The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

words become clearer, the block letters spelling out AN INVINCIBLE SUMMER.
I remember asking her about it when I was pretty young, my chubby first-grader fingers tracing the
letters over and over again.
All she had said was that it reminded her of the summer she became friends with my dad and
Johnny. She never said any more than that. I’m missing the why.
“Morning!” my dad says as he lumbers sleepily into the kitchen.
I put my phone down quickly, instantly transported back into my super not-invincible summer.
“Morning,” I say back, half-heartedly picking at my Cheerios while I eye his dirty work boots. Mom
would’ve thrown a fit to see him wearing those anywhere past the front door, but this isn’t going to be
our house anymore, so I guess none of that really matters.
“You good?” he asks as he pours some cereal into a bowl, sloshing milk on top of it a moment later.
“Yeah.” I shrug.
“That wasn’t very convincing,” he says, leaning against the counter and pointing his spoon at me.
“I’m great! Never better!” I say, faking a huge smile.
He chuckles at that, scratching his thick beard. “You got work today?”
I shake my head no. Nina kept me late last night, the two of us making a wedding cake for the
Mckenzies. In trade, she gave me today o. I’d insisted it was fine, since working kept my mind o
everything, but she told me to “go do something fun with my friends.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I don’t exactly have any friends right now.
He nods to my phone, munching noisily on his cereal. “Whatcha looking at?”
I look down to see the picture of my mom still filling up my phone screen. Instinctually, I reach out
to tap my home button before he can get a look, but something stops me before I press down. I want
answers. And I’m in a bad enough mood today to risk some discomfort if it means I’ll get them.
“Just trying to figure out what this means.” I grab my phone, turning it to show him the picture.
“Mmm,” he says, swallowing his mouthful and averting his eyes to his bowl, his Cheerios suddenly
becoming incredibly fascinating.
For a solid minute it’s just crunching. I push a Cheerio around and around in the leover milk in
my bowl, watching it dunk below the surface, reappearing a moment later. I know he remembers the list
discussion we had. I know he knows what I want to know.
“An invincible summer,” he says, exhaling. I look up at him, our identical dark eyes meeting. He
shrugs and gives me a small smile. “It’s a part of a quote. Some translated lines from this thing a French
guy wrote. I think his name was Albert Camel? Camera?”
“Camus?” I ask, practically jumping out of my seat as I remember the worn book I found in my
mom’s box of high school memories. A worn book by Albert Camus.
“Yeah, him,” he says, nodding to confirm my suspicions. “I don’t know what the whole quote was.
She found it in a book the summer we all became friends. I think in a lot of ways, it kind of set the list
in motion. She said the words summed up what she wanted that summer to be for her. A moment in
time, in her life, where nothing could touch her, where she could do anything.”
His words give me chills.
He takes a bite of his cereal, talking through a mouthful of Cheerios. “Did you know your mom
liked that book so much she actually wanted to go live in France at one point?”