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| Categories | Dramas & Plays |
| Author | Kristin Hannah |
| Publisher | Random House Publishing Group (November 2, 2004) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 448 pages |
| Item Weight | 2.31 pounds |
| Dimensions |
5.15 x 0.93 x 8 inche |
I. Book introduction
Summer Island by American author Kristin Hannah. The narrative follows Nora Bridge, a successful advice columnist and radio host, as she navigates a scandal that destroys her career and forces her to finally address the family secrets she’s spent decades running from. The novel explores themes such as The Pain of Family Secrets and Estrangement, The Consequences of Fame and Maintaining Appearances, and The Healing Power of Forgiveness and Releasing the Past.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Great Alone returns with a poignant, funny, luminous novel about a mother and daughter—the complex ties that bind them, the past that separates them, and the healing that comes with forgiveness.
Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters behind. She has since become a famous radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist beloved for her moral advice. Her youngest daughter, Ruby, is a struggling comedienne who uses her famous mother as fuel for her bitter, cynical humor. When the tabloids unearth a scandalous secret from Nora’s past, their estrangement suddenly becomes dramatic: Nora is injured in an accident and a glossy magazine offers Ruby a fortune to write a tell-all about her mother. Under false pretenses, Ruby returns home to take care of the woman she hasn’t spoken to for almost a decade.
Nora insists they retreat to Summer Island in the San Juans, to the lovely old house on the water where Ruby grew up, a place filled with childhood memories of love and joy and belonging. There Ruby is also reunited with her first love and his brother. Once, the three of them had been best friends, inseparable. Until the summer that Nora had left and everyone’s hearts had been broken. . . .
What began as an expose evolves, as Ruby writes, into an exploration of her family’s past. Nora is not the woman Ruby has hated all these years. Witty, wise, and vulnerable, she is desperate to reconcile with her daughter. As the magazine deadline draws near and Ruby finishes what has begun to seem to her an act of brutal betrayal, she is forced to grow up and at last to look at her mother–and herself–through the eyes of a woman. And she must, finally, allow herself to love.
Summer Island is a beautiful novel, funny, tender, sad, and ultimately triumphant.
Editorial Reviews
- “[Kristin] Hannah is superb at delving into the characters’ psyches and delineating nuances of feeling.”—Washington Post Book World
- “A fascinating story of love, healing, forgiveness . . . certain to strike a chord in the hearts of mothers and daughters everywhere.”—Tulsa World
- “A warm and touching story about very human characters whose personal situations come to life with realism and sensitivity.”—Library Journal
- “Many a daughter will see something of herself in Ruby.”—People
- “Totally brilliant.”—The Midwest Book Review
- “A beautiful novel, funny and tender, sad and wonderfully satisfying.”—Tahoe Tribune
About Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah (born September 25, 1960) is an American writer. Her most notable works include Winter Garden, The Nightingale, Firefly Lane, The Great Alone, and The Four Winds. In 2024, St. Martin’s Publishing Group published her novel, The Women, which is set in America in the 1960s.
Kristin Hannah was born in California. After graduating with a degree in communication from the University of Washington, Hannah worked at an advertising agency in Seattle. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound law school and practiced law in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer. Hannah wrote her first novel with her mother, who was dying of cancer at the time, but the book was never published.
Hannah’s best-selling work, The Nightingale, has sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide and has been published in 45 languages.
Hannah lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with her husband and their son.
II. Reviewer: Summer Island by Kristin Hannah
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1. ASHLEY DAVIAU reviews for Summer Island
I was expecting this book to be a lighthearted easy read but boy was I ever wrong! This book absolutely destroyed me and had me sobbing by the end. I related so strongly to the main character Ruby, I felt like I was reading about myself at times and I think that’s why I reacted so strongly to her story. In fact, reading Ruby’s story opened my eyes to my own destructive behaviour that mirrors hers and it really forced me to think about difficult issues that I normally avoid. It was startling how much her life, everything she’s been through and the demons in her closet were similar to mine. I just sat there for the longest time after finishing it, trying to gather my thoughts in a way that made sense. Reading this book was such a life changing moment for me and I simply can’t express how much this book affected me. I still can’t stop thinking about this book and I’m so thankful it ended up in my hands, I really needed to read this at this time in my life.
