Page 22 of Summer With You

I knew my brother loved Amber too much to ever hurt her like she’d been imagining.

Thirty minutes later, we walked down the grass hill to the boat dock. The men carried a cooler each and the beach bags, leaving Amber and me to follow behind, watching our steps so that we didn’t stand in landmines of duck shit.

“I stood in duck poop!” Summer wailed, running past me to her father. “My flipflop is ruined, Dad!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll wash it in the lake.”

“Wait, the lake? We swim in that lake. I am not swimming with duck poop!” Amber and I both laughed.

“Then I guess we’ll have to donate that flip flop to the trash.” Ace walked up the steep steps of the dock, turned, and helped the kids up, before reaching his hand out to me. “Careful. I don’t need you getting hurt on this trip.”

I gripped his hand tightly, let him hoist me up so that I didn’t exert too much energy. Sweat coated my body from the short walk, my hair sticking to my neck. Amber was fanning her flushed face, and naturally, the kids were complaining about the heat.

We slowly got into my parents' large pontoon boat, first the kids, then Amber, and lastly, me. We got the kids settled into seats quickly. Ryan and Ace took care of undocking the boat as Amber and I lathered the kids up in sunscreen and insisted on everyone having some water.

Dehydration was a huge problem this time of the year on the lake. It took one bout of sunstroke to teach me my lesson our first summer here, and I would never let my kids be that sick.

The sticky air hung heavily on all of us as we pulled out of the shaded dock into the bright sunlight, which instantly burned my skin. I quickly sprayed my arms with the coconut-smelling sunscreen, and then went and took care of my already sunburnt husband.

A few minutes later, we were bouncing over waves, the children squealing when we went over a big wake from another boat. Music flowed out of the big speakers as we cruised the lake that I had spent so many summers on already.

Eventually, we pulled into a quiet cove away from the other boaters, letting the kids jump off the back of the boat into the cold waters. Each of them wore a bright life jacket so we could keep count of their bobbing heads in the dark water.

“Come, let’s join them.” Amber zipped up one of the bigger jackets around her belly. She jumped off the back right into Ryan’s arms with a scream, wrapping her arms around his neck instantly and pecking his nose.

I pulled on the last jacket and zipped it up quickly jumping into the icy cold water right into my husband’s safe arms. My two kids instantly swarmed me, our little family finally happy.

“Mommy!” Charlie and Summer clung to me, and I held on tightly to Ace, afraid they’d accidentally drag me down.

Glancing at my best friend I saw the same happiness mirrored in her expression as mine, so much better than the desperation and stress that I saw last night. I knew my brother loved her. Sometimes marriage was hard, even when we thought we had been through the worst of it.

Fighting for love was always better than letting it go.

Dipping my head back into the water, I gazed up at the blue, cloudless sky. This was going to be the perfect summer that we all needed.

Or so I thought.

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