A Month of Summer (42 page)

I awoke amid softness, lying on something tilted, so that my body leaned in one direction. Blinking my eyes open, I took in the blurry image of the dragonfly light, the bulb pushing a painful brightness through the bits of colored glass. Outside the window, the sun had descended behind the pecan trees. Teddy was sitting on the edge of the bed, his weight pressing down the mattress on one side.

“Hieee, A-becca,” he whispered, then called toward the door. “She wakin’ up!”

I heard Mary enter the room. Bending over the bed, she looked into my eyes, first one, then the other. “Do you feel all right? I called Dr. Barnhill. He said we should probably bring you to the emergency room so they could check you out. You could have a concussion. You hit the floor pretty hard.”

The floor,
I thought.
The floor . . . I hit the floor? What floor?
Blinking again, I tried to get my bearings.

“Bonked your head,” Teddy offered. “Me and Brandon gone get my hun-erd fit-ty-two cars, and boom!” Wheeling his hands outward, he imitated the sound traveling through the house.

“We heard it in the bathroom and went and got Mama,” Brandon added from the doorway. Brandon, who often translated Brady’s sentences, had developed a habit of translating for Teddy, as well.

“Boys,” Mary scolded. “Downstairs. Now.” She turned back to me apologetically. “We should probably go get you checked out.” I felt a stab of pain as she parted the hair on my left temple. “No.” I moved to sit up. Head reeling, I sank back against the pillows. “Just . . . just let me wait . . . a minute.” Laying a hand over my eyes, I tried to think, tried to put together the chain of events that had left me on the bathroom floor. Did I get sick to my stomach again? I was sick in the morning. . . .

“Ifeoma called from work and told me what happened this afternoon. ” Mary’s voice seemed far away. I wished she would be quiet so I could concentrate. “I know you must be upset . . . about the house, I mean. It has to be a mistake. Mr. Parker wouldn’t sell this house. He loves it. He’s always talking about growing up here, and showing Brady and Brandon little secret places where he liked to play. He’d never sell this house. It’s a mistake, isn’t it?”

I felt Teddy shift beside me, turn toward Mary. “This Daddy Ed house, Mary. Daddy Ed house.”

Mary’s look of apprehension brought everything back in a rush. The computer, the secret drawer in the gray metal desk, the safe-deposit box, the visit to Hanna Beth’s room, the truth about Teddy, the truth about my mother, the house. “The papers . . .” I’d left the eviction papers on the bed.

“I put them on the desk.” Mary pointed.

The papers . . . the pregnancy test. The pregnancy test was still on the bathroom counter. I sat up, turned toward the door, tried to swing my legs around, but Teddy was in the way.

“I cleaned up in the bathroom.” Mary averted her gaze, embarrassed, then laid a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. “I think she’s all right now, Teddy. I’ll stay with her another minute or two if you’ll go down and watch the boys for me.”

Teddy pressed his lips together in a rare frown, the bottom one pursing out. “You ohh-kay, A-becca?”

“I’m all right, Teddy.”

He blinked hard, his eyes growing moist.

“I’m all right, Teddy,” I said, a bit more emphatically. “I just . . . slipped on the tile. It’s a good thing you were there to pick me up.”

Normally, the comment would have won a honk-laugh, or at least one of his broad grins, but his lips trembled downward instead. “Don’t go way like Mama, A-becca. Don’t go way like Mama.”

My heart constricted, fell into his worried gaze. Finding me crumpled on the floor must have been like finding Hanna Beth the day of her stroke. “I’m not going away, Teddy.” I reached out and hugged him to me and was filled with a rush of love that was deep, instinctive, warm like his body against mine. Teddy, my brother, who knew how to nurture fragile things, to believe in the potential of tiny seeds. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You a good girl, A-becca,” Teddy sniffled.

“I love you, Teddy,” I said, and I felt the words down deep.

The embrace ended as spontaneously as it began, and Teddy left to go entertain the boys.

Mary picked up a damp washcloth from the nightstand and folded it absently, listening as Teddy disappeared down the hall. “I’m sorry he got so scared. He cares about you a lot.”

“I know he does.”

