Now that Summer was at home alone again, she drifted dreamily through the house as she got ready for a night in. She’d pop some kernels in her aunt’s old fashioned Stir Crazy, open up a bottle of vino, put on her favorite flannel jammies, and Netflix her way into a cheery oblivion. Oh, tonight was going to rock.
Her cell phone began playing the Twilight Zone theme, which was her special ringtone for Aunt Iris—because, let’s face it, the woman was a bit out there, and Summer loved that about her.
“Hi, Aunt Iris,” she said, clicking over the call to speaker. “How’s the cruise?”
“Hi, Summer!” her aunt screamed into the phone. “Can you hear me all right?”
“Uhh, yeah, I think I just popped an eardrum. Take it down a notch or two, and tell me everything.” Summer laughed as she situated herself cross-legged on the couch.
“We’re at our first big port, and it is absolutely stunning here! It was worth every penny I saved to get here. The salty air, the luxurious dining room, the tropical paradise, it’s enough to make an old broad go all moony.”
Moony? Where did Iris get her vocabulary words? Still, Summer was beyond thrilled that her aunt’s dream had finally become a glorious reality. Iris sounded happier than she’d ever been.
“It sounds fantastic, and you sound so happy,” Summer exclaimed. “Have you made any friends?”
“Oh, yes. Everyone is so nice. There’s this one gentleman in particular—”
“Ooh, Aunt Iris, you’re so bad! Tell me everything. Immediately please.”
“I will, but first, how is my little baby?” she asked in a goochie-goo voice. “How’s my Sunny Sunshine?”
“She’s doing great. She’s just…” Summer glanced over toward the large cage in the corner of the room—the cage which now hung open!
Sunny Sunshine was nowhere in sight.
“She’s a real character. We…” Summer continued to jabber on as she moved furniture and paced around the house in search of the little yellow bird. That was when she remembered the window—the window directly across from the bird’s cage, which she had left wide open before heading off with Ben that afternoon. And that had been hours again. Shoot!
“I-I-I’ve gotta go, Aunt Iris. Sunny Sunshine sends kisses, and so do I. Call me later, okay? Bye.” She rushed to hang up the phone before the tremor in her voice could give her away. Had she really just lost her aunt’s favorite companion and best friend?
Oh no, what was she going to do?
Chapter 13
After their lively afternoon at the orchard, Ben came home to find his mother sitting on the couch, one empty liquor bottle on the coffee table before her and another clutched in her hand.
Oh, no.
“Mom?” he asked, craning his neck in an effort to make out her face.
Susan looked up at him with glassy eyes and smiled. Her favorite news anchor droned on in the background. She probably recorded all his segments to watch on loop, Ben realized.
“F-f-finally,” she stuttered. “Where have you been all day?”
This is the worst she’s been in a while.
“I took the day off work and went to the cider mill with Summer.”
“But you never take the day off.” She laughed to herself even though the words came out flat.
“Well, I did this time.” He sighed and sank onto the couch beside her. Didn’t seem he’d be getting away easily until she said whatever she had on her mind. He just hoped her thoughts were coherent enough to follow. If he failed to understand, her frustration would come out in huge spurts. Sometimes, if she got confused enough, she’d even start hitting herself in the forehead, as if somehow the self-harm would shake up her thoughts and rearrange them more logically.
“With Summer, you say?” She stared straight ahead as the news anchor bantered with his female counterpart. Her lips twitched, but she neither smiled nor frowned.
“Yup.” Should I just turn the TV off? Should I try to get her out of the house? Convince her to go to bed? Ben watched his mother for a few beats in an attempt to better assess her mood.
“I like that girl,” Susan said, then let out a big, unapologetic yawn. Bed, she definitely needed to go to bed.
“Okay, Mom. Let’s get you tucked in for the night.” He reached for her arm to help her out, but she ripped it away.
“No, I’m not ready for bed. Anyway, I’ve got something to say.” Oh, great. Now she was slurring.
“What, Mom?” He sank onto the coffee table so they were sitting knee to knee.
“Don’t make the same mistakes I did,” she mumbled.
“Okay, Mom.” He rolled his eyes, an involuntary response, but what did it matter? She wasn’t anywhere near sober enough to pick up on nonverbal cues.
“Don’t let…” The next word was indiscernible even though she spoke it with passion.
“What are you talking about?” Ben sighed. “I think maybe you’ve had enough for today. C’mon, bedtime.”