2. MANDY reviews for Summer Island
Summer Island is a very touching story about the power of love through healing and forgiveness. It reminds us that each story has three sides and how sometimes we need to look past our own hurt and anger to renew an old relationship.
Summer’s Island is sold on it being a book about Mother/Daughter relationships but it is so much more. It is truths hidden behind masks; love lost yet still yearned for. It is pain from being apart from family; and resentment for losing so much time.
Kristen Hannah once again delivers a powerful story that anyone can relate too. Summer’s Island is both sad and uplifting having you laugh and cry throughout the whole story and reaching for the phone to call someone you lost contact with when it is over.
3. NOELLA reviews for Summer Island
Personages:
-Nora:: een beroemde telefonische en schriftelijke raadgeefster bij relationele problemen.
-Caroline: oudste dochter van Nora, getrouwd met Jere, moeder van Jenny en Freddie, en stiefdochter Susan.
-Ruby: jongste dochter van Nora, comedienne op zoek naar werk, jeugdliefde van Dean Sloan.
-Dean: heel rijke jonge man, die het familiebedrijf leidt. Jeugdliefde van Ruby.
-Eric: broer van Dean, lijdend aan kanker.
-Rand: ex-echtgenoot van Nora, vader van Caroline en Ruby.
-Marilyn: tweede vrouw van Rand. Samen hebben ze een zoontje.
Het verhaal speelt zich af op Summer Island, waar de familie Bridge een vakantiehuis heeft. Nadat Nora verwikkeld geraakt in een schandaal, en dan ook nog een verkeersongeluk krijgt, besluit ze uit te wijken naar het vakantiehuis. Omdat ze nog wat hulp nodig heeft, stemt haar dochter Ruby erin toe haar gezelschap te houden. Dit is zeer verwonderlijk, want Ruby haat haar moeder.
Er is in het verleden zoveel gebeurd, dat de relatie tussen Nora en haar dochters totaal verziekt is. Caroline heeft gedurende al die jaren de schijn nog een beetje opgehouden, maar Ruby had totaal gebroken met haar moeder.
Kan de tijd die ze samen doorbrengen op Summer Island hen terug nader tot elkaar brengen? Of zal Ruby toch halsstarrig haar verborgen agenda blijven volgen?
Dit en nog veel meer komen we te weten in dit ontroerende boek, dat ik niet weg kon leggen.
4. OBSIDIAN reviews for Summer Island
“Summer Island‘ deals with a young woman Ruby who is estranged from her famous mother (Nora) and barely talks to her older sister and father who is long remarried with a new child. Readers are slowly walked through these two women’s histories and we find out what Nora did to have her estranged from Ruby and partially estranged from her other daughter as well.
I liked the character of Ruby. She was feisty, but passionate. Also was totally in the wrong several times so I did feel for her. What was good though is that she didn’t just stick her head in the sand when she slowly found out her mother’s real history which led to her own. I do wonder though how she didn’t see what was really going on? I think sometimes you see what you want, and this book takes a mirror up to those who believe that their childhoods were perfect and turns it on their head when it’s revealed not so much.
I felt for Nora too though I wish we had gotten more involved with her storyline. I liked how the book focuses on Ruby with Nora coming along to give clarity to more and more. I wonder though why she didn’t try sooner with Ruby though? Did she not just want to deal with rejection? Was it easier? Considering that Nora’s job was an Agony Aunt of sorts it seems surreal she was advising other people on their lives when her life was really not this idealized thing. When Nora’s past comes a calling, I think Hannah did a great job showing the repercussions of what would happen.
