The Summer Hideaway (21 page)

“Except that it feels exactly right.” He cradled her
face between his hands. “Do you know how long it’s been since I kissed a woman?”

“About twenty-four hours.”

“But before that, it was more than two years. Damn, you feel good.”

“You should go now.” But she discovered that she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here all night, in his arms.

“In a minute.” He bent to kiss her again. She told herself to step back, not to be an idiot…but her heart didn’t listen. Her need was overpowering—not just for the kisses and the intimacy, but for the connection. He’d said he wanted her to show him who she was, and for the first time in her life, she saw that as a possibility. It was only fair to warn him, however, what he was getting into.

“Ross,” she whispered against his mouth, “there’s something you need to know about me.”

“I want to know everything,” he said. “Your favorite song, your favorite color. What your breathing sounds like when you sleep, the color you painted your apartment, the books you like to read—”

“I don’t mean things like that,” she said. Oh, she wished it were that simple. She wished she could tell him anything but the truth. She tried to imagine the words she would use.
I saw a cop commit two murders, and he’d kill me if he ever found me
.

Way to ruin the mood, she thought.

He kissed her some more, his lips gently nipping at the curve of her neck. “How about,” he said, “we do this for a while, and then you can tell me later.”

“Good plan, but—”

A thud sounded in George’s room.

Ross sprang back as if she’d scalded him. “Granddad!”

They jumped up and ran to George’s bedroom. George’s monitor was on the floor, presumably knocked there as he’d reached for it.

“He’s having a seizure,” Claire said, rushing over to the bed. She checked his airway and turned him on his side.

Ross snatched up the phone by the bed. “I’m calling 911.”

“You can’t,” she said, the words rushing from her.

“What?”

She knew he was going to hate what she said next. He was probably going to hate her. But she had to level with him. “You can’t call 911 because your grandfather has a DNR order. Do not resuscitate.”

R
oss called 911.

He didn’t care what Claire was saying about some bullshit DNR order. His grandfather needed help. Maybe she had a piece of paper that said he wasn’t to be resuscitated, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be treated.

Granddad was strapped to a backboard, his neck encased in a cervical collar, precautions to keep him stable during transport. He regained consciousness and said something, but an O2 mask muffled his voice. As his nurse, Claire rode in the ambulance. Ross followed in his car.

At Benedictine Hospital, Granddad was whisked into the emergency department. By the time Ross parked and raced to the ward, Claire was already conferring with a doctor and a pair of nurses. Granddad lay surrounded by machines, wheeled trays, tubing, hovering residents and nurses.

“This is Ross Bellamy,” Claire said. “He’s Mr. Bellamy’s grandson.”

“And my grandfather’s not DNR,” he stated, refusing
to look at Claire. “He’s full code, and that’s how he’s to be treated. So get to work.”

Dr. Randolph, a young resident with a half-grown beard and tousled hair, stepped forward, holding the manila folder from Claire, filled with Granddad’s medical records. “Just so you know,” said the doctor, “full code means all possible lifesaving and support measures will be taken. Your grandfather’s having trouble breathing. There might be obstruction or collapse of the upper airway. That likely means intubation and placement on a ventilator. Other measures might include catheterization, defibrillation, transfusions, feeding by tube…”

The list of horrors seemed to go on and on. Ross reminded himself these were lifesaving measures. He’d seen it in battle. The procedures were never kind, but at least the patient lived.

A loud crash sounded, drawing everyone’s attention to Ross’s grandfather. Somehow, he’d worked a hand free of its Velcro strap and had knocked over a tray of instruments. Claire rushed to his side, waved away the tech who had been working the bag valve.

“He seems to be breathing a little better,” said Dr. Randolph.

Granddad coughed, waving his hand weakly. “For the love of God, Ross,” he said. “What part of ‘do not resuscitate’ do you not understand?”

