Postcards from Summer

Cynthia Platt

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781534474413
• eBook ISBN: 9781534474420

The Notebook meets Love & Gelato in this heart-wrenching novel "full of deep romance and searing tragedy" ( Kirkus Reviews ) about a teen girl who travels to her late mother's majestic summertime home to learn of the romance—and the tragedy—that changed her life forever. Seventeen-year-old Lexi has always wanted to know more about the mother who passed away when she was only a child. But her dad will barely talk about her. He says he'd rather live in the present with Lexi, her stepmom, and her half-brother. Lexi loves her family, too, but is it so wrong to want to learn about the mom she never got to know?When Lexi's grandma dies and secretly leaves her a worn blue chest that belonged to Lexi's mother, Lexi is ecstatic to find a treasure trove of keepsakes. Her mom held onto letters, pamphlets, flyers, and news articles all from the same beautiful summertime getaway: Mackinac Island—plus a cryptic postcard that hints at a forbidden romance. If Lexi wants answers, this island is where she needs to go.Without telling her dad, Lexi goes to the gorgeous Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, reachable only by ferry. Cars are forbidden and bikes are the number one mode of transportation along the quaint cobblestone streets, and the magical hotel that rests alongside cozy cafés and bookshops. While following her mother's footsteps, Lexi befriends an elderly former Broadway star and a charming young hotel worker while quickly falling in love with her surroundings.But though the island may be beautiful, it's hiding unfortunate secrets—some with her mother at the center. Could some questions be best left buried beneath the blue waters?

CHAPTER 1 Lexi (Now)

Sometimes when I was little I’d spin in circles till I got dizzy. Partly I liked the thrill of the spinning, like I’d created my own little hurricane with me at the eye of it. But I also liked what happened after my body stopped but my brain hadn’t caught up to that fact yet. Everything would still be twisting and turning. I’d look at the world around me, and it would be the same as it had been before I’d started spinning, but everything would look different, too.

I sort of feel that way right now, but without needing to spin to make it happen. Even on a quiet night, our kitchen looks a little like it’s swirling from the off-kilter blur of color that is my half brother Connor’s art taped onto every possible surface. Tonight is not a quiet night.

Dad chops veggies and hums as Connor literally runs in circles around the kitchen table fetching ingredients for him. My stepmom, Abby, smiles at them from her work-cluttered seat at the head of the table like nothing makes her happier than her two guys (as she calls them) making dinner. It’s a heartwarming scene, really.

As I stand in the doorway, though, it’s hard not to wish that some of this familial warmth was aimed at me. It’s not fun to feel jealous of a five-year-old, especially one I love as much as I love this kid. But a tiny pang of envy hits me anyway. I barely remember my mom, and would’ve killed to have this kind of relationship with my dad when I was little. Or even now.

Connor starts reciting the poem he “read” at his kindergarten graduation as he runs.

“Kindergarten

Is now done.

On to first grade,

Oh what fun!”

He stumbles on every other word but since he’s five and adorable (even I can’t resist those dark brown curls and dimples), Dad and Abby don’t care.

“Can you do it again?” Dad asks.

“Really?” Connor’s eyes are wide with happiness.

“Of course really,” Dad tells him. “It’s my new favorite poem.”

Abby stops going through her work to listen to Connor recite the millionth rendition of this poem she’s heard over the last couple of weeks. “Wonderful, sweetie,” she says. “Just like you were at graduation today.”

To be fair, Connor did do a pretty great job at his graduation ceremony, even if his paper graduation cap slipped over his eyes during his recitation. As the true child of two lawyers, he just kept talking like nothing had gone wrong.

Even if he hadn’t, Dad and Abby would still tell him he’s the best.

The pang of envy returns. When I turn back to look at the stairs, it becomes a wave of nausea. Because while everything’s swirling around down here, I know what’s waiting up there.

The package arrived while Dad, Abby, and Connor were at the store, so none of them saw it. It’s addressed to me, or at least to some alternative-universe me: Alexandria Roth. My first name and my mom’s last name before she married Dad. The return address lists a nursing home in Michigan.

I turn and glance back toward the living room. To the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms. All I have to do is get through dinner and I can go see what’s inside the package to alternative-universe me.

“Lexi, did you hear me?” Dad’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

“No… what?”

“The table?” he says. “Can you set it? The pizza’s already in the oven.”

“Oh… of course,” I mumble. “I just zoned out for a second.”

“Well, try to zone back in, okay?” he says. “It’s Connor’s graduation celebration.” Nothing about his tone sounds angry or even annoyed, but resentment that he’s now dad of the year gets under my skin, making the nausea even worse.

Without another word, I set the table while Connor recites the poem again. Then I sit down across from him. The seat next to him has been empty since my stepsister, Chloe, left for school in California. Just looking at it makes my stomach feel worse. If she were here, we’d open the package together. If she were here, I wouldn’t feel this lonely in my own family.

But she’s not even coming home this summer except for a long weekend in August. As I look at her empty chair again, the smell of Connor’s chosen meal for tonight, veggie pizza and French fries, makes me gag. I push the food around on my plate, hoping that no one notices.

“Aren’t you hungry, Lexi?” Abby asks.

“My stomach’s not feeling great,” I admit. “I’m not sure pizza and fries are going to help.”

She reaches over and presses her hand to my forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” she tells me. “Maybe you should go upstairs and lie down for a little while.”

This couldn’t be better if I’d planned it. And I really didn’t plan it. My mind is about as diabolical as… well… a ladybug.

“Maybe I should,” I agree. I get up from the table, only to find my dad looking at me with a crease between his eyebrows. Before he starts in on me, I hurry upstairs. The sooner I get to my package the better.