One reason why I gave this only four stars though, is that we don’t spend much time with Ruby’s sister (Caro) who was dealing with some very real things. I didn’t like how her storyline ended up, since it felt tacked on (give everyone a happy ending). It would have worked for me if there was a sequel dealing with Caro and what was going on in her marriage and how she felt overwhelmed as a mother.
The other person this book focuses on is Ruby’s old boyfriend Dean and his brother who is dying of cancer. I really wish that Dean had been cut out of the book. He added nothing to the story and I find it hard to believe based on what we see of him initially, that he was sitting around pining for his teenage girlfriend. He and Ruby really didn’t have any chemistry, and I was more focused on the storyline focusing on Ruby and her mother, and then Ruby and her sister then with him.
The writing was really great and the book flowed wonderfully. We get to see the roller coaster of Ruby and Nora’s relationship and how flawed things were and why neither one of them really wanted to revisit the past.
The setting of Summer Island in the San Juans didn’t really get used that well. We had people go sailing and go to the beach once in while, but nothing else really. I would have liked the beach aspect or the small island life with people that both characters would have known get used a lot more.
5. ROB reviews for Summer Island
Islands are just small towns with lots of water!
Good book for easy summer reading. An island is where I live and truly everyone knows everything about you. But family and life is cozy and friends are abundant. I never had a sister to love, so my two best friends stood in her place. Enjoy the read and the family bonding!
I so enjoy Kristin’s writing!
6. KIM reviews for Summer Island
This was an important story about parent\child relationships. We don’t always know what our parents have experienced in their lives and in their marriage. This story is a reminder of that and how we need to try to understand and forgive our parents for their failings. Don’t cut your heart off from emotions, in particular love, because you fear you’ll just be hurt in the way your parents hurt you. Everyone experienced life differently.
7. TEDDIE S reviews for Summer Island
Not one of Kristin Hannah’s best, but still a good read
This is a story about the estranged relationship between a mother and daughter. Nora Bridge is a well-known and respected advice columnist and radio talk show host who is always espousing the importance of family. In reality, Nora and her own daughter haven’t spoken in years. Ruby Bridge is a struggling standup comic who’s stand-up routine consists of telling stinging jokes about the mother who abandoned her.
Things change when Nora’s fans turn against her after a secret in her past is made public by a would-be blackmailer. When Nora is hurt in a car accident, she flees to the family summer cottage to recover from her injuries and get away from the tabloid press. When Ruby surprisingly volunteers to come to the summer cottage to take care of her mother while she recovers, Nora is hopeful this will lead to a reconciliation with her daughter. What Nora doesn’t know is that Ruby has accepted $50,000 to write a “tell all” magazine article about her mother.
This sounds like the makings of a good story (and I haven’t even mentioned the rekindling of a childhood romance storyline, or the childhood friend who is now dying storyline). The book isn’t bad, but it did fall a bit flat for me. It probably didn’t help that Ruby isn’t the most sympathetic character.
“Summer Island” was not nearly as compelling a story as Kristin Hannah’s “The Nightingale“, an historical fiction about two sisters during the Second World War. Nor was it as enjoyable a read as “Firefly Lane“, about two best friends during the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. I think this book deserves 3.5 stars, but I’m rounding up because of the goodwill left over from prior books I’ve read by this author. And because I look forward to reading another Kristin Hannah book soon.