Now she yelled, but at least her words came out clearly. “No, I’m the parent! I’m the parent! You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you what to do, and what I’m telling you now is important, so stop telling me to go to bed, and listen!”
He motioned for her to continue. If he still didn’t hear her words correctly, then he’d need to pretend. That was the only way to get her to give in and go to bed where she would at least be safe.
“That girl, Summer, you love her,” she said, pausing between each word before saying the next. “Don’t mess it up.”
Now he understood, but he didn’t quite know what to make of his mother giving him life advice. Look at them now. Anyone could see which of them had a better chance at messing things up—messing anything up.
“How can I love her? I barely know her, and—hey—what makes you so sure I’m going to mess things up?”
Susan leaned in and looked him straight in the eye. Her breath stank of whiskey. Her chapped lips trembled as she spoke. “Because you’re your father’s son is why. And you're my son too, which is probably even worse.”
“Let’s get you to bed, Mom. C’mon.” He tried reaching for her again, but she took a wide swing at him.
“I’m not going to bed. You need to wake up, Ben. You need to wake up and appreciate what you have before it’s gone. You understand that? I should have told Stephen how much I loved him, you know.” Now he was confused. Was this about Stephen or Summer? And did his mother even know the answer to that question?”
“Mom…” He spoke slowly in an effort to keep her from getting more riled up. “I highly doubt Summer is going to kill herself.”
“No, but someone else could snap her up before you work up the nerve. Don’t be that guy, Ben. Don’t be a loser.” She snorted and took another swig of her drink, then said, “You either finish first or you may as well not even join the race. You understand me?”
“Yes, I hear you, Mom. Now are you ready for bed?”
“Fine, fine.” Susan stood on shaky feet and allowed Ben to escort her to the bedroom. He filled a tumbler with ice water and set it on her nightstand, then tucked her in. Who was the parent here, again? Ben couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had the luxury of innocence, of knowing someone was out there to protect him, to look out for his best interests.
No, that job had been up to him for a long time. It was his job to keep them safe. The only thing he couldn’t protect them from was themselves, the demons they invited into their minds and never asked to leave. He and his mom—and even Stephen—were alike in that way. They carried their skeletons in their hearts rather than their closets.
Ben locked up the house, closed all the windows, turned off all the lights. Even though it was still only early evening, apparently bed time had come to the Davis house. Now to decide whether he’d spend the next several hours with Netflix or a book, because he knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep for hours.
He tried reading the volume he had checked out on Jungian psychology, bu
t all the talk of ego bored him to tears. He didn’t want to contemplate his unconscious mind and the effect it had on his personal identity. No, he’d much rather think of the beautiful woman he’d spent his afternoon with. Summer made him happy, and she was the only one who had managed to do that in a very long time.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Summer really was the perfect name for her. What was that old sonnet? Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? He forgot how it went, but he could practically write the poem himself just thinking of her smile.
Like a summer’s day, you are warm with a soft breeze that runs over your skin every so often to perk you up. You are bright, sunny, and you feel like you could be endless. But summer is just one season; it’s not meant to last. Maybe that’s what makes it so special. But, Summer, I want you all year round. I don’t ever want to say good-bye.
Crap, his mother was right. He needed to act on his feelings before it was too late. He couldn’t just let the seasons change, couldn’t allow his dream girl to move on to whatever came next while he remained behind, feeling the sting of her absence every single day. He needed to talk with her—openly, honestly—and without snapping at her as he’d done before.
He checked in on his mother one last time before changing into his running shoes and taking the trek to Summer’s bungalow. Now that he finally had the courage to tell her how he felt without shrinking away at the first sign of discouragement, well, he didn’t want to wait another second more than he had to.
He’d been on the track team for the first couple years of high school, but quit after the whole thing with Stephen had gone down. Running to Summer’s, he focused on each footfall, on the intensity of his pulse, on the feel of the air he sucked into his lungs with each breath. He would speak from the heart, no rehearsing. Luckily, he’d somehow managed to maintain his winning lung capacity, and he reached Summer’s house in record time, leaving no time to second-guess himself.
But when he arrived, he found a small crowd gathered outside the home he’d left only an hour before when they’d said good-bye. What the heck…? This wasn’t a party. Everyone looked worried, upset. Where was Summer, and was she okay? His pulse raced, but not from the run.
He spotted his old buddy, Jeffrey, standing at the edge of the swarming pack, next to the garden gnome wearing swim trunks and an inner tube.
