One Summer (27 page)

Jack said quietly, “It’s okay, sweetie.” When Jenna rose to question Mikki, Jack put a hand on her arm and shook his head. “No, Jenna, she’s been through enough.”

“But Jack—”

“Enough,” said Jack firmly.

Jenna turned to the judge. “No questions,” she said reluctantly.

Grubbs looked at Paterson. “Any more witnesses?”

“Just one, Your Honor, before we rest our case.” Paterson turned toward the table where Jenna was sitting. “We call Jack Armstrong.”

Jack was sworn in and settled uncomfortably into the witness box, hitching his suit jacket around him.

Paterson approached. “Mr. Armstrong, did you know that your illness can cause severe depression and even mental instability?”

“I don’t have an illness.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was given a clean bill of health. Look at me. Does it seem to you like I’m dying?”

Paterson picked up some documents and handed them to the bailiff. “These are opinions from three doctors, all world-class physicians, who state categorically that there is no cure for your illness and that it is fatal one hundred percent of the time.”

“Then they’ll have to change that to 99.9 percent, won’t they?”

“Do you blame yourself for your wife’s death, Mr. Armstrong?”

“A person will always blame themselves, even if they could do nothing to prevent it. It’s just the way we are.”

“So is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“That must be emotionally devastating.”

“It’s not easy.”

“Talk to me about your obsession with the lighthouse.”

Jenna said, “Objection. Drawing a conclusion.”

“Sustained.”

“Tell us about your reasons for working so long and hard on the lighthouse, Mr. Armstrong.”

Jack furrowed his brow and hunched forward. “It’s complicated.”

“Do your best,” said Paterson politely.

“It was her special place,” Jack said simply. “That’s where she’d go when she was a kid. I found some of her things there—a doll, a sign that she’d made that said, ‘Lizzie’s Lighthouse,’ and some other things. And when she was alive she said she wanted to come back to the Palace. I guess me going there instead and fixing it up was a way to show respect for her wishes.”

“All right. What else?”

Jack smiled. “Lizzie thought she could see Heaven from the top of the lighthouse.”

“Heaven?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “She believed that when she was a little girl,” he added quickly.

“But you’re an adult. So you didn’t believe that, or did you?”

Jack hesitated. Jenna glanced at the judge and saw his eyebrows rise higher the longer Jack waited to answer.

“No, I didn’t. But…” Jack shook his head and stopped talking.

The lawyer let this silence linger for a bit as he and the judge exchanged a glance.

“So you wanted to fix up the place?”

“Yes. The stairs to the lighthouse fell in, and I wanted to repair them. And the light too.”

“Fix the light? It’s my understanding that the lighthouse in question is no longer registered as a navigational aid.”

“It’s not. But it stopped working while Lizzie was still there. So I decided to try and repair it.”

“So let me get this straight, if I can,” said Paterson in a skeptical tone. “You neglected your family so that you could repair a lighthouse that is no longer used as a navigational aid, solely because your wife as a child thought she could see Heaven from there? Let me ask the question again: Did you think you could see Heaven from there?” he asked in a chiding tone.

“No, I didn’t,” said Jack firmly.

“We have one more video to show, Your Honor.”

“All right.”

Paterson turned to Drake, who worked the controls, and the image appeared on the TV of Jack standing on the catwalk around the lighthouse reading one of his letters to Lizzie.

“Could you tell us what you’re doing in that picture, Mr. Armstrong?”

“None of your business,” snapped Jack, who was staring at the TV.

Jenna stood. “Your Honor, relevance?”

“Again, state of mind,” replied Paterson.

“Answer the question,” instructed the judge.

“It’s a letter,” said Jack.

“A letter? To whom?”

“My wife.”

“But your wife is deceased.”

“I wrote the letters to her before she… before she died. I wrote them when I was sick. I wanted her to have them after… I was gone.”

“But she can’t read them now. So why were you reading them? You obviously knew what was in them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with reading old letters. I’m pretty sure people do it all the time.”

“Perhaps, but not in the middle of the night on top of a lighthouse while small children are alone in the house.”

“Argumentative,” snapped Jenna.

