Sam's Letters to Jennifer Read online

  “I get it,” he said, and smiled. “Buzz off.”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” I said. “It’s just, well, buzz off.” Which got a laugh out of him.

  We said good-bye in the parking area of Sam’s yard, and I immediately went for a twenty-minute run through the twisty streets around Knollwood. I still weigh the same 130 pounds I did in college and I wanted to keep it that way, even though Brendan said I was too thin.

  I thought a little about him as I ran. He was pretty funny. And definitely smart. He also listened when I talked, and most men don’t. But there had to be secrets, issues, baggage. What was he really doing there at the lake? Still recovering from his divorce? The truth was that he was too good-looking and charming and nice to be up there by himself.

  When I got back to the house, I stood under the showerhead, letting the hot water beat down on my overactive mind. Then I dressed in shorts and a tank top, made iced tea, and took a few of Sam’s letters out to the back porch.

  I sat cross-legged on the floorboards, and as sunshine pinned me to the spot, I opened another envelope that had my name neatly inscribed on it.

  Twenty-five

  Dear Jen,

  When you were a little girl, and so adorably cute and sweet that you could give me a toothache, you used to cry so hard when the summer was over. Every summer. Until I hit upon a plan to make it all better for you.

  On the last day of summer, I would give you a big Hellmann’s mayonnaise jar and send you down to the shore to “bring the beach home” with you to Madison.

  I knew you’d remember and treasure those smooth, fist-size gray-and-black stones you found when walking barefoot in the shallows. And the pale rounded pebbles that had washed up to the shoreline. And, of course, there was the sand and the cold, clear water of Lake Geneva. It was fascinating to watch you try to fit your whole summer into a mayo jar.

  It took several tries over one long morning in late August—“Grandma Sam, is it full yet?”—but you finally figured out that the way to fit in the best of your haul was to put the big rocks into the jar first. After that, the pebbles and snail shells would sift down into the spaces between the rocks.

  When the jar looked filled to the brim, you could still get in a few lids of sand.

  And finally, when there didn’t seem to be room for another thing, you dunked your jar in the lake and topped off your “beach” with water. Smart girl!

  And I told you, Jenny, that living life was like putting the beach into a jar. The point wasn’t to fit everything in; it was to attend to the most important things first—the big, beautiful rocks—the most valuable people and experiences—and fit the lesser things in around them.

  Otherwise, the best things might get left out.

  I’ve been thinking about big rocks and how much my priorities have changed over the years. What used to be most important to me was pleasing other people; your grandfather and my mother-in-law, to name two. Going to dinner parties and having a house clean enough to stand up to a Sir Charles military inspection, to name two more.

  Now that I please myself, my priorities are better. The people I love. My health. Getting the most I can out of every day. The actor Danny Kaye used to say, “Life is a great big canvas. Throw all the paint you can at it.” I like that thought. More important, I try to live by it as much as I can.

  I get up really early most mornings so I can watch the sun rise. I put flower buds in a lot of little bottles around the house so I can see the blossoms open everywhere. I feed whole peanuts to the blue jays because they love having their food gift-wrapped, and I never tire of watching them try to fit more than one peanut into their bills at a time. I read good, hard books, and if I can’t sleep, I might throw a few logs onto the fire and watch Law and Order reruns.

  And here’s something I love to do. Once a month I make a huge bowl of pasta and red sauce and invite my friends who live alone to a potluck supper. They like the company over a home-cooked meal. We laugh hard and often, and they don’t gossip about me too much in the car on the way home!

  And in case you’re wondering, Doc always comes to the potluck supper. The others just don’t know that he’s Doc.

  Twenty-six

  Dear Jen,

  Here’s a good laugh for us to share.

  I’ve just come back from an afternoon in town and realized that the hem of my skirt was caught up in the waistband of my panty hose for the whole trip. I’d been to the grocery store, the hardware store, Daddy Maxwell’s—with my tail feathers blowing in the breeze the whole day. No one said a word. What a hoot! So here’s a thought that I like very much, Jen, and it took me a while to get it right. If you’re going to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.

