The Last Days of Summer (12 page)

He does not answer her at first. His rocker slows though not quite still before its rhythm picks back up again. She surprises herself with the words. Hadn't known she meant to speak them.

‘Can't say as I feel the same.' Voice thick as syrup, but burned rough round the edges, not sticky smooth.

Her turn to pause her rocker. ‘That don't surprise me none.'

She can feel Jasper's eyes on her.

Voice raw, unpractised, he replies, ‘Sometimes I miss the him before. Not the him of when I … left. Like they was different people.'

She nods. Can understand that. At least partially.

‘How long's it been?' A bit too loud despite his hushed tone.

‘Eight years.'

‘Them girls of yours remember 'im?'

She pauses. ‘Reckon Katie must. Don't know 'bout Joanne. Reckon she remembers somethin'.'

He nods. Lets the silence between them gain weight before he breaks it. ‘You divorce 'im?'

A single chuckle escapes her. Not a happy sound. ‘Things ain't ever so clean cut round here. I'd have thought you'd remember that much.' Teasing in her tone, though no real laughter.

He snorts. Waits for her this time to break their silence.

‘You know,' she says at length, ‘I think a part of me always thought he might come back. Even after all that happened.'

‘Not any more?'

‘Why would he?'

Neither speaks. Neither breaks that silence. A star fades in and out of sight as dark clouds shift.

‘Liz?' Voice so uncertain.

‘Ummmm?'

‘Do you blame me?'

She weighs the question. Holds her pause. She did once. Blame him. When Bobby first left. Couldn't help but think back then,
This wouldn't have happened if … But what's the point now in speculating? In second guessing?
Aloud, she says, ‘He was never the same after all that happened.'

Jasper lets out a long, low breath. ‘I'm sorry for that.'

‘Well …' She looks out across the vast blackness of the prairie. At the few shadows visible there. The fireflies scattered in between. ‘Good luck finding many folks round here that'd believe it.'

That snort again. No amusement in it. Prairie grasses rustle in the breeze. Crickets sing and fall silent and sing again.

‘Reckon he left 'cause of me?' Not one star shining in that clouded sky.

‘In part,' she lies.

Silence, as both are lost in memory. In thought. After a while, he says, voice scarcely above a whisper, ‘Sometimes I wonder if people ever really heal.'

The creak of their rockers, back and forth, back and forth. Time passes. Crickets sing. To the darkness, at length, she says, ‘I don't think they do.'

And he does not reply.

She holds the cicada shell carefully. Lifts it to her face and inhales deeply. Breathes in the earthy smell of it. Foreign to her nose. Sour almost. And musty. A bit like old people. Or potatoes dug fresh from the garden, the dirt still clinging to their skins. Or Grandma's closet back when Grandma was alive, before Mom moved into Grandma's room and cleared out all Grandma's clothes. Joanne used to hide in there, back when she was little. In Grandma's closet. Back when Katie still played hide and seek with her. When they were really small, Mom even joined in, too, sometimes, and Joanne would always shriek with laughter when she was finally found. That's what the cicada smells like – those long minutes in the closet waiting for that laughter.

Once, Katie did not come to find her. Joanne heard Katie counting on the stairs …
fifty-five, fifty-four, fifty-three …
all the way backwards from one hundred. Like they always did, in that same loud voice so the other could be sure to hear them counting. Giggling, Joanne had tiptoed down the hall. Careful not to creak the floorboards with each careful step. She opened up the door to Grandma's room. Winced when the hinges squeaked. The floral curtains were pulled open so that sunlight spilled across the floor in a thick golden rectangle, wooden crossbeams on the window neatly dividing it into four. The shadowed outline of a cross. She remembers that. Remembers, somehow, that sunlight so clearly, how it was there divided. Careful still, Joanne crossed the room on tiptoe. Opened the door to Grandma's closet. The hinges squeaked as it pulled open towards her. She had to stand on tiptoe just a little to
open it. That's how small she was. The door clicked shut behind her.

Still giggling, still trying not to, she slipped into Grandma's closet behind the shoe rack, Grandma's long skirts and dresses spilling down over her as they dangled off their hangers. Dark greys and blacks and coloured calicos. Long and dark and musty above her. The smell of old person, of shoes and mothballs thick around her. Katie's voice still a steady count muffled and drifting from the stairs below.