Though Granddad refused to be admitted to the hospital, he was kept for a few hours’ observation. The emergency department was bright with glaring lights, noisy and busy with crying kids, babbling drunks, people moaning with sickness or injury, staffers calling orders
back and forth. Ross gritted his teeth through some gruesome flashbacks to the war, but he shoved them into a dark corner of his mind so he could focus on his grandfather. A knee-length blue curtain offered a thin illusion of privacy.

“When you were off fighting,” Granddad told him, “I was in a war of my own, at the Mayo Clinic. You think I didn’t want to fight this disease? You think I didn’t want to beat it? I gave it all I had, Ross. They numbed my head, screwed a steel frame into my skull and zapped me with gamma rays. Pumped me full of chemo—”

“You never told me, Granddad.”

“And you never told me everything you saw in your war, either. Ross, the tumor keeps recurring. It won’t stop, not ever. I won’t go through that again. I won’t. Not even for you.”

George drifted off to sleep. Ross left the curtain area in a hurry, feeling his emotions unspooling fast.

Grief came to life like a spring thaw after deep winter. He had spent the past two years staying numb, lost in a bubble that separated him from everything. Now the bubble had burst; feelings he hadn’t experienced in years were flooding through him—the desperation and sadness of his grandfather’s illness, the sense of futility.

Granddad. Memories suddenly flowed through him, powerful, a raft of feelings.

Although he didn’t make a sound, Claire must have sensed the shift in him. She followed him to a quiet area by the water cooler. He was crying. When the hell had he started crying?

“I told myself I’d be ready when the time came,” he said, his voice rough and unsteady. “I lost my dad and
dealt with it,” he said, swiping his sleeve across his face. “I’ll deal with this, too.”

“Of course you will. It’s the only way to honor your grandfather.”

“Hell, I know that. But I’m not doing so hot.” He took a deep breath and it surprised him to realize he was still alive. Because he’d always thought something that hurt this much would kill him.

“Yes, you are,” she said.

“No. He’s seen his brother. I want to get him back to the city. Back to the doctor—”

“What about what
he
wants? That’s what’s important here. You can break down. You can be afraid, but you have to keep the focus on George.”

Ross knew what he was afraid of—being without his grandfather. Yet after tonight, he also knew dragging him back to treatment would mean pointless suffering. “Yeah,” he said after a while. “I know. But I don’t know what the hell I
am
going to do.”

“Take things a day at a time. Maybe even an hour at a time. The best thing you can do for George is to be present in the moment. Have your meltdowns with me. I can take it. But if your grandfather senses you’re worried and stressed, he’ll be worried and stressed, too. When you’re with him, just let that go.”

Let go
. Ross pictured himself letting go. A soldier’s hand in the midst of an emergency. A fish caught at the water’s edge. Let go, he thought.
Let go
.

Her simple words wrapped around his mind, rescuing him as surely as someone borne away on a medevac flight. Her gentle presence lifted him up, carried him away. The best way to love his grandfather now was to let go.

Ross called his uncle Trevor and told him what had happened. Trevor insisted he bring Granddad to the city right away.

“I think you’d better come here,” said Ross. “Everyone should come here, and soon.”

They argued, because the rest of the family still clung to the hope that Granddad would get better. Ultimately Ross was in charge. Trevor agreed to come to Avalon. His brothers, Gerard and Louis, would not be far behind.

Ross and Claire returned to the curtain area. His grandfather was still dozing, but when he woke up, they were going to take him back to Camp Kioga.

“Can he hear us?” asked Ross.

“Maybe.” She straightened a corner of the institutional-blue blanket that covered him.

On the waist-high bed, Granddad looked lost somewhere, lost in a world of dreams. Ross looked around the area, gathering up his things. There wasn’t much to grab—Granddad’s bedroom slippers, his old cardigan with the patched elbows, left in a heap like yesterday’s laundry. When Ross picked it up, something drifted from the pocket—a photograph. An old black-and-white print with deckled edges. It showed a boy and a girl in the lake, treading water, laughing up at the camera.