  Things are almost never as bad as they first seem. Loosen up, girlfriend! You’re very funny in your columns in the Chicago Tribune. But it seems to me that you could giggle a little more in real life. I read somewhere that the act of laughing releases some nice chemical into your brain. You feel good, and it’s free!

  Twenty-seven

  I LAUGHED at Sam’s letter, and then I wasn’t laughing. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I missed her so much, I almost couldn’t stand it. Visiting her twice a day at the hospital wasn’t enough. Reading her letters made me want to hear the sound of her voice, even if it was just one more time. I needed to talk to Sam about some things.

  Like, who was Doc? Did I know him? Was he still alive, and if he was, wouldn’t he be visiting Sam at the hospital? Had I seen him there?

  I remembered trying to stuff Lake Geneva into a mayo jar when I was five or so. But that Sam not only remembered but found it so meaningful had cracked me up, and choked me up, too.

  I walked down to the lake and toed up a beautiful black stone with a few rough edges. I brought it back and put it on the growing pile of Sam’s mail on the coffee table.

  Right next to my laptop, which was humming softly, waiting for me to start writing.

  You have a day job, Jennifer.

  The first thing I did was to dump the column I’d started that morning. I had a new idea, but for a long while I didn’t know where to start.

  Finally I wrote:

  The last time I saw my Grandma Sam at her house on Lake Geneva, we were saying good-bye at the end of a beautiful Labor Day weekend.

  Sam looked healthy and happy, but as she hugged me, I got the feeling that something was on her mind and maybe she didn’t know how to tell me. The moment passed, and I didn’t ask her about it.

  I got into the car and honked a little salute as I reached the end of her driveway. How could I have known that the next time I’d see my grandmother, she would be in a coma and that maybe she would never be able to talk to me again.

  As I chiseled my column, the day disappeared into night. At one in the morning, I was still writing and rewriting about how lucky I was that Sam had put her thoughts down for me to read. How many of my readers were so lucky? How many of us know the true stories of our parents and grandparents? How many of us share the stories of our lives with our own children? What a loss to the children if we don’t. What are we but our stories?

  Writing the column was like unraveling a sweater. I tugged on a thought and the words came free in a smooth, untangled line. I completely overshot the 750-word limit on my first draft and had to cut and rewrite and cut again.

  When the piece was as good as I could make it, I ended it by inviting my readers to tell me stories about their loved ones. I was already anticipating the mail I’d get, the stories I’d be privileged to read, the family secrets that would be shared with me.

  At 2:00 in the morning, just before I went blind from staring into the computer screen, I pressed the SEND button. A microsecond later, my story was in Debbie’s electronic mailbox at the Trib.

  Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow. I wasn’t sad, not at all. It was just so beautiful to have an intense feeling and the right words at the same time.


  What are we but our stories?

  Twenty-eight

  I WOKE UP excited and kind of happy. My column was written—it was about as good as I could do—and I had the day off. Yippee!

  My blue swimsuit was still inside the duffel bag, where I’d packed it back in Chicago. I put on the one-piece with the scooped neckline and quickly did a few chores. Then I did something completely unexpected. I went looking for Brendan.

  His uncle’s house was sparkling in the morning sun, the light glinting off all that glass. Behind the house, the lake was calm and glistening.

  I knocked on the kitchen door, but there was no answer. I finally cupped my hands and peered between them through the window.

  I felt a little disappointed, I guess, because Brendan wasn’t around, and I wanted to play.

  Then I saw him through the living-room window, and when I looked more closely, I was floored. Brendan was on his knees in the middle of the rug, his hands folded in front of him.

  He was praying.

  Twenty-nine

  TOTALLY EMBARRASSED, I turned away and walked off the porch and across the lawn unnoticed. Suddenly the kitchen door whined open and slammed closed behind me. I looked around to see Brendan coming toward me. Oh no. Busted.