8. LYNN H.BEAM reviews for Summer Island
Every allusion is a gateway
Extraordinary! A remarkable story. The best I’ve read in a very long time. So damn funny. Ruby boasts that she was number one in her graduating class and her sister reminds her there were ten people and three had flunked out. So many clever insights. A near tragedy for some, and a rousing success for others. Years squandered over foolish assumptions. Nora and her girls squabbled over repressed truth. And Eric was part of an unforgiving family who turned on him because he was gay. Dire Straits, Elvis, and so many other bands were such appropriate backgrounds to the various themes. Kristin Hannah at her best
9. AMANDA KIMBALL reviews for Summer Island
I didn’t have very high expectations for this book. I picked it up in a whim for $2, and it sat on my shelf for a good 4 months. What a wasted time! This book was wonderful. Complex and intellectually stimulating. I felt for Nora and was drawn to her despite her flaws. Ruby and Caro were definitely on opposite ends of the spectrum, but it worked so well. As a daughter and a sister, I could easily relate to pieces of them. You look at their family, their story, and see the good and the bad of your own. You remember, if only for the moments you are reading, how precious family is and how quickly time passes, and you drift apart. It doesn’t matter the intentions or the reasons, this book makes you want to call your loved ones just to take advantage of the moments you do have. Family is about fighting, forgiving, accepting, and loving; not only one another but yourself. I loved that Nora, despite her flaws, could see through the bad and help those in the wrong direction. I didn’t feel she was a hypocrite, just lost on her journey to find herself, and make peace with her past.
My favorite character was Eric. I loved his honesty and outlook on life. His character was deeply developed even though we didnt/couldn’t interact with him the way we could the other characters. I wept for him. It’s no surprise, we prepare for it all along, but you never think you will be so enveloped in a character until the final moments hit you. I hated his parents and their selfishness, but realize the gift that his suffering gave to Nora and Ruby.
I would 100% recommend this novel to friends. This is definitely a keeper! I look forward to reading more by the author, and can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover her.
10. CATHLEEN reviews for Summer Island
I didn’t have this book on my TBR list. I picked this up last weekend along with another book from this author. I started reading this Wednesday night. Massachusetts is having a heat wave and I do not have air conditioning. I thought this would be a good book to read during the hot, sticky and sleepless nights.
I finished reading this story at 4:45 AM this morning. Some books should come with warning labels so you will know the story between the covers may cause you to feel a variety of emotions. There were times I found my laughter or smile quickly changing to tears.
This story is about a woman who walked away from her marriage and her 2 daughters. She becomes a radio celebrity with her own show. She gives advice to callers on a variety of issues. Then something from her past is made public and she becomes undesirable. She gets suspended from her talk show and her fans quickly turn their backs on her. She becomes the latest “news”.
She finds herself in the house she lived in with her husband and children. Her youngest daughter, who she had no contact with for many years, is staying with her. From that point on unfolds a story of a mother and a daughter trying to find a way to come to terms with each other and a past that caused so much pain.
This is a remarkable story in so many ways. A family coming to terms with a painful past, secrets, forgiveness, rebuilding of relationship between a mother and her daughters, loss of a close family friend and the renewal of a childhood romance.
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys this genre.
III. Summer Island Quotes by Kristin Hannah
The best book quotes from Summer Island by Kristin Hannah
“How did two people move backward through time and untie a knot that had tangled through every moment of their lives?”
“And when we let the media choose our heroes for us, we are lost already.”
“Objects in a mirror are closer than they appear. That was true of memories as well; it was best not to look.”
“ no , but I loved him too much, and that can be as bad as not loving someone enough. I needed so much reassurance and love, I sucked him dry. No man can fill up all the dark places in a woman’s soul.”
“I know how it feels when someone you love stops loving you back. It’s a kind of mini-death that breaks something inside of you.”
“Living with an alcoholic will do that to you. You grow up hiding, flinching, protecting the very man you should expose”
“I want someone in my family to love me while I’m alive. Is that so much to ask?”
“As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.”
“A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep into her bones.”
“She remembered how it had felt and tasted, that slowly descending depression, like a thick glass jar that closed around you, sucking away the air you needed to breathe, creating a barrier between you and the world. The hell of it was that she’d been able to see all that she was missing, but when she’d reached out, all she’d touched was cold, hard glass.”
“Caro: “Bite me.”
Ruby: “I gave that up in kindergarten.”“The heat made people crazy. They woke from their damp bedsheets and went in search of a glass of water, surprised to find that when their vision cleared, they were holding instead the gun they kept hidden in the bookcase.”
“The measure of a society is its compassion.”
