One Summer

63

Jack was sworn in and settled uncomfortably into the witness box, hitching his suit jacket around him.

Paterson approached. “Mr. Armstrong, did you know that your illness can cause severe depression and even mental instability?”

“I don’t have an illness.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was given a clean bill of health. Look at me. Does it seem to you like I’m dying?”

Paterson picked up some documents and handed them to the bailiff. “These are opinions from three doctors, all world-class physicians, who state categorically that there is no cure for your illness and that it is fatal one hundred percent of the time.”

“Then they’ll have to change that to 99.9 percent, won’t they?”

“Do you blame yourself for your wife’s death, Mr. Armstrong?”

“A person will always blame themselves, even if they could do nothing to prevent it. It’s just the way we are.”

“So is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“That must be emotionally devastating.”

“It’s not easy.”

“Talk to me about your obsession with the lighthouse.”

Jenna said, “Objection. Drawing a conclusion.”

“Sustained.”

“Tell us about your reasons for working so long and hard on the lighthouse, Mr. Armstrong.”

Jack furrowed his brow and hunched forward. “It’s complicated.”

“Do your best,” said Paterson politely.

“It was her special place,” Jack said simply. “That’s where she’d go when she was a kid. I found some of her things there — a doll, a sign that she’d made that said, ‘Lizzie’s Lighthouse,’ and some other things. And when she was alive she said she wanted to come back to the Palace. I guess me going there instead and fixing it up was a way to show respect for her wishes.”

“All right. What else?”

Jack smiled. “Lizzie thought she could see Heaven from the top of the lighthouse.”

“Heaven?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “She believed that when she was a little girl,” he added quickly.

“But you’re an adult. So you didn’t believe that, or did you?”

Jack hesitated. Jenna glanced at the judge and saw his eyebrows rise higher the longer Jack waited to answer.

“No, I didn’t. But...” Jack shook his head and stopped talking.

The lawyer let this silence linger for a bit as he and the judge exchanged a glance.

“So you wanted to fix up the place?”

“Yes. The stairs to the lighthouse fell in, and I wanted to repair them. And the light too.”

“Fix the light? It’s my understanding that the lighthouse in question is no longer registered as a navigational aid.”

“It’s not. But it stopped working while Lizzie was still there. So I decided to try and repair it.”

“So let me get this straight, if I can,” said Paterson in a skeptical tone. “You neglected your family so that you could repair a lighthouse that is no longer used as a navigational aid, solely because your wife as a child thought she could see Heaven from there? Let me ask the question again: Did you think you could see Heaven from there?” he asked in a chiding tone.

“No, I didn’t,” said Jack firmly.

“We have one more video to show, Your Honor.”

“All right.”

Paterson turned to Drake, who worked the controls, and the image appeared on the TV of Jack standing on the catwalk around the lighthouse reading one of his letters to Lizzie.

“Could you tell us what you’re doing in that picture, Mr. Armstrong?”

“None of your business,” snapped Jack, who was staring at the TV.

Jenna stood. “Your Honor, relevance?”

“Again, state of mind,” replied Paterson.

“Answer the question,” instructed the judge.

“It’s a letter,” said Jack.

“A letter? To whom?”

“My wife.”

“But your wife is deceased.”

“I wrote the letters to her before she... before she died. I wrote them when I was sick. I wanted her to have them after... I was gone.”

“But she can’t read them now. So why were you reading them? You obviously knew what was in them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with reading old letters. I’m pretty sure people do it all the time.”

“Perhaps, but not in the middle of the night on top of a lighthouse while small children are alone in the house.”

“Argumentative,” snapped Jenna.

“Sustained,” said Grubbs.

Jack looked at Paterson and said, “I know you’re trying to make it look like I’m nuts. But I’m not. And I’m not unfit to care for my children.”

“That’s for this court to decide, not you.”

Jack sat there for a few seconds. The walls of the courtroom seemed to be closing in on him, cutting off his oxygen. His anger, always near the surface ever since Bonnie had filed her lawsuit, now burst to the surface. He looked at Paterson. “Have you ever lost anyone you loved?”

Paterson looked taken aback but quickly recovered. “I’m asking the questions.”

Jack now looked directly at Bonnie. “You know how much I loved Lizzie.”

Paterson said, “Mr. Armstrong, you’re not allowed to do that.”

Jack ignored him. He stood, his eyes burning into his mother-in-law’s. “I would’ve gladly given my life so that she could have lived. You know that.”

“Mr. Armstrong,” cautioned the judge.

“She meant everything to me. But she died.”

“Mr. Armstrong, sit down!” snapped Grubbs as he smacked his gavel.

Jack pointed a finger at Bonnie and cried out, “No one feels worse than I do about what happened. No one! It is a living hell for me every day. I lost the only woman I have ever loved. The only person I wanted to share my life with. The best friend I will ever have!” The tears were sliding down Jack’s anguished face.

The judge barked, “Bailiff!”

Jack said, “The best things that Lizzie and I ever created were our kids. Our kids. So how dare you try to take away the only parent they have left just because you’re mad at me. How dare you.”

The bailiff forcibly removed Jack from the courtroom while Bonnie looked on, obviously shocked by his outburst.

Paterson said, “Nothing further, Your Honor.” He walked back to his chair, barely able to conceal his smile.

The judge looked critically at Jenna. “Do you have anything to add, counselor?”

Jenna looked at the distraught kids and then at the judge. “No, Your Honor.”

The judge said, “I’ll render my judgment on the motion this afternoon.”

Jack was released from the bailiff’s custody a few minutes later. They didn’t wait at the courthouse but drove back in silence to Channing. They waited in a small room at the back of the Little Bit. They all jumped when Jenna’s cell phone buzzed. She answered the call and listened, and her expression told Jack all he needed to know.

“The judge granted the motion for temporary custody,” she said.

And it’s my fault, thought Jack. I’ve lost my family. Again.