All Summer Long

The story you had all been waiting for

As John pulled into the parking of his new job, All Summer Long came on the radio. How he loved that song. It always took him back to Michigan in 1989... the song was somehow retelling his own summer 89' with Elsie Hughes. So he stopped the engine but kept the radio on so he could reminisce while listening to the song.

She was from Michigan and he was from Texas. What were the chances they met? Probably none. But he was on holiday with his mom in Michigan (where she was from) and his older cousin (freshly enlisted with the Air Force) had brought him to a wild party on Pine Street. He wasn't stranger to those party since he was a football quarterback back in Texas but he usually wasn't the one in the out-of-town-older-sister's bedroom with a cheerleader. He was the guy in the garden drinking a lot with other boys and finishing the night with a fight.

But that night, maybe it was the northern air or the cheap shots they were taking, something was different. That night, he met Elsie Hughes. She had long curly auburn hair, kind eyes and was in 12th grade: she was two years older than him. But that was a technicality. Their eyes met and they were both drawn to each other. They got into a very deep conversation about... that was a good question. He couldn't recall no matter how hard he tried to remember. Then Sweet Home Alabama got on the boom box and he took her hands and they started dancing.

When the song was about to end, John leaned to kiss her... it wouldn't be his first kiss but geez he was attracted to her chapstick lips. But Elsie had other plans... she threw up on his worn out Converse and started laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

That was Friday night. John couldn't get her out of his head. The next evening his cousin forced him out again. Not that he minded, he was hoping to see her again. So they both hopped in his pickup to get to Joe Burns' lake house. They got to the campfire and he saw her again. Her eyes were seeking his or his were seeking hers, he couldn't tell.

Joe Burns' parents had this huge lake house filled with whiskey, which actually was a paradise for teenagers who enjoy partying more than they should. The propriety had a big piece of land and that's where the campfire was. Someone was playing the guitar and everyone was becoming very tipsy and it wasn't eight o'clock yet.

Elsie waved at John and he joined her. They talked and drank and kissed until late in the night when she fell asleep on his shoulder.

They saw each other more and more and their relationship soon bloomed into something more. Sweet Home Alabama became their song and whiskey by the beach their fun. They spend their nights in the sand and their days in the water. They ate more over cooked (by Elsie) Walleye than anyone ever should and they had the time of their life.

What they forgot was that soon the days would get shorter and the nights cooler. So John left Michigan with promises of coming back and Elsie cried in her room. Not only because her boyfriend was gone but because she was late. And Elsie Hughes was never late.

And she was afraid. Ever so afraid. So she wrote John a letter on her fanciest paper with her large cursives.

"Dear John,
I hope everything is well down in Texas. I want to tell you how sorry I am for hearing about your cousin.
But unfortunately I'm not writing you this letter to offer you my sympathy and my love. Something big is bound to happen in the next seven months. If you're still clueless by now, I'm disappointed because you seemed to know what was going on by the lake... anyway I think you deserve to know I'm pregnant with your baby and my dad doesn't want me to keep it. But still you deserve to know.
I do not wish to cause you burden or any kind of pain. If we were in another world we'd be raising this baby together but unfortunately it's not meant to be. I love you and wish you the best. 
Farewell,
Elsie"

John received the letter a Monday afternoon after football practice. As he opened it he started crying. What could he do? He couldn't let her go through abortion. Some girl he knew from high school got one and lost her uterus along the way. He couldn't take away the opportunity of motherhood from her even though he was across the country. So he told his mom. The good catholic woman she was got mad of course but understood in the end. And that's why she remembered her poor sister in Canada... the poor woman couldn't bear a child. Why not give the baby to her. Of course it would be a legal puzzle but nothing is impossible, or so she told her son. So she hurried John to write back to Elsie.

And so old Mrs Bates' plan worked, after being quite a legal fiasco but now Elsie's baby grew up Toronto's suburbs and was named Thomas in the honour of John's cousin who brought him to the party and died from his war injuries that he had gotten at the Gulf that spring.

Tom grew up to be handsome and an amazing football player. He finally moved near Boston with a football scholarship. Elsie finished high school and became a secretary. She found herself working in a publishing house in Boston. John had a rough time between a war injury in Afghanistan, a sour marriage and a membership for years with the AA. But somehow his former army officer gave him a job in his publishing house in Boston.

The song finally ended and John was crying in his car. God, he wish he knew what happened to Elsie. They never saw each other after that summer. And that baby... god he was proud of him, his mother was receiving letters often from the boy's parents while he was growing up. But he never was able to get in touch with the boy. But he dried those tears away, took his brief case and locked he car.

As he went into the building he met a friendly young redhead, a bitter woman with awful bangs and a pretty blond who took him to the conference room.

But then his jaw drop and his eyes grew bigger than saucers. There she was, stunned as he was. Elsie Hughes was right across the room. He couldn't believe it. So he smiled. In twenty nine years her smile hadn't changed but then everything did.

"I'm John Bates, I'm an editor" he said stoically.

"And I'm Elsie Hughes, a secretary here" her reply came as cold as his.

What they both didn't expect from life was that they would meet their son... when he'd start working at the office too. Turns out life brought them a grandchild not five years later. Unfortunately, they saw their son becoming a widower. But they never told Tom about his biological family and never spoke of it... not even to their respective spouse years later. He married the blond girl, Anna, and had four kids. Elsie married another's editor, Mr Charles Carson a man whose eyebrows were like caterpillars but had a heart of gold.

The end