The Last Days of Summer

by Vanessa Ronan

  Her heartbeat quickens. ‘I appreciate your concerns, sir,’ she says uncertainly, ‘but I don’ think my uncle would harm us none. Mom trusts him.’

  He laughs then, lightly, not for long, then falls silent. ‘I heard he threatened Esther. That true?’

  She doesn’t want to answer him, but she knows she has to. ‘Yes …’

  ‘Good,’ Eddie says, ‘I’m glad you told the truth there ’cause I already heard the story off Esther. I had to see, is all, if you could be trusted.’ He folds his arms across his chest. She’d never expected him to be so tall. ‘See,’ he continues, ‘Josh there he’s mighty sweet on you ’n’ he said we could trust you. He said you’re a decent girl. Ain’t your fault, I guess, the family you’re born into.’ Eddie pauses. ‘You strike me as an honest girl. Is that right, Katie?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then tell me,’ he says, voice lowering, ‘honestly now, do you feel safe round your uncle?’

  ‘Now remember,’ Mr Ryan chimes in, ‘be honest.’

  Josh beside her squeezes her hand.

  ‘No,’ she whispers.

  ‘Excellent.’ Eddie grins. ‘I’m glad to hear that now, I really am. You’ve got yourself a smart girl there, Josh, not just a looker.’ He slaps Josh hard across the back, and Mr Ryan and the other two men chuckle. ‘Now, Katie,’ Eddie says, ‘I need you to be honest with me again, OK?’

  She nods.

  He smiles. ‘Do you think your uncle would hurt anyone again?’

  She thinks about Uncle Jasper that first night punching the wall. About the way he grabbed Esther Reynolds’s face. About the tender way he holds her sister’s hand. She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ she whispers. ‘I really don’t know my uncle very well at all.’

  ‘He gives you the creeps, though, don’t he, baby?’ Josh’s hand feels warm against her back, comforting, pressing.

  ‘Yeah.’ She looks past the men to where Kristen and Emma stand beside Ray, all three silently watching. ‘He gives me the creeps all righ’.’

  Mr Ryan steps forward. ‘We want to keep you safe, Katie.’ He’s smiling.

  Josh turns to her excitedly. ‘I told you I’d tell my daddy ’n’ Eddie how he was talkin’. I told you we’d set him straight. I’m done worryin’ ’bout you, baby. You don’ got to worry no more.’

  ‘Wait.’ She pulls nearly free of Josh’s arms. ‘What do you mean you’d “set him straight”?’

  It is Eddie who answers her. ‘Don’ you worry none no more. That boy there’s vouched you ain’t like your blood. We won’t let no harm come to you.’

  Her voice falters. ‘I don’t think he means us no harm.’ Her eyes search the men around her almost desperate, almost pleading. ‘He’s family.’

  ‘Now, Katie,’ Mr Ryan smiles, ‘doesn’t the Bible itself teach us the devil charms in many disguises?’

  ‘We need your help, Katie,’ Eddie says softly, in a voice like he’s confiding in her, like he and she are the only two people on earth. ‘Don’ be scared now,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna be keepin’ a close watch over you. Your fella’s daddy here ’n’ I go way back, ’n’ I’m happy to do his boy a good turn. Especially when I know first hand what your uncle is capable of. You understand me?’ He searches her face and, slowly, she nods. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t wish what happened to my sister on even my enemy’s seed.’

  She looks at Josh. His father. The other two men standing tall and silent. She looks across the lawn, past the scattered pickups back towards the church beyond. Joanne is playing tag with some other kids her age. Their laughter carries on the humid breeze. She does not see her mother or uncle. Reckons they must still be inside. She looks back to Eddie. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Clouds rolled in low on the horizon just before supper. Heavy dark rain clouds that layered the sky in overlapping shades of grey and stone and slate. The parched earth has started to crack open in angry gashes between the tufts of tall, dried prairie grass. It really is a miracle, Lizzie thinks, how well this garden’s lasted. Of course, she does water it, but only from time to time when all the other chores are either done or can wait. It’s late enough, now the primroses are in full bloom. There’s a smell of moisture in the air even though the rain has yet to fall. The wind has picked up a bit, and there’s an unseasonable chill to the breeze, like a storm close by is brewing. Moths beat against the porch bulb, their fluttering wings flickering the light. Far off, thunder rolls, and the dark slate clouds move past more quickly. Nearly dark now, but no stars shine through the heavy layers of cloud.

  It is her voice that breaks their silence. ‘What do you want in life, Jasper?’ This time no harshness to her tone.

  He takes his time responding, his voice husky and low when he finally does answer. ‘What do you mean?’

  She looks out across the dark stretch of prairie before them. Another far-off crack of thunder rumbles around them, shaking the beams of the porch. ‘I mean,’ she says, ‘what did you imagine when you was locked up? Your life is far from over. Did you see yourself with a wife one day? Kids?’

  ‘My life was over the day they locked me up.’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, Jasper, that ain’t what I mean ’n’ you know it.’

  ‘You want to know if I want a wife ’n’ kids?’

  She smiles. ‘Yeah.’

  He looks out across the darkness of the prairie. ‘I never saw myself the marrying kind.’

  ‘I guess I never seen you that way neither.’ Silence stretches between them. ‘You’re good with kids, though,’ she says at length. ‘I hadn’t expected that. Joanne’s quite fond of you.’

  He is silent a long moment. ‘She’s a good kid.’

  No crickets or cicadas call out into the twilight, the approaching storm warning all to seek shelter. Lightning flashes, illuminating the open prairie. Wind bends the stems on rose bushes down the drive.

  ‘We sure could use the rain,’ she says.

  He rises from his rocking chair and walks to stand at the top of the porch steps, holding on to the beam of railing that connects porch with awning. He leans forward out into the darkness, craning his neck to look up into the blackness of the newly fallen night. ‘I can’t remember the last time I felt a raindrop.’

  She doesn’t know what to say to that.

  Thunder crashes far out to the west and rolls across the prairie, but no lightning strikes to light the sky. They wait in silence, but still no raindrops fall. And then their soft patter on the roof, light enough to have to strain to hear. A grin breaks across Jasper’s face. A look kin to joy. Jasper extends his hand out beyond the awning of the porch into the darkness beyond. Palm open and stretched out flat. It hangs there a moment, suspended as the tiny raindrops catch in his palm and drip off his fingers, down his wrist. Slowly he curls each finger into a tight fist, tiny misty raindrops sticking to his knuckles, running down his arm. His profile is to her, half in shadow, half lit yellow by the porch light. ‘In prison,’ he says, still grinning, ‘I always liked to listen to the rain.’ He turns to look at her square on, face lit newly with a boy’s delight.

  A smile plays at the corner of Lizzie’s lips. ‘We sure could use this rain,’ she says again, and she rises and goes to stand beside her brother, looking out to her garden and to the prairie beyond. It’s too dark to make out most of the flowers, but she imagines them all the same, stretching up on their stems to embrace the falling rain. She imagines the cracked dry earth ripped open, the rain healing its scars. She closes her eyes, listens to the gentle thudding of the falling rain. She can feel the light misty spray blowing against her face. She opens her eyes again. Jasper moves beside her. Carefully, as if with great reverence, he walks down the porch steps to stand before the house, his arms outstretched, his face up to the sky. His back is to her, his frame barely lit now by the porch light’s muted glow. She watches as the raindrops mark the back of his T-shirt, like whip lashes, the light grey fabric stained dark by every drop. She wo
nders how it must feel to him, standing there in the rain for the first time in ten years. He turns to her, a manic glow in his eyes, or maybe, she thinks, it’s just the way the porch light reflects in his irises. He’s grinning. He’s laughing. The normal laugh that is her brother. He runs both his hands through his wet hair, smoothing it all back. Closes his eyes, his face lifted up to the sky.

  She feels like she’s intruding on a private moment there, watching him.

  The rain doesn’t last long. The drops, quick to fall at first in small, delicate, dewdrop-sized splashes, stop nearly as unexpectedly as they started. Jasper lowers his head and opens his eyes. His outstretched arms fall limply by his sides. Thunder rumbles again, but further away this time, as if it’s running off. ‘That was nice,’ he says, still smiling. He nods slowly, looking around him almost as if dazed. His eyes meet hers. She thinks she sees his cheeks colour slightly, though Jasper never was a man to blush. ‘That felt real good,’ he says, still smiling. ‘Yessir, that felt just like I remembered.’

  There is sadness in her smile. She can feel it on her face. She traces a raindrop’s trail as it slides down the porch railing. She hadn’t realized her fingertips were so dry until she felt the moisture on them. She had never pondered what it would be like for him in there, not even feeling the rain. She had always been more of the school of thought that he had earned his cell and all the restrictions that had come with it. She straightens. ‘We’ve got an early start tomorrow,’ she says briskly. ‘I suggest you get some rest.’

  ‘Sis?’

  She’s halfway through the door already, but his word stops her. When was the last time he called her that? She does not turn, simply stands frozen in the doorway. Waits.

  ‘This is what I want in life,’ he says at last.

  She half turns then. Her mouth opens to answer him, but she can’t quite pick what words to say. Confusion furrows her brow. ‘What is?’

  ‘I want to feel human again. I want to feel close enough to normal.’

  ‘Ain’t one of us normal round here, Jasper.’

  A smile tickles his lips, but does not quite reach his eyes. ‘Wouldn’t that be funny, then, if I could be the first?’

  Three gentle scrapes at his door. More like scratching than knocking, really. For a second it reminds him of the way Rico Martinez across the cell block used to claw at the bars on his cell, scraping paint off with his nails, nails screeching as they slid down the bars, but then Jasper’s eyes pop open and, blinking, he recalls where he is. The scratching pauses, then sounds again. Nails on wood much kinder, softer than metal. He sits up. Listens for another moment. Then slips on his jeans and rises.

  Outside, no crickets call; sky dark and clouded. The wooden floorboards feel cool beneath his bare feet. He leans his ear against the door. Closes his eyes. All sound the other side stops and Jasper listens to the silence. His own breaths the loudest sound. Slowly, he cracks the door.

  Doe eyes peer at him, wide and dark in the dim light. A part of him had known it must be her. He opens his mouth to speak. Joanne puts a finger to her lips, then turns and tiptoes down the hall. He glances at Lizzie’s closed door. Halfway down the hall already, Doe Eyes looks back at him and beckons. Wondering if he’s dreaming, Jasper mutely follows.

  She tiptoes down the stairs featherlight before him. The oversized white T-shirt she wears as nightgown gracefully bobs and floats around her. There was a time when he, too, could have descended those stairs without creaking a single step, but those days are long behind him. He winces as a stair groans under his weight, then freezes, a reflex left over from all those Christmas mornings years back when he would sneak down before Lizzie to see the tree. A part of him, he realizes, still expects his parents to wake and come scold him for being out of bed. A smile cracks his stern exterior. It’s been a long, long while since he smiled like that. Longer still since he cared to tiptoe.

  Downstairs, a tiny crack of light spills from the sitting room. Buttercup yellow, like the flowers outside. Joanne opens the door slowly so the hinges won’t squeak, just like he used to all those years ago. ‘Come on,’ she whispers, and steps inside.

  He follows.

  Two sheets stretch between the sofa and Daddy’s old easy chair, held in place by books and clothespins. Though the rest of the room is dark, a lamp inside the makeshift tent glows yellow gold, lightly illuminating the room.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Joanne whispers, face glowing. ‘Come on!’ In one swift motion she drops down and crawls inside.

  Jasper hesitates. Watches her shadow cross its legs and settle down inside the tent. It’s been years since he had a reason to crawl. When was the last time a little girl pulled him out of bed? Or a woman, for that matter? There has not been much light or laughter for him these last long years, no time for play. When he was a boy, he used to build forts in that very same spot between those very two chairs. Used to play cowboys and Indians and use the fort for shelter. Joanne’s dark shadow within the tent leans forward, elongated by the light. The sheet pulls back and her head pokes out. ‘Come on,’ she whispers, smiling brightly, then disappears again.

  Still wondering if he’s dreaming, Jasper lowers to his knees. She pulls the tent flap back, and he crawls forward. Pillows lie scattered around and underneath them. Two glasses of milk sit off to one side next to a plate with two peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. A teddy bear slouches down the back. One of Mama’s old lamps covered with a yellow dish towel gives off the tent’s golden glow.

  ‘Do you like it?’ she whispers, all gold herself, tangled hair a fiery halo catching the lamp’s gentle light.

  He can’t help but smile. ‘It’s been a long while,’ he says quietly, ‘since I sat in a fort like this.’