On the back of the snapshot, someone had written, “George Bellamy & Jane Gordon, Camp Kioga 1945.”

Avalon, Ulster County, New York
Summer 1955

C
harles and George were fighting over possession of the car keys. They often argued over which brother got to drive the DeSoto, but George was usually the one to give in. As he secured the canvas covering after folding away the convertible top, he tossed Charles the keys. The Camp Kioga parking lot was hot and dry, and a ride into town with the top down would be a refreshing break.

“Mother wants us to pick up a pie to bring to the camp picnic,” George said. “You drive, and I’ll check out the scenery.”

A pair of girls—ponytailed, barelegged, in tennis whites—strolled past on their way to the tennis courts, and George followed them with his eyes. “I don’t mind a little sightseeing now and then.”

Charles took the wheel, driving with his elbow propped on the window frame and a grin on his face. “You go right
ahead and flirt all you want,” he said good-naturedly. “Me, I’ll wait until the real thing comes along.”

“Life is too short to wait around for anything,” George declared. The breeze felt good on his face, and the air was sweet with the smells of summer—freshly cut grass, blooming flowers, the dry scent of the sun’s heat on the pavement. “Burn that Candle” by Bill Haley and His Comets was blaring from the radio as they passed beneath the main gate.

“Back at Camp Kioga at last,” Charles declared. “I can’t believe it’s been ten whole years.”

Time had flown by. It was the summer before George’s final year at Yale, and their mother had been struck by a wave of nostalgia. She wanted the whole family to return to Camp Kioga, vacationing together once again. This might be their last chance to spend summer as a family, she reasoned, because next year George would be on his own, a college grad, and the family would never be the same.

George didn’t take much convincing. He often thought about his boyhood summers here. So much drama packed into such a short time—a series of childish adventures had ended abruptly with the twin disasters of a young man’s tragic death and George’s affliction with polio. The summer after that, he’d finally come to grips with his illness and realized that the true limitation to healing was himself. Drawing on reserves of strength he didn’t know he had, George had fought his way back from the wheelchair to standing on his own two feet, more determined than ever to build a successful life.

Ten whole years. So many summers, stolen from him—from all the Bellamys, really—by polio. George’s rehabilitation took more time and energy than he ever
could have imagined. When he’d demonstrated the will to walk again, his parents had left no stone unturned, seeking out the best clinics and programs for him. He’d gone to Warm Springs in Georgia, where FDR himself had spent some time. After V-E Day, they’d taken him to the famed Institut Fleurier, in the Neuchâtel canton of Switzerland.

The hard and painful work of restoring function to his legs consumed him. FDR had said that once you’d spent two years trying to wiggle one toe, everything is put in proportion. George could relate to that entirely. Now he could walk, if not run or dance or leap tall buildings in a single bound. He looked like any other fellow, so long as his trousers covered the mechanical brace on his right leg. His nurses and therapists claimed it was as good an outcome as could be expected.

Instead of Camp Kioga, the Bellamys had devoted their summers to George’s rehabilitation. He’d lost time in school, too, and ultimately found himself only a year ahead of his brother Charles at college. He told himself he didn’t mind, though he knew people compared the two brothers. George didn’t understand why that was. He and Charles were so very different. Charles was the athletic one, the playful one, the one who pulled pranks and danced with girls and didn’t seem the least bit shy about making a fool of himself.

George, on the other hand, was more serious and reflective. He carried on his boyhood habit of keeping a journal, and dedicated himself to his writing classes. Thanks to his many months in the Romandy region of Switzerland, he was fluent in French, and dreamed of being an overseas correspondent for a major newspaper.

But this summer, all four Bellamys were going back in search of something they’d left behind, or something they never really had to begin with—innocence, acceptance, simplicity. Camp Kioga offered that elusive promise; it was a place where everything seemed uncomplicated, bathed in golden sunlight, like a fondly remembered dream.

