took John’s hand in hers. “Doc and I were married on a Sunday in August two years ago, in Copper Harbor, Michigan. No one knows that, except the two of you.”

  We clinked glasses around the table. “To Samantha and Doc!” Brendan and I said.

  “To Brendan and Jennifer!” they said.

  Sam gave me another big hug, and so did Doc. They both hugged Brendan. Then we sat around exchanging stories for the next couple of hours. We watched darkness come over the lake, and Doc told us about the stars, and I doubt that Stephen Hawking could have done a better job. I was so happy, and I remember every moment of that night in Lake Geneva. I always will.

  Because less than three weeks later, something really terrible happened.

  Eighty

  IN SAM’S WORDS, life works like that sometimes.

  Early in November I sat on the old blue velvet sofa in Sam’s living room. Brendan held one of my hands, and Doc held the other. “It will be all right,” Doc whispered, touching his chest with a shaking hand. “She’s safe inside us. Sam is at peace.”

  Every minute or so, an umbrella would tip-tap the porch floorboards, then the front door would whine open and another of Sam’s friends would blow in on a damp gust of wind. Soon the house was filled with people from Lake Geneva and Chicago and even Copper Harbor, all looking uncomfortable to find themselves there on that unthinkable occasion.

  As I looked around, I could see intimations of Sam everywhere.

  In my cousin Bobby’s baby blue eyes, in the clusters of family photos on the walls, on my aunt Val’s tear-streaked face as she stared out the picture window to the broken surface of a rain-swept lake. It was so sad, and almost unbelievable that the person who had drawn so many people together in life wasn’t there with us.

  Finally Doc leaned in close. “If you’re ready, I think we should start. Samantha wouldn’t want to keep everybody waiting. We shouldn’t, either.”

  As Doc began to speak about his Samantha—though still not revealing their incredible secret—I pressed the side of my face into Brendan’s shoulder. Doc was so brave up there, so eloquent, and more touching than anyone else in the room knew. Meanwhile, the deaths of other people I’d loved flashed through my mind: Grandpa Charles, my mother, Danny. Brendan gently held me, and I listened to Doc and then Sam’s other friends, each telling a cherished story or remembrance.

  Then there was a lull, and Brendan finally whispered, “Go ahead, Jen. It’s your turn.”

  Eighty-one

  I DON’T LIKE public speaking or being the center of attention, but I felt that I had to get up and talk. This was my grandmother, my Sam. I experienced the light-headedness that comes just before you faint as I walked to the front of the room.

  I stood with my back to the lake, a favorite black-and-white photograph of Sam to my right. I looked out at all the sad yet expectant eyes of my grandmother’s friends. Brendan smiled encouragement. Doc winked, and a calm finally came over me.

  This is what I said:

  “Please bear with me. I’m not good at this, but there are things I have to say. When I was growing up, I spent my precious summer vacations in this house with Grandma Sam.”

  I started to choke up the first time I said her name. Then I didn’t care if I was crying, and I surged forward.

  “The two of us were best friends right from the start. We just clicked, had chemistry, shared a worldview, laughed and cried at the same things. I loved her more than anyone, and I admired her so much.

  “I always told her my most private thoughts when we were in bed: Sam sitting beside me, her hand over mine in the dark. Some kids are afraid of the dark, but I loved it, at least when I was with Sam.

  “It feels a l
ittle like that, now. I can’t see Sam, but I know she’s here.

  “Not too long ago, I had retreated from life because, well, I think I couldn’t stand the pain of living fully. It was Sam who gently coaxed me out of my shell and removed my veil of sadness. It was Sam who showed me the way to find love again. Sam led me to Brendan, whom I love dearly.

  “But there is a secret that I never got to share with Sam, so I’ll tell her now. Sam, dear—Samantha—I have something wonderful to tell you. Brendan and I are going to have a baby. Your first great-grandchild.”

  Then I did start crying, but I knew I was smiling, too. I looked right at Doc, and he was beaming. So was Brendan.

  “Can’t you all just see Sam’s face? The way it lights up, the way Sam listens, as if you’re the most important person in the world?

  “Right now, I almost can’t believe that she will never see our baby, that she won’t find a way somehow.

  “But I also wonder if he or she will have Sam’s beautiful curls. Or those sparkling blue eyes, or her amazing ability to love so many people, to have such great friends. But this is for sure. Our child will know all about his or her great-grandmother, what an incredible person she was. I have all of Sam’s stories to tell. I know exactly who my grandmother was, and that’s such a treasure.

  “And boy or girl, no matter what, our baby’s name will be Sam.”

  Eighty-two

  SAM’S FRIENDS and the family told stories about her for hours that afternoon; some close friends, and some not so close, stayed late into the night, and every story seemed a little better than the one before. Of course, I had more stories than anyone else. I had Sam’s letters. I just couldn’t tell anybody too much of what I knew. That was a secret among Doc, Brendan, and me.

  Brendan’s uncle came up to me before he left for the night. Shep leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I wanted to wait until it quieted down some,” he said. “You did so great today, Jennifer. I loved what you said about your grandmother. Sam wanted you to have this. I’ve been keeping it for you at the law office.”