  She beams. ‘Katie used to build forts with me. She builds the best forts. And sometimes she used to wake me up and we’d come down here and do puzzles and play cards and tell secrets and stuff, except Katie never really told me that many secrets, I just told her all of mine, but still …’ Her hands fidget in her lap, pick at a scab on her knee.

  ‘How’d you know I wasn’t sleeping?’ His voice sounds rougher than intended.

  She shrugs. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  It feels strange sitting in a child’s fort. Feels wrong somehow being so close to a little girl, in her nightgown, at this late hour, yet it feels so comfortable too, so right. He feels calm around her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says quietly, ‘that they weren’t nicer to you.’

  Thoughts scattered, he bristles slightly. ‘Who?’

  Doe eyes meet his. ‘Everybody.’ She pauses. ‘I liked church. Do you think we can go back? They might be nicer next time.’

  Wood creaks against wood as the house shifts. The buzz of a beetle falls silent. He chooses his words with care. ‘There ain’t too many people left, Doe Eyes,’ he whispers, ‘that might be kind to me.’

  A smile flutters her lips up, then she’s pulling at a hangnail with her teeth. ‘I don’t think you seem so bad.’ It’s like an egg cracks inside him, yolk melting warm through his gut. A funny feeling, to which he is unaccustomed.

  Wide eyes search his. ‘Are you going back?’

  It takes him a moment. ‘To church?’

  She nods.

  A sad smile softens his jaw. ‘I ain’t plannin’ too far ahead just yet.’ Wind blows in from the cracked window, rustling the sheet around them, the cotton cool as it brushes against his arm. He clings to her words. Silently replays them. It feels good to be seen as someone not so bad. Especially by her. He wishes the whole world could see him, just for a moment, through her wide eyes.

  Her smile still flutters on her lips. A shyness to her that was not there before. ‘Uncle Jasper,’ she whispers, ‘how come you call me that name sometimes?’

  Her question snaps him from his reverie. Automatically, he bristles. ‘What name?’

  ‘You know …’ She giggles. ‘What you called me there right before I asked about church.’ Her eyelashes flutt
er as she glances down and looks back up again.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  That shyness still about her. ‘No, I like it.’ She lifts her eyes to his. ‘Daddy called Katie “Lady” when she was young.’

  ‘Oh.’ He is not sure what to say to that. Not sure just what she wants of him.

  She cocks her head, regarding him, brow deeply furrowed. ‘Do I look like a deer to you?’

  He laughs. Can’t help but laugh. ‘Somethin’ like that, Doe Eyes.’ He winks. ‘A deer too fine for huntin’.’

  Her smile casts a light all its own, warmer than the rays off a midday sun, and for the first time Jasper can remember since many long years ago, it seems he can’t stop smiling. Even had he wanted to.

  ‘Here.’ She tosses him a pillow and leans back herself, snuggling up to the teddy bear. With a finger she traces a crease on the sheet above her. ‘Did you ’n’ my daddy ever build forts? Were you friends when you was small?’

  The question surprises him. ‘Naw, but your mama ’n’ I built a good few.’ It’s been over ten years since he felt so comfortable in such a tiny space. He leans against the pillow she threw him. Stretches his legs out long so his feet stick out through the side of the sheet.

  ‘Katie says Daddy used to build the best forts. Even better than hers. She says Daddy used to build us forts like this at night too, so when he left she kept buildin’ ’em, ’cause I couldn’t remember.’ She pauses. ‘I never seen Mom build a fort.’

  ‘Do you remember your daddy much?’ He hadn’t intended to ask that.

  The words hang heavy between them. Down the hall the grandfather clock stops chiming. Her brow creases. He prays she is not re-evaluating, judging him all bad.

  She shakes her head. ‘All I know are stories.’

  Silence stretches as he ponders that, neither knowing what to say.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she asks, her whisper to him oddly musical in the silence left by the grandfather clock.

  Mutely he takes the sandwich she offers. He was a boy the last time he ate a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. With grape jelly. Reminds him of how his mama used to make them, back when he was small. Except the crusts have been cut off. He savours the creaminess of the peanut-butter, smooth and thick against his tongue. He wishes for a moment he was a boy again, clean slate for life ahead. ‘Thank you,’ he says quietly.