I looked out the window. No naked screaming men.
The Jeep was glistening in the driveway. Okay, Brendan was there. Maybe I could make him breakfast at least. I started over to Shep’s.
I entered the house through the unlocked back door, called Brendan’s name as I frisked the downstairs rooms with my eyes. When I didn’t see any sign of him, I hurried up to his bedroom at the back of the house. The room was empty. The bed had been made with a nice white cotton spread.
It took me a moment to catch up. Brendan wasn’t in the house. His things weren’t there, either.
I threw open the screen door that led to the upper deck Brendan had so recently stained and waterproofed. From high up there, I scanned the yard and beyond. Brendan was nowhere to be seen.
Panic raced through me, and I tried to tamp it down. Maybe Shep would know where Brendan was. I raced back downstairs, my sneakers scuffing the polished hardwood, my eyes darting everywhere as I looked for the kitchen phone.
That’s when I saw a pile of clues—obviously left for me. They were clustered on the white-laminate kitchen counter. Three items were clumped together; a white no. 10 envelope, a set of car keys, a business card with a red bird on it.
The business card was from Cardinal Transport, a local taxi service.
The keys belonged to the Jeep.
The envelope was addressed to me. When I took the envelope in my hands, I felt something loose and jiggly inside. I ripped open one end, and Brendan’s watch poured out into my palm. My heart was in my throat.
There was also a letter.
Sixty-three
Dear Jennifer,
It’s just after five in the morning and I’m waiting for the taxi to take me to the airport. You know, it’s lonelier than you could ever imagine. I know you’re going to be hurt because I’m saying good-bye like this but, please, hear me out before you make a final judgment. I’m writing while I still can. There are things I want to tell you while I can say them. I want to minimize the hurt to you if I can. I believe this is the best way, the only way for me.
Do you remember when we were kids, how we lived for summer? I’d start to get a sense of expectation in early May that the days were getting longer and I would hope that this summer the sun would keep soaring in the sky and break through to the other side. That it would be like it is in the northern regions, daylight all summer long. Then June would come and the days really were longer. But after the Fourth of July, darkness reasserted itself and we had to accept the duality of light and dark.
In the same way, Jennifer, I’d hoped, and prayed, that we’d have more time to do all the things we wanted to do together. I wanted an endless summer with you. But then darkness always comes, doesn’t it? Just a fact of life, I guess.
If I know anything, it’s this: Our being together was the best possible thing that could have happened, and I want to leave that feeling of rightness intact and beautiful. I love you so much. I adore you, Jennifer. I mean it. Youinspireme. I hope with all my heart that you’ll forgive me for this and that you’ll understand how unbearably hard it is for me to leave you this morning. Without our swim. Or some five-star blueberry pancakes. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life! But I believe in my heart it’s the right thing to do.
I love you so much that it hurts me to even have the thought. Please believe that.
You are my light, you are my endless summer.
Brendan
PART THREE
Leaving Lake Geneva
Sixty-four
BY THE TIMEI’d finished reading Brendan’s letter, I could barely breathe and the tears were just streaming down my face. I couldn’t help thinking that somehow it was my fault he’d left. Just as it was my fault that Daniel was alone when he died in Hawaii. I slid his watch onto my wrist. Then I called Shep’s law office in Chicago. I told his assistant that I had to speak with him. Finally I heard Shep’s familiar, soothing voice over the phone.
“Shep, Brendan’s gone,” I managed to say.
“I know, Jen. I spoke with him this morning. It’s for the best.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “Please tell me what’s going on. What is he doing?”
Shep hemmed and hawed, then told me some of the same things that Brendan had said in his letter. That he didn’t want me to have to go through the final stage of his disease. That he loved me and was sick that he had to leave. And that Brendan was scared.
“I have to see him,” I told Shep. “It can’t end like this. I won’t let it. Shep, I’ll come to your office in Chicago if I have to.”
I could hear Shep sigh deeply. “I think I know how you feel, but Brendan made me promise not to tell you. I gave him my word.”