When I close the door to the room I used to share with Chloe, I grab the package from the floor of my closet. Placing it carefully on my bed, I run my fingers over the address label. Alexandria Roth. It could be some weird scam. It could be anthrax for all I know.

I’m going to open it anyway. Besides, who sends anthrax from a nursing home? I grab a pair of scissors from my desk and slit the package open. I don’t know why I’m so nervous about this. It’s probably just a promotional thing, or even something that got ordered under the wrong name. But then, my eyes snag on the return address again: Refuge by the Lake Nursing Facility.

I take a deep breath and sift through the layers of bubble wrap inside the box.

Just under it all lies a note.

Dear Alexandria,

Let me begin by offering my condolences. Your grandmother was a fascinating woman, and I enjoyed getting to know her over the past few years. She had been talking for ages about writing you a letter and sending this to you, but she put it off too long. I’m sure you’re going to hear from her lawyer about her will, but I wanted to send this to you myself since I know it had been on her mind.

I’m very sorry for your loss.

Sincerely,

Amanda Siedler

Head RN

Refuge by the Lake Nursing Facility

My hand shakes so much that the note falls from it. Her will. I’ll be hearing from her lawyer about her will. My grandmother wanted to send me whatever’s in this box, but she died before she could.

Probably this is the part where a normal person would get all teary-eyed, but I’m like that song from A Chorus Line: I feel nothing.

I remember going to see the play when I was ten and Chloe was twelve. Abby took us for a girls’ night out a few months after she started dating Dad. That song stuck in my head and wouldn’t leave me. Because unlike the woman who sang it, who didn’t feel anything she was supposed to, I felt everything. Every emotion, every minute of the day. And I wanted it to stop.

Now, here I am, thinking about that song again because it’s impossible to feel any sense of loss about my own grandmother.

I guess maybe I should say my estranged grandmother? There are only three things I know about the woman, after all.

I never met her, even when I was a baby.

My parents never talked about her and my grandfather, though I know he died a couple of years after Mom did from the same heart defect. (I had to get tested for it afterward.)

She and my grandfather tried to take me away from Dad after Mom died. This was the one time I ever laid eyes on her. Even then she never said a single word to me.

From stuff Abby’s told me, the custody case got nasty fast. A couple of months after Mom died, I had to appear in court. The judge asked me flat out who I wanted to live with.

There aren’t many things I remember from this time of my childhood, but I remember my dad holding my hand a little too tightly as we walked into a big, empty courtroom. My grandparents sitting at one table surrounded by men in fancy suits and Dad sitting by himself at another. He looked terrified. I hadn’t felt scared at all that day till I realized he was.

A bitter sigh escapes from me. After my grandmother fought to get custody of me, she didn’t want anything to do with me for twelve whole years afterward. There’s nothing she could send me now that could make up for that.

The only emotion I can conjure is disappointment that the one person who might have been willing to talk to me about my mom is gone.

God knows Dad’s never going to.

I pick the letter off the floor and read through it again before looking at what’s in the box. Underneath more bubble wrap is a small chest, about the size of a jewelry box.

The top is painted a deep blue-green, and the four sides of it are covered with intricate mosaics made of tiny rocks and glass and bits of shells. One side of the mosaic pictures a beach; on the other, a garden full of flowers. The front has four people on canoes under a dark night sky. The back is a greenhouse.

“What the hell?” I whisper.

Then I lift the cover.

The hinges creak as if no one’s opened it in a really long time. I gently rest the top of it against the cardboard box so that it doesn’t break off.

Inside, it’s filled to the brim with hoards of stuff: letters, a datebook, fliers. And on top is a postcard with an enormous blue Victorian building with lacy white woodwork and a bright green lawn on the front. It looks fancy and old-fashioned. At the bottom of the postcard are the words:

Palais du Lac Hotel

Mackinac Island

I’ve never heard of this place before, but it’s pretty. I flip the card over and freeze. Because this isn’t just a postcard. It’s a postcard from my mom.

The days I spent with you here will always be the best of my entire life, no matter what else happened. I thought nothing could ever come between us. I never intended to hurt you, but I know I did. Then everything fell apart and you were gone.

If you’ve somehow forgiven me, I’ll be waiting here for you in our palace by the lake. But if not, I understand.

Either way, I already miss you and hope to see you again soon, even if it’s just in my own memories.

Love,

Emma

Underneath it lies a napkin, yellowed with time. On it is a whole conversation, like a series of texts but in ballpoint pen.

I’m the worst.

Lots of things are worse than you.

I just stole stuff.

Like Robin Hood, remember? Steal from the rich and give to the poor.

Except I stole fudge. And the poor is me.

I stole fudge with you, JR. Am I the worst too?

Do you really want me to answer that?

Maybe you ARE the worst.

I knew you really thought so.

Both sets of handwriting are in smudged ink, and it looks like the writers were young. But as I hold the postcard in one hand and the napkin in the other, one thing is clear: Mom’s han...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Prologue: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 1: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 2: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 3: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 4: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 5: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 6: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 7: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 8: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 9: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 10: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 11: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 12: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 13: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 14: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 15: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 16: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 17: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 18: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 19: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 20: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 21: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 22: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 23: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 24: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 25: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 26: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 27: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 28: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 29: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 30: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 31: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 32: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 33: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 34: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 35: Emma (Then) Nine Months Later…
• Chapter 36: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 37: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 38: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 39: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 40: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 41: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 42: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 43: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 44: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 45: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 46: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 47: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 48: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 49: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 50: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 51: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 52: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 53: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 54: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 55: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 56: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 57: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 58: Emma (Then)
• Chapter 59: Lexi (Now)
• Chapter 60: Lexi (Now)
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright