Second Chance Summer

I froze, wondering if I could walk away now without him noticing me. He hadn’t turned his head far enough to see me, but I was worried that sudden movement would attract his attention. Though a second later, I thought back to all those moments that had just been keeping me awake, reminding me that I’d run away when I should have stayed. But with Lucy, and now maybe with Henry, it seemed like I was getting an opportunity to at least try and make things right. So I took a deep breath and kept on going, putting one foot in front of the other until I had reached the dock. Henry turned toward me, and it was only then that I considered that he might not care about my need to confront my faults—that he’d probably come out to the dock to be by himself, and had most likely already had far too much of me that day. Also, that I was wearing what I had slept in—very short terry cloth shorts and a tank top with no bra. I was suddenly very grateful for the sweater, and hugged it even closer around me. I nodded rather than lifting one of my arms to wave at him. “Hi,” I said.

“Hey,” he said, sounding surprised. I made myself keep walking toward him, sensing that if I stopped or hesitated, the part of me that I usually listened to would take over and I’d turn and go hustling back inside rather than risk humiliating myself in front of him for the umpteenth time that day.

I sat down next to him at the end of the dock, careful to leave at least a person-space between us. I extended my legs until they reached the water. The lake was cold but felt good against my feet as I moved them in small circles under the surface. “I couldn’t sleep,” I offered after we’d been sitting in silence for a moment.

“Me neither,” he said. He looked over at me and smiled faintly. “Cold?”

“A little,” I said, as I hugged the sweater around me. He seemed comfortable in the cool night air, wearing a gray T-shirt that looked much-washed and soft, and a pair of drawstring shorts. I suddenly wondered if this was what he’d been sleeping in as well, and the thought was enough to make me avert my eyes, quickly, back to the lake and the moonlight.

“I’m sorry about before,” he said, looking out at the lake as well. “In the car. I didn’t mean to shut down like that.”

“Oh,” I murmured. I hadn’t known that’s what had happened. “Was it…” I started, then paused when I realized I wasn’t sure how to say this. “Did I say something wrong?” I finally ventured.

Henry shook his head and looked over to me. “Not really,” he said. “It just…” He let out a breath, then continued. “My mom left,” he said. He kept his eyes on mine as he said this, and trying not to betray my shock, I made myself keep looking into his eyes, not letting myself look away. “Five years ago,” he said. “At the end of the summer.” He broke our eye contact and looked back out to the lake. I looked down and saw that his fingers were curled around the edge of the dock, and his knuckles were white.

“What happened?” I asked softly, trying not to let the shock I was feeling seep through my voice. But inside, I was reeling. Mrs. Crosby had just left?

Henry shrugged, and kicked one foot in the water, sending out a series of ripples that grew and grew, until finally the water stilled again. “I knew she was having some trouble that summer,” he said, and I tried to remember back. Truthfully, in a summer that had mostly been defined by first dates and carnival kisses and drama with Lucy, I hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to Henry’s mother. She had seemed like she always had—a little distant and not particularly friendly. “I hadn’t thought it was anything. But the week before we were supposed to go back to Maryland, she went into Stroudsburg to do some shopping. And she didn’t come back.”

“Oh, my God,” I murmured, trying—and utterly failing—to imagine my mother doing something like that. For all the times we’d argued or disagreed, for as hard as I’d sometimes tried to push her away, it had never once entered my mind that she would go.

“Yeah,” Henry said with a short, humorless laugh. “She called later that night, I guess so my dad didn’t wouldn’t call the police. But then we didn’t hear anything from her until she contacted us two years ago, when she wanted a divorce.”

This was somehow continuing to get worse. “You haven’t seen your mother in five years?” I asked, a little faintly.

“Nope,” he said, a hard edge coming into his voice. “And I don’t know if I ever will again.” He looked over at me. “You know what the worst part was? My dad and I were at a baseball game. She just left Davy alone in the house.”

I did the math and realized that Davy would have been seven then. “Was he…” I swallowed hard. “I mean, did anything…”

Henry shook his head, thankfully stopping me from having to finish the sentence. “He was fine,” he said. “But I think it’s the reason he got so into wilderness survival after that. Even though he tells us it’s because of a show he saw on Discovery.”

Slowly, things were beginning to come together. “Is this why you moved up here full-time?” I asked. It was also, of course, the reason that none of us had seen Mrs. Crosby the whole time we’d been here.

“Yeah,” he said. “My dad needed to do something else, find a job where he could be around more. He’d always liked it up here. We had to move houses, because in the old place Davy and I were sharing a room. Not that he ended up needing a room of his own,” he added, his lips curling in a small smile as he looked toward his yard, where Davy’s tent sat. Henry shrugged, and kicked at the water again. “My dad was kind of a mess for a while after she left,” he said, his voice quieter. I waited for him to say more, give me details about it, but he was already continuing. “So moving here… it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

I nodded, but was still trying to wrap my head around everything. It suddenly struck with a force that sent a chill through me, that only a week or two after I had suddenly left with no explanation, his mother had done the same. “Henry,” I said quietly, and he looked back at me. “I’m really, really sorry.” I hoped he knew that I meant it, and wasn’t just tuning out these words as I had been doing with everyone who had tried to offer them to me.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, but not meeting my eye, and I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. “I just wanted to let you know why I flipped out like that.”