  “Hey, Jen. I thought I heard somebody knock. You up for a swim?” he called.

  “Umm, sure,” I said.

  He flashed me a grin—a beauty, nothing self-conscious about it. Then he yelled a goofy challenge about rotten eggs and sprinted toward the lake.

  So I did the most instinctive thing—I took off behind him. I raced down the lawn and then thirty feet of white-painted dock, and when I got to the end of it, I cannonballed into the water. Just do it, right?

  I smacked bottom first into the lake, came back up, and started stroking behind Brendan, who was headed toward a channel marker about fifty or sixty yards out. I raced to win. But Brendan was a very good swimmer, and to his credit, he beat my pants off.

  He grinned. “So who’s a rotten egg, you rotten egg!”

  The two of us hung on to the buoy bobbing in the wake of a particularly noisy motorboat zipping around the lake. I squinted through wet eyelashes at Brendan. I’m a pretty good swimmer, but the recent smoking hadn’t helped my time, and Brendan’s freestyle was awesome.

  “You could have let me win,” I said. “Or get a little closer.”

  He shrugged. “Winning is overrated in this country. It was a great swim, though.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said. “And mornings at the lake are underrated.” The temperature of the water was just about perfect, and the sun was warm on my face and shoulders.

  “I’m starting to really remember you now, Scout. You were stuck-up and totally impressed with yourself.”

  No kidding? I must’ve had him fooled back in the day. “Still am,” I told him, splashing water in his face. “Hey,” I said, grinning up into his eyes. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

  Brendan looked momentarily confused. “For another column?”

  Thirty

  “DO YOU WANT to go sailing?” I asked.

  “You? Sailing? Aren’t you swamped with work?”

  “Actually, I just wrote one of my better pieces in a while.”

  “Champagne!” Brendan cried.

  “One step at a time.”

  Now here’s what I was beginning to discover about Brendan. He’d grown up to be a really nice person—interesting, fun, and not self-involved, as far as I could tell. Not only did he encourage me to talk about Sam as much as I needed to, he was thoughtful in other ways. For instance, he made the sandwiches for our impromptu outing and brought me a long-billed cap to wear so that I wouldn’t get burned. Pretty sweet, actually.

  Right off, I could tell that the years Brendan had spent landlocked in Indiana hadn’t compromised his skill as a sailor. He rigged his uncle’s scow in ten minutes flat and got the boat away from the dock on the first try.

  Scows are top-heavy, flat-bottomed sailboats, fast and unstable, as I well knew from all the summers I’d spent racing up and down the seven-mile-long lake in my grandfather’s sixteen-footer. Brendan manned the mainsail while I dropped the centerboard into the well and took charge of the jib, our movements meshing as if we’d been sailing together for a while.

  It was such a tremendous day to be out on the water. A cooling breeze gusted under a hazy sun, and the air was a perfect seventy-five degrees.

  Brendan commented on the beautiful, historic homes lining the lakeshore. He hadn’t seen them for so long, he felt as though he were seeing them for the first time. The pleasant thoughts were cut off abruptly by the roar of a Jet Ski as a pair of teenagers rode circles around us, swamping our boat. I reached for the jib line, and Brendan scrambled to the high side—but it was too late.

  The boat capsized, dumping the two of us into the drink.

  “You okay?” I heard as I sputtered to the surface.

  “Fine. You?”

  “Yep. Don’t worry. I got the little bastard’s plate number.”

  I laughed as Brendan righted the scow and helped me back in. Soon we were sailing again, soaking wet but otherwise okay. The rest of the afternoon was a very nice blur. We sailed through the Narrows, passing the Lake Geneva Country Club and Black Point, an eccentric-looking, thirteen-bedroom summer “cottage” built at the end of the nineteenth century. When our faces were stiff from sun and wind, we sailed back to Knollwood Road—to change our clothes.

