Chapter 9 - Gold in the Scars
months later.
The summer sun was hot and bright over the lake, turning the water into a brilliant, glittering sheet of turquoise and deep sapphire.
The cabin smelled of fresh cedar, lemon polish, and grilled sweet corn.
Out on the deck, Jacob—now seven years old, his hair bleached honey-blond by the summer sun—sat at an easel that David had built for him out of scrap white pine. It was an enormous, sturdy thing, with adjustable brass pegs and a heavy cross-brace that ensured it wouldn't wobble even if a gale blew in off the water.
Jacob was painting.
His palette was covered in rich, thick swirls of acrylic paint: ultramarine, cadmium yellow, burnt umber, titanium white. He was laughing, dipping a wide flat brush into water and flicking tiny, playful drops at the canvas.
Beside him sat David, wearing an old canvas sun hat and a faded chambray shirt. He was whittling a piece of basswood with a small, sharp pocketknife, curling translucent ribbons of wood onto the deck boards.
I walked out through the screen door, carrying a pitcher of fresh lemonade with mint from the small garden patch we had planted near the driveway.
"How’s the masterpiece coming, Picasso?" I asked, setting the glasses down on the sturdy pine table—the same table that David had spent three weekends sanding down, restaining, and sealing until not a single trace of Jessica’s wine remained in the wood.
Jacob turned around, his face beaming. "Grandpa taught me how to make shadows! Look, Dad! Under the dock, it’s not just black. It’s purple and dark green!"
"Incredible, buddy," I said, kissing his forehead.
From inside the cabin, the mail carrier's truck rattled down the dirt driveway, dropping the daily post into the galvanized box by the road.
I walked down the drive to collect it. There were the usual utility bills, a catalog for woodworking tools for David, and a single, thin white envelope addressed to *David Vance*.
The return address was from a retail department store in northwest suburban Chicago.
I carried it back to the deck and handed it to my father. David set down his whittling knife, wiped his hands on his canvas pants, and opened the envelope with his thumb.
Inside was a single handwritten note on cheap lined paper, accompanied by a cashier’s check for eighty-two dollars and fifty cents.
*Dad,*
*I work thirty-two hours a week at the customer service desk at Kohl's. It pays fourteen dollars an hour. Claire says I have to pay her two hundred dollars a month for the basement room, so this is all I can spare from my second paycheck.*
*It’s for the table. The damage I did to the antique pine.*
*I know it doesn't cover anything. I know you don't want to hear from me. But the legal counselor at the clinic said I need to start paying back the debts that don't have court orders attached to them if I ever want to stop feeling like I’m suffocating.*
*Tell Jacob I’m sorry about his drawing.*
*Jessica.*
David held the note for a long time. The wind rustled the edges of the cheap paper, carrying the sweet, clean smell of the pines across the deck.
He didn't tear it up. He didn't scoff.
He neatly folded the letter, slipped the cashier’s check into his shirt pocket, and laid the note beside his whittling knife.
"Is that from Aunt Jessica?" Jacob asked, pausing his brush in mid-air.
David looked up at his grandson. "Yes, Jake. It is."
"Is she still mad at us?"
"No, buddy," David said softly, looking out across the vast, shining expanse of the lake. "She isn't mad anymore. She’s just learning how to build her own foundation. From the ground up. It takes a long time when you have to clear away that much rubble."
May you like
Jacob thought about that for a moment, nodded with the simple, profound wisdom of a seven-year-old, and went back to blending his purple shadows beneath the dock.
***