Mary turned her attention back to the washcloth, unfolded it, then folded it again, as if she had something on her mind but was debating whether to say it. “You’re lucky . . . to have a family, I mean. I know it seems like a lot to handle right now, but you’re lucky.”

I realized I didn’t know much about Mary, except that she and her husband had recently split. Watching her, I’d tried to imagine being in her shoes, left alone with two young children, ongoing expenses, medical bills, day-care charges, and a nurse’s aide job that probably didn’t pay nearly enough to cover everything. Another reality struck me as she shook out the washcloth and twisted it around her finger. My father, Hanna Beth, and Teddy weren’t the only ones dependent on this house. Mary’s future, at least for now, was wrapped up here, too. It was becoming increasingly clear that she and the boys didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“Don’t worry about the eviction papers,” I said. “There’s no way anyone’s getting this house. You’ll still have a job here for however long you want it.”

The nervous movement of her hands stopped. “Don’t feel like you have to . . . I know you think we’re desperate.” Cheeks reddening, she fluttered a glance my way.

“That has nothing to do with it. You’re wonderful with my father. Teddy adores the boys and you know Hanna Beth loves you. We’ll make it work, all right?”

Her lips parted in a long, slow sigh. “It feels good to be someplace like this—around a family, I mean. It’s been just Joshua and me since I got pregnant with Brandon. I keep thinking Joshua will come back, and things’ll be easier. He loves us . . . it just . . . it was harder than he thought it would be, leaving community, getting a place to live, trying to pay for everything. You don’t learn how to do any of those things in community.”

“In community?” I repeated, sensing that we might be entering a long discussion for which I didn’t have time. Even so, I sat waiting for Mary’s answer.

“In community, everyone lives and works together—like a family, kind of. We have separate houses, but they’re all part of the community. The believers raise pecans and organic crops, operate a gristmill and produce whole-grain flour, do handmade crafts and things like that. It’s all for sale in the store. People come off the highway to buy things, and then the store supports the community.”

“Like a commune?” I felt as if we’d entered an episode of
48 Hours
, an exposé on strange, alternative ways of living.

Mary drew back at the word. “They don’t call it that. Members are free to come and go. Joshua and I left”—snapping her lips closed, she swallowed hard, thought carefully about her next words—“before Brandon came.”

“Do people ever go back?”

“I can’t go back.” A flush painted Mary’s cheeks, and she tilted her face away. “It wouldn’t be a good place for me, or the boys.”

“Did your husband go back?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t think so. The apartment rent came due, and then he was just . . . gone. He left the van with the keys in it and a note that said he was sorry he’d messed up our lives.” Her gaze lifted, met mine, and I felt the weight of yet another crushing set of expectations, another complicated mishmash of needs.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, shuddering at this glimpse into Mary’s background. It was a wonder she seemed so well adjusted.

“Other things happen in community,” she added simply. “I don’t want Brandon and Brady to know those things. That’s why I can’t go back.”

“You won’t have to,” I promised. “We’ll find a way.”

Mary nodded and turned to leave. “Thanks, Mrs. Macklin. If I can do anything to help, just tell me.”

“Mary?” I stopped her before she could get out the door.

“Yes?”

“What you saw in the bathroom . . .” The heat of embarrassment rushed over me. “I don’t want anyone to know.”

Inclining her head, she considered me for a moment. “It’s not my business to tell anyone.”

“It’s just . . . it wasn’t planned.”

Mary nodded again, her ear turning to the sound of Brandon and Brady coming up the stairs on all fours, Teddy thumping behind them. From somewhere in the living room, my father hollered, “What’s that? Someone’s turned loose a pack of elephants in my house again. They’d better not come stick their trunks in my popcorn bowl.”

The boys squealed, and the ruckus receded down the stairs.

Mary turned back to me. “Brandon wasn’t planned. When I did the pregnancy test, I sat on the bathroom floor and cried for two hours.”

Raking the hair away from my face, I let my head fall back. “Yeah.”

Laughter from the living room echoed up the stairs.