  Brendan had asked me out to dinner.

  And I had accepted.

  Thirty-one

  I HAD JUST the right dress hanging in my closet: a simple black shift that set off my sun-pinked skin. This isn’t a date, I told myself as I put on makeup, but not too much. It’s a reunion. A chat between old friends.

  “Wow. Look at you!” Brendan said as he arrived to pick me up for . . . whatever it was supposed to be.

  “And look at you!” I said. He had on pressed jeans and a blue cashmere sweater, loafers, no socks, and he was tan.

  “Your very own beach bum,” he said, and winked.

  “You look great.”

  “It’s the loafers,” he quipped.

  We had dinner on the dockside terrace of the French Country Inn, with a candle sputtering on the table between us and the lake bumping up against the pilings. We were still catching up over braised breast of duckling and wild rice when Brendan said a few words about his folks and asked about mine. I told him that neither of my parents was still alive. “It’s just Sam and me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about your folks. And everything else that’s happened to you.”

  “It’s okay. Anyway, here we are on the lake again.”

  By the time coffee was served, we had moved on to lighter subjects. We joked and laughed and were still so in sync, it surprised me a lot. I had expected dead spots in the conversation, but there hadn’t been many. When they happened, it was mostly me being too guarded.

  Then the dinner was over and it was time to go home. That’s when I realized, or maybe admitted to myself, that I was on a date. The best date I’d had in quite a while, actually.

  Thirty-two

  IT CERTAINLY hadn’t been planned that way, but Brendan and I had been together nearly the whole day. And now there was an awkward moment at the front door. We were standing close enough that I could smell the cologne he used. I need to stop this nonsense right now, I told myself. For both of our sakes.

  I caught my breath as that notion flashed through my mind. Then I put the brakes on any fantasy that could lead to the kind of trouble I couldn’t handle. I stepped back away from Brendan.

  “Well, I’d ask you in for coffee,” I said, “but I should start writing my column for tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Brendan said. But then he sat down on the porch steps, and he showed no sign of leaving.

  “Come swimming with me, or just sit out here and shoot the breeze for a little while more. Anything you want. Just don’t work tonigh
t. You don’t need to work. Come on, Jenny. Loosen up.”

  The words Jenny, loosen up stung a little. But I was also struck by the choice of words. Sam had said almost the same thing in one of her letters.

  “Okay,” I said. “But you can’t ever call me ‘Jenny.’ Danny called me Jenny.”

  “I’m sorry. So talk to me, Scout. You’ve hardly talked about him at all.”

  “Sometime I will. Maybe. But not tonight,” I said. “I’ll talk about Danny when I’m ready.” Danny and other things.

  He seemed confused, or troubled.

  I settled down on the porch steps beside Brendan. “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I just wanted to tell somebody that I quit my job,” Brendan finally said, pulling on his lower lip. “I quit today.”

  My head rocked back a little. “You quit your job? Why? What happened, Brendan?”

  “Nothing too dramatic. I’ve been looking at shadows on sheets of plastic for too long. I was thinking it’s time to get a few priorities straight,” he said. Then he gave me a dead-on look that grabbed and held me.

  I glanced away reflexively. The moonlight cast a pale glow over the lake. Peepers and crickets chirped in the bushes. We were sitting very close to each other. Too close.

  “I really have to go in,” I said. I stood up from the porch steps. “Thanks for the day. It was fun.”

  Brendan stood, too. He was physically imposing, and he was handsome. He leaned in and kissed my forehead, which was oddly nice. Then he gave me his best smile. “Good night, Jennifer. I had a good time, too.”

  Soon I was in my bed, the same one I’d slept in for years at the lake. A cup of spearmint tea was on the night table. I stared at the ceiling, and some strange, conflicting thoughts swirled in my head. Brendan and I had a nice night, I thought. And that’s the end of it. Why? Because it is, that’s why.