Summer Island: A Novel

Ruby sits on the deck and can’t stop crying. She keeps thinking about Eric and the fact that she never called him. Instead, she had just walked out of his life like she always does when things get difficult for her. Her cell phone rings, and it’s Val. He asks her how the article is going and tells her that the media is tearing Nora apart. He reminds her that she has a talk show appearance the following week to promote the article. When she gets off the phone, she continues drafting her article. She writes about how she had tried to pretend she was motherless, but her mother has helped her remember her childhood. She wonders how much of herself she’s forgotten by forgetting Nora. She also wonders how her mother could walk away from fame so easily when it was the thing she left her family for in the first place.

Ruby remembers the day her mother left them. Nora had announced she was leaving and asked who wanted to come with her, and no one did. She looked extremely afraid.

Later that day, the package from Nora’s assistant arrives. Ruby opens it and begins reading some of the clippings from Nora’s “Best Of” folder.