Mary smiled slightly. “The funny thing is that now, even with all that’s happened, there are things I’d change, but my little boy isn’t one of them. Every time he brings me something he found in the yard, or when I watch him sleeping at night, I think that if it hadn’t happened when it did, he wouldn’t be who he is. He wouldn’t be my Brandon.”

I sat staring at the lengthening shadows on the ceiling as Mary’s footsteps disappeared down the hall. Through the floor, I heard the vibrations of the children’s laughter, my father’s voice, Teddy’s reply. The sounds of family.

I picked up my phone from the nightstand and dialed Kyle’s cell. My heart rose into my throat before the first ring. Pulling the phone away from my ear, I considered hanging up, then pressed it to my ear again, and waited. When he answered, I couldn’t think of anything to say at first.

“Rebecca?” His voice floated through the ether.

“Yes . . . sorry. I was distracted.” In my mind, words and thoughts whirled on an invisible wind of fear. Taking a deep breath, I tried to bring everything into focus.

“Rebecca?”

“I need you to come here, Kyle.” The request was out of my mouth before I had time to consider the ramifications. I couldn’t tell him about the pregnancy long-distance on the phone. I needed him here, to help sort out the situation with the house, stop the eviction order, file injunctions, whatever it took. Kyle would know what to do.

If he were here, would I be able to say the things that hovered unspoken?

“Come again?” Kyle was noticeably stunned.

“Something’s happened.” The next thing I knew, I was rushing through the story of the desk, the computer, the safe-deposit box, my conversation with Hanna Beth, the eviction order. Strangely enough, those were the easy things to discuss. It felt good to share the day with him, to unload everything while he listened.

“All right, read me the paperwork,” he said, when I finished. “Give me everything you’ve got. I can work on it from my office and hire someone in Dallas to handle the legal legwork locally.”

“I need you here, Kyle.” I felt my heart sinking, the warmth inside me cooling.

“Rebecca, I can’t just drop everything and wing off to Texas.”

You’d do it for a client. You’d do it for a client in a heartbeat.
“It’s the weekend, Kyle. The office is closed.”

“What about Macey?” Kyle was grasping at straws. Macey never entered into his plans for travel. Was he using her as an excuse, a reason not to leave California—not to leave whoever was in California?

“Bring Macey. It’s time she met her grandfather. If the worst happens with this eviction notice, if we have to move him, there’s no telling how well he’ll do in a new location. I want her to see him the way he is now, and I want her to see the house. I just . . .” Emotion choked the words, and I cleared it from my throat. “I need both of you here, Kyle. I just . . . need you here.” I felt weak and pathetic, begging for his attention.

What if he won’t come?
a voice whispered in my ear.
If he refuses, what then?
I waited for his answer, breathless, rigid, struggling to prepare myself for the worst. If he wouldn’t come when I needed him most, what hope was there for the future?

“We’ll leave in the morning,” he said, and everything inside me went limp, exhausted by the day.

“Thanks,” I said, my throat clogged with a confusing mix of emotions. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“Rebecca?” Kyle said finally. “Is everything all right?”

Is everything all right? Is it?
Such a simple question, so hard to answer. “I don’t know,” I said, and even though I couldn’t bring myself to address anything that really mattered, I wanted to keep him on the phone. “How was Macey’s day?”

“Pretty good, it sounds like.” He seemed content not to delve into the deeper meanings of
I don’t know
. In a way, that disappointed me. “Mace’s outside picking leaves for a science project. She had some kind of minor girl trauma at school today—something about ‘I’m her friend, but I’m not your friend. . . .’ She can probably tell you much better than I can. Want me to go get her?”

“No,” I said. “You can just give me the short version.”

“You want
me
to tell you about Macey’s girl trauma?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just need to . . . talk for a while, okay?” Letting my eyes fall closed, I leaned against the headboard, let the cool wood soothe my skin.

“All right,” Kyle answered tentatively, then launched into a reluctant description of Macey’s on-again, off-again friendship.

I sat and listened, relaxing in the comfortable humdrum of fourth-grade social trauma. By tomorrow, it would all be over and the girls would move on to something new, as always.

My call waiting started beeping as Kyle finished. “I have a call coming in,” I admitted. “I’d better go.”