Then, ‘Ready or not, here I come!'

And Joanne waited.

And waited.

And it seemed so very long. She watched a spider cross the floor and slip into a crack at the base of the boards. Had to try real hard not to scream or run and go get Mom. But she knew it was OK: Katie would find her soon. At first, it was hard not to giggle. She was proud she had hidden so well. That it took Katie so long to find her. Then Joanne heard Katie's voice outside. Couldn't hear the words. Just the call of it. The rise and fall of her older sister's tone. And a car door slam. And an engine start. And then she didn't hear Katie any more.

The realization slapped her, knocked the laughter right out of her. Joanne put her head down between her knees. Breaths short and shallow. She didn't cry at first. Stared down at her toes. The floor beyond. At the line of light that filtered in through the crack in the door and cut across her ankle.
Katie was not going to come and find her.
She wondered why her sister'd bothered counting. Why no one else came looking. How no one else realized she was
missing. Then she did cry, softly, each sob a tiny hiccup that shook her chest, rocked her body and made it hard to breathe. Mom would find her soon, though. Or Grandma. Surely, she told herself, someone would find her soon. But there were no footsteps on the stairs and no one came.

That was the last time Joanne played hide and seek.

Joanne lowers the cicada from her nose and studies it. The off-brown colour of it. A bit like dried bark. Or peanut butter left out too long, and now solidified. Its legs feel prickly in her palm. All five of them. Rough against her skin, though the rest of the July fly is smooth. Carefully, she places it on Katie's vanity. Positions the bug so its hollow eyes blindly stare out at her. Adjusts it so that it stands between Katie's perfume and hairbrush. Likes the look of it there. Alien and ugly among the pretty girlie items that scatter her sister's vanity. Nail polish. And magazine cut-outs. And mascara. And creams. And photographs of Katie and her friends. Joanne wonders where that sixth leg went. Wishes Uncle Jasper hadn't broken it off, even though she knows he didn't mean to. She wonders, if she'd looked, if she might have found it. If it might be there still.

‘There,' she says out loud. ‘You can stay right there.' And she places the July fly on top of last month's
Seventeen.

No one there to hear. To answer. Just her and the exoskeleton perched before her. Dark and silent in its hollow frame. She imagines Katie's face, finding it. The way she might shriek. And jump up. And knock the little stool right over. Magazines and nail polish and photographs all
knocked over and scattered across the floor. Joanne smiles. But picks the July fly up once again.
No, the vanity's not the spot for it, that won't do.

She crosses the room and stands by the window, July fly still cradled in her palm. Looks out into the pitch dark of night. The clouded, starless sky. The flickering porch light at the Greys' is the only light for miles. She misses the stars. Wishes she could look up and map the constellations. Scarcely any air blows through the slightly cracked window, so Joanne pushes against it till it swings open all the way. Sticks her head out and closes her eyes. Feels the warm air slide up against her skin. Sticky. Even without the sun's heat. She stays like that a moment. Thinking. Imagining a million what-ifs that take her far away. And bring Daddy home. And make Katie her friend again. And solve all the mysteries of Uncle Jasper's crime. And keep summers year-long, no such thing as school.

Far off, across the prairie, a pack of coyotes calls, voices shrill and wild as they howl. Joanne's eyes pop open. Not 'cause she's scared. Just as reflex to the sound. She's lived nearly her whole life in this house. Was only just walking, really, when they left town and moved in with Grandma. She is used to the creaks and groans and moans of the house and to the calls of the prairie that surrounds it. She finds comfort in the sounds.

Katie should be home before too long. It's late, and Joanne knows she's supposed to be in bed, but she likes having the room to herself while Katie's out. Likes looking at Katie's things when Katie's not there. Likes how she can push open the window all the way and stick her head right out without her sister complaining that she's
letting moths and June bugs in. Without complaining that she's moving, touching, Katie's stuff.