“A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE…AND THE SENATE.”
“She pouted prettily, and he wondered if that was one of the things they taught wealthy young girls at schools like Miss Porter’s. If not, it had been passed down from one generation to another as carefully as the secret of fire.”
“No matter how dark a place is, there are always moments of light.”
“A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep in her bones. This I know now.”
“I went in search of my mother’s life, and found my own.”
“In that quiet, Ruby heard the echo of a broken family; they were individual pieces, now separate, wanting a wholeness that had been shattered.”
“She collected grudges and heartaches the way she’d once collected Barbies, never sharing, never abandoning.”
“Vietnam…war…it did something to us. Or maybe not. Maybe the bad seeds were always in me, and war gave them a dark place in which to grow.”
“A generous donor (who had no doubt lived a life that imperiled his mortal soul) had granted [the Sisters] more than one hundred waterfront acres.”
“Ruby understood. She wouldn’t have a week ago, but now she did. You won’t break. She halted, thinking. It was important that she phrase it well, that she pass on something of what she’d learned about this family of theirs. You think you have to hold it all in, and if you let any of it go, you’ll shatter into tiny pieces and you won’t know who you are. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s more like … opening your eyes in a room you’d expected to be dark. You can see things, and it makes you feel stronger. She laughed. God I sound like Obi-wan on heroin. Jeez Rube, Caroline said, sniffling a little. My little sister has finally grown up.”
“Shadows crept along the ground like slowly seeping India ink, moved up the sides of the house, and slipped through the slats on the picket fence. Sunset tinted the sky purple and pink.”
“I’d always believed that the truth of a person was easily spotted, a line drawn in dark ink on white paper. Now, I wonder. Maybe the truth of who we are lies hidden in all those shades of gray that everyone talks about.”
“Now, she listens and agrees, and then goes on, talking about the gift of mistakes and the miracle of family. She hopes that people will learn from her bad choices. And she wraps that spell around them, the one only she can spin, and by the end of the show, her listeners are reaching for tissues and thinking about how to find their way back to their own families. The smart ones are reaching for the telephone.”
“Nora’s gaze was steady. “No matter how dark a place is, there are always moments of light. That’s what I passed on to you and Caroline, my moments of light.”
“I know I won’t be able to stand on the edge of intimacy. Sooner or later, I will have to dive into those cold, deep waters, and there is no end to the ripples my entrance will make. I”
“My childhood, I thought naively, was mine alone, those memories painted in vibrant oil strokes on the canvas of my years.”
“Can you let yourself jump without a net? Because that’s what love is, what faith is. You’re looking for a guarantee, and those come with auto parts. Not love.”
“He pulled back and slowly got to his feet. We’ve all been carrying this baggage for too long. Some of us have tried to go on. He looked at her. And some of us have refused to. But all of us are hurting. I’m your father. She’s your mother – whatever she’s done or hasn’t done, or said or hasn’t said – she a part of you and you’re a part of her. Don’t you see that you can’t be whole without her?”
“The minute he saw her, he understood what had been missing from his life. It was hokey, he knew, and sentimental and sappy, but that didn’t make it any less true. What he’d been longing for, without even realizing it, had been that elusive, magical mixture of friendship and passion that he’d only ever found with her.”
“There’s no substitute for talking to the people you love. Thinking about them, dreaming about them, wishing things were different … all of these are the beginning. But someone has to make the first move. I”
“The waters of the past were as cold as she’d expected, even in the heat of this gorgeous summer morning.”
Excerpted from Summer Island by Kristin Hannah
An early evening rain had fallen. In the encroaching darkness, the streets of Seattle lay like mirrored strips between the glittering gray high-rises.
The dot-com revolution had changed this once quiet city, and even after the sun had set, the clattering, hammering sounds of construction beat a constant rhythm. Buildings sprouted overnight, it seemed, reaching higher and higher into the soggy sky. Purple-haired kids with nose rings and ragged clothes zipped through downtown in brand-new, bright-red Ferraris.
