During these first few years, Wyn and Summer gradually lost that identity of appearance which had made them look so much like twins the night I found them in the park. Wyn aged, not excessively but as any adult man would age in a few years. Summer, on the other hand, seemed to have found the secret of eternal youth. She grew ever more delicate and beautiful, and her fair skin seemed to take on a translucent glow.
I was a close friend of the couple, and I found that I was alone with Summer a good deal. Summer had shown an interest in schooling, too. She started in college with Wyn, then dropped back to high school, and finally fell back on studying at home. It wasn't that she wasn't bright. She seemed to recognize the facts she was studying almost at once, but tests and examinations were her downfall. She never could remember enough of the things she had studied to make a passing grade.
So I went to the house at 138 March Street often in the early evenings, to help Summer in her studies.
Their son was born about six years after they came to Allertown. It was a peculiar thing. There was no noticeable sign of pregnancy. Summer was sure she was pregnant, but Doctor Lodge scoffed at her, right up to the time of the birth.
"Sure, she has milk," he told Wyn and me, tugging at his white mustache and giving us a wise smile. "It's not unusual. She isn't carrying a child, though. It's a false pregnancy."
But the child was born. Then Doctor Lodge reversed himself and insisted she was carrying an unborn twin. Again he was wrong. Summer gradually but steadily recovered from the effects of the birth and regained her slender figure.
I still do not attempt to excuse Wyn for leaving his wife and newborn son. He was overwrought, it's true, but he should have taken them with him.
Instead, he came to me, his suitcase packed, when the child was about a month old. His face showed his agitation.
"Don, I'm leaving Summer," he said abruptly.
"Wyn! Why? What's happened?"