The Summer Save by Sophie Masters

Author:Sophie Masters [Masters, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

This morning, I woke to a handwritten note on the nightstand. Jonas and I were from a time when cell phones didn’t exist. We were older than text messages. Our summers together were magical times when we could be together daily. The rest of the year, we dated long-distance. Thankfully, I went to the conservatory in his hometown, and he played in that city’s farm system. His family owns the team now, but back then, they didn’t. It was a mix of luck and skill that got him drafted by his local team—the one he’d dreamed about playing for as a young boy. During the season, he was equal parts on the road all over the country and in his temporary home in Colorado. San Francisco to Denver wasn’t a long flight, but our schedules rarely aligned for visits between my performances and his games. Plus, I was stubborn and determined to make it on my own, so I wouldn’t allow his parents to pay for my ticket except twice a year—once as a birthday gift and the other as my Christmas gift.

During our time apart, we called each other at least two times a week and wrote letters. While we both loved our careers and not only understood but supported how hard we each worked, we longed for our summers together. I was in Seaside for at least two months, sometimes a bit longer. Jonas usually only had four weeks, maybe five. We lived for those weeks together, where we were at each other’s sides from sun up to sun down. Summers in Seaside had always been special, but the summers with Jonas were magical. Looking back, it almost seemed unbelievable that we built our relationship on twice weekly phone calls, letters, and four weeks in our favorite beach town.

Once we married and he played for the Caribou, we continued writing letters, each of us tucking them into the other’s suitcase before we traveled. And I also found one on my nightstand after he left for a road game. But over time, as we got busy shuttling our children to and from their activities and neither of us traveled as much, the letters stopped. I lifted the folded cream linen paper from where he’d rested it against the bedside lamp and ran my finger across the script. Something as simple as ‘Annie’ inside a heart shouldn’t cause my eyes to water, but it did.

Jonas was the only person who had ever shortened my name. A first name and a middle name spoken together as one name was the tradition for the women in my family. My grandmother was Mary Louise. My mother and her sister were Mary Ellen and Sarah Louise, respectively. My older sisters were Sue Ellen and Sarah Beth. Then there was me, Anne Marie. Never Anne. Never Marie. When Jonas asked me if I had a nickname, I told him I’d never had one, but always thought it would be romantic for someone to call me something no one else did.

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