George often wondered about Jane Gordon, the frizzy-haired, knock-kneed girl who had made every day an adventure. He hadn’t run into her yet; they’d only been here a few days. He wondered if he’d even recognize her; she’d be all grown up by now.

He made a big production of checking the time, glancing at a Breitling watch that had been a gift from his Bellamy grandparents upon his high school graduation. When Grandfather had presented it to him, he’d looked George in the eye and said, “Make the family proud, son.”

Which, when it came to the Bellamys, meant go to the right school, move in the right circles, marry the right girl and live in the right neighborhood. It was a simple enough formula. Do all the right things and you’ll end up with a successful life.

According to Bellamy family tradition, both George and Charles were on track. They had attended Andover as boarding students, manfully leaving the nest and pretending not to be homesick. George in particular had stood out, managing to juggle his exercises with a rigorous course of study. Now the brothers were both at Yale, the alma mater of their father and grandfather.

Neither brother had yet found the girl he was meant to marry. Privately George found the girls he met at
school mixers boring. Their flat personalities and studied mannerisms held no appeal for him. At the nightly dinner dances held at the main lodge of Camp Kioga, his mother would chide George. “I do wish you’d join in the dancing, really. I can see a half-dozen girls here who would love to cut a rug with you.”

He was always ready with a smooth answer. “Mother, I’m not the dancing type. I’ll let Charles do the honors.”

The fact was, George had never learned to dance. The last time he’d been on a dance floor, it had been right here at Camp Kioga. He’d held Jane Gordon in his lap while Charles pushed the chair, the three of them whirling together to the strains of a Guy Lombardo tune. He wondered if either of them remembered that moment as vividly as he had.

Once he’d recovered the ability to walk, he’d been disinclined to attempt dancing for any reason, even though it was considered one of the key social skills of a gentleman. He probably could have muddled his way through a couple of numbers, but he chose not to. Because above all other things, George Bellamy cared about appearances. He would rather avoid dancing altogether than risk looking bad in front of people.

His mother didn’t push too hard. She had suffered the fright of her life with George’s illness, and he knew she was so grateful for his recovery that she would never ask another thing of him.

Charles did enough dancing for both brothers, and he did it well. The jitterbug, the Lindy hop, all the fast and fun dances, were a good fit for his natural exuberance.

Millicent and Beatrice Darrow, two sisters from Boston, happened to be staying in the cottage next to the
Bellamys, and George and Charles were expected to squire them around this summer. George thought they were a swell pair of girls, students at Yale’s sister school, Vassar College. Both young women had the handsome and vaguely horsey good looks that tended to be associated with fine New England breeding, and they spoke multiple languages with a broad, flat accent. As far as the Bellamys were concerned, the girls were a perfect match for their sons. George wasn’t so sure about that, but he had promised to bring them a cherry pie from the Sky River Bakery.

“Holy smokes, look at this stuff.” Charles practically fell to his knees in front of the display case, which was stocked with glazed crullers and berry tarts, pies and cakes and cookies.

The town bakery was crowded with folks provisioning for their weekend parties and picnics. Recently founded by an immigrant couple named the Majeskys, the place was already famous, thanks to the variety and quality of the goods.

“Jiminy Cricket,” someone said, the voice cutting through the others in the bakery, “I can never make up my mind about my favorite flavor.”

Something about that voice—its timbre or inflection—resonated deep inside George. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Scanning the crowd, he spotted a girl in a camp shirt and shorts, surrounded by a group of children. She wore the uniform of a Camp Kioga counselor, including the signature bandanna around her neck. The kids were all in camp uniforms, clustering around her or clamoring for baked goods. There was something in her laugh, some note or special
tone, that resonated inside George like the plucked string of an instrument. He felt the sound all through him, which was kind of crazy; from where he stood, he couldn’t really see her face.

She stood in a glare of light streaming in through the shop window as though the sun itself had singled her out, yet other than that, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about her. She was of average height and build, maybe a little more curvy than average, curly dark red hair caught in a high ponytail. The shorts showed off a fine pair of legs.