On a corner lot in the newly fashionable neighborhood of Belltown, there was a squat, wooden-sided structure that used to sit alone. It had been built almost one hundred years earlier, when few people had wanted to live so far from the heart of the city.
The owners of radio station KJZZ didn’t care that they no longer fit in this trendy area. For fifty years they had broadcast from this lot. They had grown from a scrappy local station to Washington’s largest.
Part of the reason for their current wave of success was Nora Bridge, the newest sensation in talk radio.
Although her show, Spiritual Healing with Nora, had been in syndication for less than a year, it was already a bona fide hit. Advertisers and affiliates couldn’t write checks fast enough, and her weekly newspaper advice column, “Nora Knows Best,” had never been more popular. It appeared in more than 2,600 papers nationwide.
Nora had started her career as a household hints adviser for a small-town newspaper, but hard work and a strong vision had moved her up the food chain. The women of Seattle had been the first to discover her unique blend of passion and morality; the rest of the country had soon followed.
Reviewers claimed that she could see a way through any emotional conflict; more often than not, they mentioned the purity of her heart.
But they were wrong. It was the impurity in her heart that made her successful. She was an ordinary woman who’d made extraordinary mistakes. She understood every nuance of need and loss.
There was never a time in her life, barely even a moment, when she didn’t remember what she’d lost. What she’d thrown away. Each night she brought her own regrets to the microphone, and from that wellspring of sorrow, she found compassion.
She had managed her career with laserlike focus, carefully feeding the press a palatable past. Even the previous week when People magazine had featured her on the cover, there had been no investigative story on her life. She had covered her tracks well. Her fans knew she’d been divorced and that she had grown daughters. The hows and whys of her family’s destruction remained-thankfully-private.
Tonight, Nora was on the air. She scooted her wheeled chair closer to the microphone and adjusted her headphones. A computer screen showed her the list of callers on hold. She pushed line two, which read: Marge/mother-daughter probs.
“Hello and welcome, Marge, you’re on the air with Nora Bridge. What’s on your mind this evening?”
“Hello . . . Nora?” The caller sounded hesitant, a little startled at actually hearing her voice on the air after waiting on hold for nearly an hour.
Nora smiled, although only her producer could see it. Her fans, she’d learned, were often anxious. She lowered her voice, gentled it. “How can I help you, my friend?”
“I’m having a little trouble with my daughter, Suki.” The caller’s flattened vowels identified her as a midwesterner.
“How old is Suki, Marge?”
“Sixty-seven this November.”
Nora laughed. “I guess some things never change, eh, Marge?”
“Not between mothers and daughters. Suki gave me my first gray hair when I was thirty years old. Now I look like Colonel Sanders.”
Nora’s laugh was quieter this time. At forty-nine, she no longer found gray hair a laughing matter. “So, Marge, what’s the problem with Suki?”
“Well.” Marge made a snorting sound. “Last week she went on one of those singles cruises-you know the ones, where they all wear Hawaiian shirts and drink purple cocktails? Anyway, today, she told me she’s getting married again to a man she met on the boat. At her age.” She snorted again, then paused. “I know she wanted me to be happy for her, but how could I? Suki’s a flibbertigibbet. My Tommy and I were married for seventy years.”
Nora considered how to answer. Obviously, Marge knew that she and Suki weren’t young anymore, and that time had a way of pulverizing your best intentions. There was no point in being maudlin and mentioning it. Instead, she asked gently, “Do you love your daughter?”
“I’ve always loved her.” Marge’s voice caught on a little sob. “You can’t know what it’s like, Nora, to love your daughter so much . . . and watch her stop needing you. What if she marries this man and forgets all about me?”
Nora closed her eyes and cleared her mind. She’d learned that skill long ago; callers were constantly saying things that struck at the heart of her own pain. She’d had to learn to let it go. “Every mother is afraid of that, Marge. The only way to really hold on to our children is to let them go. Let Suki take your love with her, let it be like a light that’s always on in the house where she grew up. If she has that for strength, she’ll never be too far away.”
