closet and packed it as if he were going to work, adding the morning newspaper, a few business journals, and a fresh legal pad and pens for notes and ideas he planned to explore.
The car service picked him up right on time and drove him to the station. He boarded the train, found a seat in business class, and spread his work on the table in front of him. There was reassurance in leaning into the routine he’d followed for decades before his illness. And, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine that the past three years had never happened.
So that’s what he did.
As the train pulled out of the station, Chase leaned his head against the glass and listened to the sound of the wheels clattering against the metal rails and found comfort in it.
This would be a great summer.
Four
They left on Sunday afternoon, two days after Stacy’s mother had expected them to arrive, the car stuffed with bags of summer clothes and bathing suits, toys the kids couldn’t leave behind, Stacy’s books, and Ryan’s work. Mail had been stopped, deliveries redirected, and the doorman had been asked to keep an eye on their apartment. With a bit of persuasion, Stacy had managed to get a few deposits returned from the summer camps that had a waiting list, which she considered a minor victory. As Connor’s friend Archie wasn’t attending soccer camp either, plans had been made for him to visit the shore house for a few days later in the summer.
The rain had finally stopped and the ground had begun to dry. Water drained from the streets and fat robins hopped across the lawn, looking for worms. Without apology or excuse, the sun shone bright in a brilliant blue sky, and summer in New Jersey had officially begin.
Tucked into his booster seat in the back, Connor read a children’s book about the lighthouse on Barnegat Bay, one in a stack they’d selected at the bookstore before they left. He’d been delighted at the lighthouse’s nickname— “Old Barney”—and even asked if he could go to see it during the summer. Then, somehow, the discussion had turned to pirates, with Sophie asking about buried treasure as she turned the knobs on her yellow plastic dump truck. She had such a vivid imagination but absolutely no interest in reading. Stacy planned to work on that over the summer.
If her father hadn’t specifically asked for a family summer at the shore house, Stacy wasn’t sure she’d have agreed to come. She loved the house itself, but the truth was that being so close to the ocean made her anxious, for reasons she couldn’t quite place. When she was younger, she had been on the swim team at the pool so she wasn’t afraid of water. Just the ocean.
As Ryan turned on to the Parkway, Stacy closed her eyes and listened to the hum of conversation in the car. The afternoon sun was warm on her face and she let her mind wander to previous summers, car trips down to the shore house when she and her brother were little. She and Brad would come home on the last day of school to find their house strangely empty and still, a row of suitcases by the front door. Their mother had already packed all the clothes they’d need for a summer at the shore: cut-off denim shorts and polo shirts, seersucker dresses and sandals for church and summer parties, tennis whites and Top-Siders for games at the club. Upstairs waiting on their beds would be new canvas totes bought especially for summer. Blue handles for Brad, pink for Stacy. Now officially free from school, they’d shed their uniforms and kick them into the closet, forgotten until September. They’d spend the rest of the day sorting through toys they couldn’t bear to leave behind and fitting them into their one permitted bag.
The drive to the shore house would begin early the following morning, their mother at the wheel. They always stopped twice, though the drive from their home in Princeton to the shore house was barely over an hour. The first stop was at a corner deli close to their house; coffee for their mother and comic books to keep them occupied. The final stop was for pancakes at the Parkway Diner, where Stacy and her brother were allowed to order whatever they wanted.
Summer days at the shore house seemed to fall into a comfortable routine and Stacy looked forward to lazy days