One Summer in Savannah: A Novel

Jacob goes to the doctor to receive a second injection of growth hormone to stimulate his bone marrow. He’s aware of the potential flu-like side effects, but the first injection didn’t result in any. He arrives at his tutoring session with Alana, and she asks about her grandmother. He tells Alana that Birdie likes to garden, which leads to Alana asking Sara if they can start a garden.

A little later, Sara and Jacob sit together and talk while Alana cleans up before dinner. Sara explains that she developed ways to say no to Alana regarding things that could lead to Alana’s discovery, but it’s become a habit that she would like to change. Jacob encourages Sara to tell Alana the whole truth about his family when she’s ready. Sara thanks him for his relationship with Alana and for not being angry with Sara for keeping Alana a secret. Sara invites him to stay for family pizza night, and he eagerly accepts.

Jacob comes to pizza night and slowly warms to the easy intimacy of the Lancasters working together to make dinner, sharing stories, and working through philosophical questions. He tells them about the island he lives on and suggests taking the family to a private beach he knows nearby. After dinner, Alana and Sara invite Jacob to movie night the next day, but when he gets home, he falls into bed, exhausted.

Jacob doesn’t show up for movie night or his next tutoring session with Alana. Initially, Sara is angry, but after she attempts to reach Jacob and can’t, she gets worried. She goes to his address and finds his friend Locke, who takes her on his boat to Jacob’s island. Jacob is sick from the side effects of the hormone injection. He has a high fever and can’t stay awake. He tells her, in his delirium, that he’s been preparing for a bone marrow transplant for Daniel. Sara and Locke try to convince him to go to the hospital, but he refuses. Sara finds his doctor’s phone number, and the doctor tells her to make sure he stays hydrated, eats, and takes Tylenol for the fever.

She cobbles together the ingredients for beef stew, calls Sylvia, and stays to care for Jacob. She finds a photograph of the Wyler family before Naomi died and recognizes how Jacob and his family have also been torn apart by Daniel’s actions. When Jacob wakes up, recovered from his fever, they share the stew and sit on the porch in the night air. They talk about family and Jacob’s long estrangement from Daniel. He tells her about Daniel’s cancer, and she tells him that she had already figured that out.

Jacob and Sara sit on the porch until late into the night, talking and looking at the stars through Jacob’s telescope. The next morning, they watch the sunrise together, and Sara tells him about Lubec, Maine. He asks if she’ll leave Savannah and go back, and she’s noncommittal, saying that Alana has needs that Georgia is meeting. She hugs Jacob goodbye as Locke pulls up to take her home, and Jacob wishes that he could stay in that moment for longer.

Jacob travels to Atlanta to see the doctor with Birdie. On the way to Atlanta, she made calls, and then they talked about gardening. The doctor tells them that Daniel’s infection is too severe to move forward with the transplant at the moment and that they’ll resume the medication for the transplant when Daniel recovers. On the drive home, Birdie figures out that Jacob is beginning a relationship with someone. A song on the radio reminds them both of Naomi, and they talk about her, sharing memories. Birdie returns to her suspicion about Jacob’s love life and suggests that she set him up with someone. Jacob argues with her, but then she switches her approach and says that he could “uncomplicate” his love life. She tells him about the challenges that she, a Black woman, had with her relationship with his father, a rich white man, in Georgia.

Sara, Alana, and Jacob work together to construct the garden. They travel outside of Savannah to get supplies in Jacob’s truck. At the nursery, Alana approaches a stranger to tell her about a plant, breaking Sara’s rules for behavior in public. Jacob calmly explains the reason behind the rules, and Alana apologizes, embracing her mother. Sara is struck by Jacob’s ability to work with Alana. When Sara asks him later how he knew how to talk to Alana at that moment, he tells her about Naomi. Sara tells Jacob about coming to love Alana slowly after her birth. Jacob tells Sara that he had a vision of Naomi in Alaska and that he still talks to her sometimes. Sara shares that learning about Jacob and Naomi is helping her understand Alana more fully.