Marge wept softly. “Maybe I could call her . . . ask her to bring her boyfriend around for supper.”
“That would be a wonderful start. Good luck to you, Marge, and be sure and let us know how it all works out.” She cleared her throat and disconnected the call. “Come on, everybody,” she said into the microphone, “let’s help Marge out. I know there are plenty of you who have mended families. Call in. Marge and I want to be reminded that love isn’t as fragile as it sometimes feels.”
She leaned back in the chair, watching as the phone lines lit up. Parenting issues were always a popular topic-especially mother- daughter problems. On the monitor by her elbow, she saw the words: line four/trouble with stepdaughter/Ginny.
She picked up line four. “Hello and welcome, Ginny. You’re on the air with Nora Bridge.”
“Uh. Hi. I love your show.”
“Thanks, Ginny. How are things in your family?”
For the next two hours and thirteen minutes, Nora gave her heart and soul to her listeners. She never pretended to have all the answers, or to be a substitute for doctors or family therapy. Instead, she tried to give her friendship to these troubled, ordinary people she’d never met.
As was her custom, when the show was finally over, she returned to her office. There, she took the time to write personal thank-you notes to any of those callers who’d been willing to leave an address with the show’s producer. She always did this herself; no secretary ever copied Nora’s signature. It was a little thing, but Nora firmly believed in it. Anyone who’d been courageous enough to publicly ask for advice from Nora deserved a private thank-you.
By the time she finished, she was running late.
She grabbed her Fendi briefcase and hurried to her car. Fortunately, it was only a few miles to the hospital. She parked in the underground lot and emerged into the lobby’s artificial brightness.
It was past visiting hours, but this was a small, privately run hospital, and Nora had become such a regular visitor-every Saturday and Tuesday for the past month-that certain rules had been bent to accommodate her busy schedule. It didn’t hurt that she was a local celebrity, or that the nurses loved her radio show.
She smiled and waved to the familiar faces as she walked down the corridor toward Eric’s room. Outside his closed door, she paused, collecting herself.
Although she saw him often, it was never easy. Eric Sloan was as close to a son as she would ever have, and watching him battle cancer was unbearable. But Nora was all he had. His mother and father had written Eric off long ago, unable to accept his life’s choices, and his beloved younger brother, Dean, rarely made time to visit.
She pushed open the door to his room and saw that he was sleeping. He lay in bed, with his head turned toward the window. A multicolored afghan, knitted by Nora’s own hands, was wrapped around his too-thin body.
With his hair almost gone and his cheeks hollowed and his mouth open, he looked as old and beaten as a man could be. And he hadn’t yet celebrated his thirty-first birthday.
For a moment, it was as if she hadn’t seen him before. As if . . . although she’d watched his daily deterioration, she hadn’t actually seen it, and now it had sneaked up on her, stolen her friend’s face while she was foolishly pretending that everything would be all right.
But it wouldn’t be. Just now, this second, she understood what he’d been trying to tell her, and the grieving-which she’d managed to box into tiny, consumable squares-threatened to overwhelm her. In that one quiet heartbeat of time, she went from hopeful to . . . not. And if it hurt her this terribly, the lack of hope, how could he bear it?
She went to him, gently caressed the bare top of his head. The few thin strands of his hair, delicate as spiderwebs, brushed across her knuckles.
He blinked up at her sleepily, trying for a boyish grin and almost succeeding. “I have good news and bad news,” he said.
She touched his shoulder, and felt how fragile he was. So unlike the tall, strapping black-haired boy who’d carried her groceries into the house . . .
There was a tiny catch in her voice as she said cheerfully, “What’s the good news?”
“No more treatments.”
She clutched his shoulder too hard; his bones shifted, birdlike, and immediately she let go. “And the bad news?”
His gaze was steady. “No more treatments.” He paused. “It was Dr. Calomel’s idea.”
….
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