Read Online One Summer by David Baldacci - Free Book Online Page B

dare talk to me about dying alone. My Lizzie is lying dead and buried. There was no one with her at the end. No one! Certainly not you.”
    Jack eyed her. “Why don’t you just say it, Bonnie, because I know you want to.”
    “
You
should be dead, not her.” Bonnie seemed stunned by her own words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” Her face flushed. “I’m very sorry.”
    “I
would
give my life to have Lizzie back. But I can’t. I’ve got three kids who need me. Nothing takes priority over that. I hope you can understand.”
    “What I understand is that you’re taking your children from a safe, healthy environment into something totally unknown.”
    “I’m their father,” said Jack heatedly.
    “You’re a single parent. Lizzie isn’t here to take care of the kids.”
    “I can take care of them.”
    “Can you? Because I don’t think you have any idea what’s in store for you.”
    Jack started to say something but stopped.
    Could she be right?

16
    “Mr. Armstrong?”
    Jack stared down from the ladder he was standing on while repairing some siding on a job site. The sun was high overhead, the air warm, and the sweat on his skin thick. He had on a white tank top, dirty dark blue cargo shorts, white crew socks, and worn steel-toed work boots. The woman down below was pretty, with light brown curly hair cut short, and she wore a pair of black slacks and a white blouse; her heels were sunk in the wet grass.
    “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
    “I’m Janice Kaplan. I’m a newspaper reporter. I’d like to talk to you.”
    Jack clambered down the ladder and rubbed his hands off on the back of his shorts. “Talk to me about what?”
    “Being the miracle man.”
    Jack squinted at her. “Come again?”
    “You are the Jack Armstrong who was diagnosed with a terminal illness?”
    “Well, yeah, I was.”
    “You don’t look terminal anymore.”
    “I’m not. I got better.”
    “So a miracle. At least that’s what the doctor I talked to said.”
    Jack looked annoyed. “You talked to my doctor? I thought that was private.”
    “Actually, he’s a friend of mine. He mentioned your case in passing. It was all very positive. I became interested, did a little digging, and here I am.”
    “Here for what?” Jack said, puzzled.
    “To do a story on you. People with death sentences rarely get a second chance. I’d like to talk to you about the experience. And I know my readers would want to know.”
    Jack and the kids had been back for nearly four weeks now. With parenting and financial support resting solely on his shoulders, Jack barely had time to eat or sleep. Bonnie had been right in her prediction. He didn’t have any idea what was in store for him. Mikki had really stepped up and had taken the laboring oar with the cooking and cleaning, the shopping, and looking after the boys. He had never had greater appreciation for Lizzie. She’d done it all, from school to meals to laundry to shopping to keeping the house clean. Jack had worked hard, but he realized now that he hadn’t come close to working as hard as his wife had, because she did all that and worked full-time too. At midnight he lay in his bed, numb and exhausted—and humbled by the knowledge that Lizzie would have still been going strong.
    “A story?” Jack shook his head as he dug a hole in the mulch bed with the toe of his boot. “Look, it’s really not that special.”
    “Don’t be modest. And I also understand that you turned your life around, built your business back, got a house, and went to retrieve your children, who’d been placed with familyafter your wife tragically died.” She added, “I was very sorry to hear about that. On Christmas Eve too, of all days.”
    Jack’s annoyance turned to anger. “You didn’t learn all that from my doctor. That really is an invasion of privacy.”
    “Please don’t be upset, Mr. Armstrong. I’m a reporter; it’s my job to find out these things. And I’m probably not