He must have been staring hard enough for her to feel his curiosity. She paused in what she was doing, stood up straight and turned to face him directly.

He felt her regard like the beat of his own heart. The moment of recognition seemed to hit them both at the same time.
Jane Gordon
.

She’d changed in a hundred ways, but the things he remembered best about her were exactly the same—wide hazel eyes, a saddle of freckles across her nose and a broad, expressive mouth and ready smile. Everything about her was open with exuberance, just as it had been when they were kids.

In a matter of seconds, he understood what was missing from people like the Darrow girls and others his family deemed a good match for him. They lacked whatever it was Jane exuded, some kind of irrepressible spark that was instantly apparent to George.

And although he and Jane were strangers now, thanks to the passing of the years, they shared a moment, fraught with memories. He could see the recognition in her eyes.

He also sensed the spark of something new, something
that hadn’t been there when they were young kids. Neither of them had spoken a word to each other across the crowded shop, yet George could have sworn the air crackled around them. Every instinct he possessed urged him to take action. Simple, direct action. He ought to walk over to Jane, to reacquaint himself with her…and ask her out.

He could tell she wanted him to. Despite the long absence, he sensed the invitation in her eyes, the openness of her smile.

The time wasn’t right, though. She was clearly busy with her young charges from Camp Kioga. He was on an errand and the bakery was jammed with people.

Life did not offer many moments like this—moments in which a single word or gesture might change everything. To let the opportunity pass would be to allow something special to slip through his fingers.

He took a tentative step toward her. A joint in his leg brace made the faintest creaking sound, unnoticeable except to him. Yet even that was enough to plant a kernel of doubt. What the devil was he going to say? “Hello, what are you doing for the rest of your life?” “Excuse me, but I think I’m falling in love with you?” Anything he might say would surely sound ridiculous. Besides, what would a lively girl like this want with a gimp like George?

“Ho-lee smokes,” said a voice behind George. “Save my place in line. There’s someone I have to talk to.”

With long, brash strides, Charles made his way through the crowd and went up to Jane. She looked momentarily nonplussed. And perhaps, just perhaps, she shot George a plea, as though she wanted him to be the
one to approach her first, not Charles. That, of course, could always be in his imagination.

In truth, he would never know what she was thinking in those first moments. The only thing he knew for certain was that three lives were changed forever, right there in the crowded bakery.

“Who’da thunk it? I’m already half in love with Jane Gordon,” Charles declared as they gathered in the Fireside Lounge for drinks before dinner that night. His eyes sparkled with eager sentiment as he regarded George and his parents. “Do you believe in love at first sight? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to me.”

“Baloney.” George felt a cold rock of resentment in his chest. Once again, Charles had beaten him to the punch. This time, the stakes were much higher than a set of car keys. All afternoon, George had played and replayed the scene in his head. If he hadn’t second-guessed himself, if he’d ignored the encumbrance of the leg brace and acted a split second sooner, then he would be the one glowing with excitement, telling his parents he’d met a special girl.

“And to think she’s been living in New Haven all this time, and we never even knew,” Charles went on. George took a small, controlled sip of his highball.

“We don’t know any Gordons, do we?” their mother asked. “Still, that name sounds familiar. Are they staying at the resort?”

Charles laughed, his abundant blond hair gleaming in the glow of the candles on the table. “Here’s the crazy thing,” he declared with a grin of pure exuberance. “They’re not staying at the resort. They
run
the resort.”

With his typical blithe disregard for convention, Charles had chatted up Jane Gordon right there in the bakery, and learned that she spent most of the year in New Haven with her mother. Even a decade after losing her son in the war, Mrs. Gordon was still unwilling to live in Avalon, and Mr. Gordon insisted on staying and running the family business.

How odd, thought George, that the girl spent most of her time right in New Haven, yet they’d never run into her there. In his mind, he’d preserved the image of Jane as a skinny, funny-looking little girl with big teeth and laughing eyes. Now the ugly duckling had become a swan.