“Sustained,” said Grubbs.

Jack looked at Paterson and said, “I know you’re trying to make it look like I’m nuts. But I’m not. And I’m not unfit to care for my children.”

“That’s for this court to decide,
not
you.”

Jack sat there for a few seconds. The walls of the courtroom seemed to be closing in on him, cutting off his oxygen. His anger, always near the surface ever since Bonnie had filed her lawsuit, now burst to the surface. He looked at Paterson. “Have you ever lost anyone you loved?”

Paterson looked taken aback but quickly recovered. “I’m asking the questions.”

Jack now looked directly at Bonnie. “You know how much I loved Lizzie.”

Paterson said, “Mr. Armstrong, you’re not allowed to do that.”

Jack ignored him. He stood, his eyes burning into his mother-in-law’s. “I would’ve gladly given my life so that she could have lived. You know that.”

“Mr. Armstrong,” cautioned the judge.

“She meant everything to me. But she died.”

“Mr. Armstrong, sit down!” snapped Grubbs as he smacked his gavel.

Jack pointed a finger at Bonnie and cried out, “No one feels worse than I do about what happened. No one! It is a living hell for me every day. I lost the only woman I have ever loved. The only person I wanted to share my life with. The best friend I will ever have!” The tears were sliding down Jack’s anguished face.

The judge barked, “Bailiff!”

Jack said, “The best things that Lizzie and I ever created were our kids.
Our
kids. So how dare you try to take away the only parent they have left just because you’re mad at me. How
dare
you.”

The bailiff forcibly removed Jack from the courtroom while Bonnie looked on, obviously shocked by his outburst.

Paterson said, “Nothing further, Your Honor.” He walked back to his chair, barely able to conceal his smile.

The judge looked critically at Jenna. “Do you have anything to add, counselor?”

Jenna looked at the distraught kids and then at the judge. “No, Your Honor.”

The judge said, “I’ll render my judgment on the motion this afternoon.”

Jack was released from the bailiff’s custody a few minutes later. They didn’t wait at the courthouse but drove back in silence to Channing. They waited in a small room at the back of the Little Bit. They all jumped when Jenna’s cell phone buzzed. She answered the call and listened, and her expression told Jack all he needed to know.

“The judge granted the motion for temporary custody,” she said.

And it’s my fault,
thought Jack.
I’ve lost my family. Again.

Jack sat on his bed at the Palace holding letter number six in his hand. He hadn’t read it yet. He was thinking about other things.

No matter what you do, no matter how hard you fight, life sometimes just doesn’t make sense.

Bonnie and representatives from Social Services were coming this evening to take the kids away from Jack, perhaps forever. He looked down at the letter, then balled it up and threw it down on the bed next to the other five. As he looked out the window, three cars pulled into the driveway of the Palace, including Sheriff Tammie in his police cruiser. Though it was only seven in the evening, the sky was as dark as midnight. A tropical storm was just off the coast, and the wind was beginning to slam the low country with a fury. That was the major reason they were coming tonight. To move the kids farther inland. Jack had put up no fight, principally because he wanted his kids to be safe. The lights kept flickering on and off in the house.

Someone tapped on his door.

“Yeah?”

It was Jenna. “They’re here, Jack,” she said quietly.

“I know.”

As Jack came downstairs, he stared at the three packed bags standing next to the front door. Then he looked over at the kids. Cory and Mikki were on the couch crying, and Jackie, not understanding what was going on, was crying too. He clutched his monster truck in one hand and hugged his siblings with the other, his little body quaking.

Liam simply stood by, not knowing what to do. His big hands clenched and unclenched in his anxiety. Jack went over to his kids and started whispering to them. “It’s going to be okay, I promise. This is only temporary.”

Jack and Jenna both answered the door. Bonnie, Fred, and the Social Services people stood there with umbrellas in hand.

“Are the children ready?” one of the Social Services folks asked Jack.

He nodded, his gaze squarely on Bonnie.

“Bonnie?” She looked at him, her face flushed. “Do we have to do it this way?”

“I’m only thinking of the children, Jack.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m very sure.”

Sammy, Liam, Jackie, and Cory had joined them on the front porch.

