One Summer - David Baldacci

When thirty-four-year-old war veteran Jack Armstrong is told he has only weeks to live, his first concern is for his beloved wife Lizze, and their children: baby Jackie, twelve-year-old would-be actor Cory and rebellious teenage daughter, Mikki. It seems so cruel that an apparently fatal illness should claim him, a survivor of Afghanistan and Iraq, when he still has so much left to live for. On Christmas Eve, as Jack prepares to say goodbye to his family, unthinkable tragedy strikes again and Lizzie is killed in a car accident. Just when Jack throught living was far harder than dying, and the children's future looked so bleak, something remarkable happens which gives Jack the valuable second chance he'd only dreamed of.