Reluctantly, Joanne closes the window till it's once more only cracked. She's thirsty. Looks around the room for a glass of water. There is none.
Mom didn't bring one up tonight.
She lets her breath out long and slow. Mom always brings up water when she says goodnight. Has as long as Joanne can remember. Leaves it by the bedside table. To drown witches. And end nightmares. And give the sleep fairy a swimming-pool to leave good dreams in. But Mom didn't come up earlier to say goodnight. It had been Joanne who eventually went downstairs. She'd been scared Mom might tell her off for skipping bedtime if she didn't. But Mom hadn't even seemed to notice that Joanne had come down late. ‘Night, hon.' Didn't even remind her to brush her teeth. Just sat in Grandma's old rocker staring out across the open acres as further darkness fell upon them.

Joanne crosses the room and opens the door. Thirsty. No light escapes from under the other doors, and the hall before her feels ghostly quiet, even though the grandfather clock downstairs ticks loudly as it counts down the hours. She hesitates there in the doorway, throat dry, lips dry. Glances back into Katie's room, their room, not sure what makes her pause. She faces the darkened hall again. Licks her dry lips, then turns the door knob slow as she is able so it won't click too loudly into place as she shuts the door. Carefully, she tiptoes along the hall. Down the stairs, wincing as the floorboards squeak. She doesn't want to wake Mom or Uncle Jasper. Doesn't want to have to explain why she hasn't yet gone to bed. Why she didn't brush her teeth.

Halfway down the stairs, she realizes the July fly's still clutched in her hand. She pauses. Looks up the stairs, and thinks of going back and putting him somewhere safe, maybe on Katie's vanity, for now anyways, but she doesn't. Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe down the remaining stairs. House unfamiliar in its darkness. The wood of the stairs surprisingly cool on her bare feet.

At the bottom of the stairs, Joanne stops. Hears something. Strains to listen. Voices drift in from outside, their deep honey tones just scarcely above whispers. Whole house around her dark and silent, except those drifting whispers. Before her, the front door is unlocked and open, just the screen door shut. She pauses a moment, uncertain. Thinks about that glass of water, throat still cracked and dried. Thinks about the kitchen, just around the corner, so close now. How cross Mom'd be to find her so long awake and out of bed. She looks back to the screen door. Strains to hear the voices, but they're too hushed to hear clearly, and all she can make out is the murmur of them. Like thunder rumbling softly far away. She sucks in a deep breath, the air cool in her lungs. Slowly, step by careful step, Joanne creeps forward.
Almost there now, almost there …

She crouches next to the screen door, just below the window-ledge. The curtains blow open around her, and she can see through the screen door out onto the porch just a little. Just enough. The porch light casts long patchworked shadows across the terrace and out into the lawn, and it takes Joanne a moment to adjust to the lamp's soft glow, to decipher the shadows before her.

Mom and Uncle Jasper sit side by side in separate
rockers. Their shadows overlap on alternating rocks, forward and back, blurring as they cross. She can see only their profiles. Solemn and stern and lined heavy, deepened by dark shadows. They do not speak at first. Silent, solemn shadows. Like twin scarecrows of themselves. Or an old black-and-white photograph come alive. Joanne feels like she's dreaming, and her heart beats faster as she watches them, like it's flying in her chest. She knows she shouldn't listen in. Doesn't care. Holds her breath as she waits for them to speak. Prays she won't be seen.

It doesn't take long for them to talk. Their rockers creak and squeak on the floor as both rock back and forth, back and forth, steady as cricket song.

‘Eddie Saunders' truck drove by yesterday.' Mom's voice calm and hard. Not quite angry. Not quite not.

His rocker stops. ‘That so …' Then it resumes its rocking.

Joanne catches her breath, afraid to release it, afraid she'll be found. Peering out of the screen door, she wishes she could see them better. Could see their faces. Read their eyes.

‘I'm gonna be frank with you, Jasper. I won't have no trouble round here. 'N' I sure as hell won't have my girls mixed up in any kind of trouble. We got troubles enough of our own, you hear?'

His voice is soft but weathered when he answers. Like the words pain him. ‘You want me gone?'

She does not reply at first and, for a moment, Joanne thinks her mother might not answer. Neither does Mom's rocker pause or slow. Nor does she turn to
face him when she finally speaks. ‘Reckon there ain't much point in that.'