Cory said, “Grandma, please don’t do this. Please. We want to stay with Dad.”

One of the Social Services people, a woman, stepped in and said, “This is not the time or place to discuss this. The judge
has ruled.” She looked at Jack. “We really want this to go smoothly. And I’m sure you do too, for the sake of the kids.” The woman glanced over her shoulder at Sheriff Tammie, who stood outside his cruiser looking very uncomfortable.

Sammy eyed Jack, but it was Jenna who stepped forward and said, “We do.” Sammy took a step back, and Jack looked at his two kids. “Okay, guys, you’re going to be back here faster than you can say Jack Rabbit.”

Cory nodded, but the tears still slid down his face. Jackie looked at Cory and started to tear up again. Jack hugged both of them. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “We’re a family. We’ll always be a family, right?” They both nodded. “We’ll get your bags. Liam, go get Mikki. I’m sure you want to say good-bye to her. They need to get on the road before the storm gets any worse.”

Sammy and Jack carried the bags out to the car, and Jack strapped Jackie in while Cory buckled up next to him. When Jack looked back up at the porch, he knew something was wrong. Liam was standing there, his face pale and his expression wild.

Bonnie had seen this too. Despite the wind and rain, she got out of the car.

“What is it?” said Jack as he ran up to Liam.

“I can’t find Mikki.”

Jack and the others raced into the house. It took only ten minutes to search the place. His daughter was gone.

A quarter mile down the beach, Mikki was stumbling along, crying hard. The wind and rain battered her, but she kept going, leaning into the gusts swarming off the ocean. She
kept weaving away from the waterline as the storm pushed the Atlantic farther landward. As upset as she was, Mikki didn’t see the palmetto tree toppling over until it was almost too late. At the last possible instant, she lunged out of the way, but dodging the tree carried her too close to the waterline and in the path of a huge wave that crashed over her. Mikki didn’t even have time to scream before the receding wave swept her out.

Jack stared out at the darkened sky from the front room of the Palace. The rain was coming down even harder. Liam had quickly driven home to see if Mikki had gone there, but he’d called to say she wasn’t at his house.

Bonnie said, “Jack, what do we do? What do we do?” Her voice was hysterical.

Jack turned to her and said sharply, “The first thing we do is not panic.”

One of the Social Services personnel said, “We should call the police. The sheriff drove off before this happened, but I’m sure we can get him back.”

Jack shook his head and said in a crisp, take-charge manner, “There’s only Tammie and one deputy, and they’ll be preoccupied with the storm. We can call them, but we can’t just sit around and wait for them to start looking for her. We have to start searching the area. We need to split up. Search by street and also the beach.” He pointed to Fred. “Fred, you and Bonnie drive west in your car. Go slow, look for Mikki that way.”
He turned to the pair from Social Services. “You go east in your car and do the same thing. Let’s exchange cell phone numbers. Whoever finds her calls the others. Sammy and I will take opposite directions on the beach.” He turned to Cory. “Cor, can you be a real big guy for me and stay here with Jackie? Go to the lower level and stay away from the windows.”

Cory swallowed and looked terrified at his dad. “Mikki’s coming back, right?”

“She absolutely is. I bet she shows up here any minute. And we need someone to be here when she does, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Jack headed right on the beach while Sammy went left. The rain was being pushed nearly sideways by the wind, and most of the sand was underwater. Jack swung his flashlight in wide arcs, but it barely penetrated the darkness. It finally caught on one object, and when Jack saw what it was, his heart thudded in his chest and a cold dread settled over him.

It was Mikki’s sneaker floating in a pool of shallow water. He looked in all directions for his daughter but could see nothing. He called out her name, but the only thing he heard in response was the scream of the wind. He raced on to check backyards and behind dunes, but found nothing.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” he said to himself. He stared out at the angry ocean, engorged and rendered infinitely more dangerous by the strength of the storm pushing it against the coast. He turned and jogged back, his gaze toggling between land and sea. He had to bend forward to keep from being blown back by the powerful winds. Every ten seconds he screamed out her name. Near the Palace he met Sammy, who reported similar failure.