The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

15





AT THREE IN THE MORNING, I WAS AWAKENED by a strange noise. I sat upright in bed, then lay right back down as a wave of nausea rolled over me in the pitch-black room. The noise came again. It was the low growl of a pit-bull and it was coming from my stomach.

I bolted barefoot to the bathroom nearest our room. I barely had time to swish my hair out of the way before vacating the entire contents of dinner. The force of it was terrifying, and dropped me to my knees. Then a new sound came from my midsection—a sloshy gurgling.

For the next seven minutes, all I could do was whimper as life passed by in excruciating intestine-twisting pain, cursing Jesse’s exotic salad, doused in amoeba water, and my defenseless American stomach. When the first moment arrived that I could breathe, a knock came at the door.

“I’ll be okay,” I said weakly, sure it was Isabel. Then I realized it came from the door to Jesse’s room.

“Scoot over, darling, we’ve obviously been poisoned.”

I meant to reply, but a gagging started in my throat. I think that gave Jesse her answer.

She scurried away to throw up on the palm trees.

I slid to the floor like a deflated balloon. My cheek made it to the cool, sandy floor just in time to hear another knock at the door.

“Samantha?” Isabel’s voice came through in a whisper. “Lemme in.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“I’m sick.”

I groaned. This was the vacation from hell. “Join the party.”



Across the hall, Cornell was in the bathroom with his wife. He patted Lynette’s back gently with one hand, while holding back her hair with the other. So far, their vomiting had been symbiotically timed. Cornell wasn’t surprised. He and his wife always seemed to operate in sync.

In the weak night-light glow of the bathroom, Cornell read the pain on Lynette’s face. He felt sorry for her, but only until a heaving rumble snaked through his innards.

“Trade you,” he eked out, and motioned Lynette aside.

Lynette propped herself against the wall and attempted to pat her husband’s back, but ended up patting his butt as he retched.

Cornell turned and gave Lynette the most priceless look. Lynette managed a measly laugh. She patted the floor beside her. “Cop a squat, dear.”

When Cornell sat down beside her, they linked arms absentmindedly, and Lynette let her head drop onto his shoulder. After a minute, she said, “Aren’t you worried about Kendra?”

“She’s a big girl, honey. All grown-up now, our little girl.”

“No, it’s not right she didn’t come. There’s something wrong. Why doesn’t she ever tell me anything?”

Cornell kissed the top of Lynette’s head. “Maybe some things aren’t for you to understand.”

Lynette stiffened. After over thirty years of marriage, certain fights always started the same way, ingrained in the relationship just like the rituals of teasing and making coffee. She knew what Cornell was alluding to. “I’m her mother. What don’t I understand?” She wasn’t going to let him get away with cheap shots. She was going to make him say it.

Cornell was too weak to fight. “Let it go, Lynette. We don’t know what’s bothering her. Maybe it’s her job. Maybe it’s Michael. She’ll tell us when she wants to.”

“That’s not what you meant. You meant that I don’t understand what it’s like to be a black woman, and that’s why Kendra doesn’t confide in me.”

“Do you ever talk about it with her?”

“Do you?”

Lynette and Cornell faced off, less than six inches between their eyes. Lynette looked away first. Her flesh turned colder than the floor. “I think it’s a mother-daughter thing, not a race thing. Women can’t help but become a reaction to their mothers.”

Cornell’s lawyer mind mulled this over. The one thing he’d learned about mother-daughter relationships was that they were complicated, an impenetrable rock formation made of thin, delicate layers. “At this particular time, I concede the point,” Cornell said, and pulled his wife’s head back onto his shoulder.



When Arshan finally made it back from the bathroom, he heard someone out on the porch. He put a hand to his stomach and slipped on his shoes. He walked onto the covered porch just in time to see Jesse throw up over the railing—hard enough that she didn’t hear his arrival. Arshan watched her ease herself to the floor. He was about to politely leave, when Jesse caught sight of him.

Jesse burped and turned her face away. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and knew she probably thought she looked awful. Automatically, she freed her hair from a ponytail and smoothed her satin nightgown with sweaty palms.

Arshan knew just what she was thinking. He couldn’t help but smile. “You look gorgeous,” he said before he had time to think better of it.

Sarcastic, Jesse thought, but her defenses were down. Being seen without makeup was actually physically painful for Jesse in front of a man. Not a man. Arshan.

Again, Arshan read her thoughts as nakedly as a child’s fear. Ten years of being a person’s bridge partner teaches you a thing or two. Ever since the accident, Arshan’s feelings for Jesse had crystallized and taken on a delicious urgency. He was both thrilled and terrified, two sensations he’d thought were long dead to him. The past thirty years could best be described as waiting. Waiting to die? Or waiting to live again? He sat down before she could leave.

“You must know,” Arshan said, and looked to see if she did.

Jesse listened to the words and weighed their meaning but still wasn’t sure. She kept her eyes on the deck floor.

“I must tell you—” He hesitated for the briefest moment, hoping she would look up. He looked at the sheen of her hair in the moonlight instead. “Jesse, I’m old and I’m damaged. On top of that, I’m haunted.” Arshan felt a chill in the humid air. “And even after all this time, I’m not sure that I’m ready.”

First, Jesse smiled at the old, weathered floorboards beneath them. Then she lifted her chin so that the moon could unveil every wrinkle Jesse Brighton had earned in laughter and tears and dashed hopes and dreams. She looked into Arshan’s sad, crinkly eyes and said, “Welcome to the club, honey.”