“Jeffrey,” he called, rushing over. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Hey, man. Good to see you. How long has it been?” Jeffrey’s face exploded in a smile, but Jeffrey always smiled about everything. He could probably deliver the worst news in the world and still grin the whole time. Oh, no. Is that what he was doing now?
“Jeffrey, I see you every week when I make the delivery to your diner. Tell me, what’s happening here.”
“Yeah, but never outside of that, you know? We used to actually hang. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. But it’s not time for a history lesson right now, Jeffrey.” There’s a phrase he never thought he’d say, given that he wanted more than anything—well, almost—to be a history teacher one day. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded.
“Oh, I did see you hanging out with that girl at the concert. Summer, right? She seems really nice. I’m happy for you, man.”
Ben was about to yell again, but Jeffrey shook his head and finally explained the scene.
“The little bird, Sunny Sunshine, he escaped through an open window or something. Now he’s flying all around the neighborhood, hopping between the rooftops and the trees. We think he wants to come down, but he doesn’t know how to land or something like that. He’s screeching and seems scared. We’re all here trying to help, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much good.” He finished the story and stood smiling, waiting for Ben to say something more.
Ben was less afraid now, but still didn’t want to waste time on idle chitchat when Summer needed his help. She must be so upset!
He glanced around and noticed the abundance of ladders—at least six of them by his quick count. One of them was propped up against the side of the house, and Summer was up on the roof waving her arms and trying to attract the bird’s attention.
“Oh, hey, Ben!” Sally smiled and waved as his gaze fell on her.
When he waved back, she rushed over to where he and Jeffrey were standing.
“Good to see you, Ben,” she said, wrapping him into a hug, which caught him off guard. “Hi, Jeffrey. It’s quite an event we have here, isn’t it?”
“You said it.” Jeffrey agreed by bobbing his head.
“This is one of the biggest gatherings our town has had in years. How much you wanna bet that it will become an annual event now?”
Jeffrey laughed at that idea. Sally did too.
“We’ll be celebrating the anniversary of the time Sunny Sunshine escaped for years past anyone even remembers who Sunny Sunshine was.”
Haha, very funny. But Ben didn’t want to make small talk; he wanted to rescue Summer. Seeing her up on that roof worried him to no end. What if she falls? Then what?
“Bye, guys,” he mumbled, then ran toward the house, toward Summer.
A wind picked up, and Summer half expected it would blow the tiny parrot straight to Bermuda or wherever it was her aunt’s cruise had drifted off to. But strong, little Sunny Sunshine continued to circle overhead, desperately seeking a way to land. Summer followed him with her eyes as he continued to bob from roof to roof, branch to branch, but never to the ground and never to her roof where she stood waiting to rescue the danged thing.
The crowd below had grown to a ridiculous size, and new ladders were still being brought over. Can’t you see I only need the one? She immediately felt bad for thinking it. Her new neighbors only wanted to help. And in a small town like Sweet Grove, an escaped sun conure was big news, apparently—which meant someone was bound to tell her Aunt Iris what had happened. Uh-oh. Hopefully Iris would still be on a high from that cruise by the time she heard the crazy tale that definitely painted Summer as its villain.
The bird took another lap through the sky and even attempted to dive at Summer, but lost his nerve last minute and swooped back up. She followed the orange blur as he landed in a tree at the end of the block. Great. Just awesome.
Wait, who’s that over there? The crowd began to part like Moses and his sea. A figure emerged in the center, running toward Summer as if his life depended on it.
Ben!
Once again he had come to rescue her. It didn’t matter that half the town had also shown up, because somehow he had known she needed him and appeared at just the right moment. Yet another sign they were meant to be?
“Ben! Ben!” she shouted, waving her arms even more fiercely than before.
The look on his face was one of pure terror. He ran toward her, pushing others aside in his effort to get to her as quickly as possible. “Come down. Right now!” he said, gripping the base of the ladder so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Aww, Ben, I wasn’t going to fall,” she argued but complied anyway. Would he find it funny if she pretended to lose her balance and fall? Mmm, probably not. His concern was touching, really. It gave her happy, warm fuzzies.
As soon as her feet landed on the springy front lawn again, she leaped into Ben’s arms and wrapped him in a hug. Tears threatened to spill. The jovial, pranky mood she’d had just seconds before completely vanished.
Aww, who was she kidding?
She cried buckets, finally letting everything out now that her savior had arrived.
“Ben, I left the window open and Sunny Sunshine escaped. He’s never been outside before. He doesn’t know how to come back down. He’s scared and upset and apparently stress can kill birds, and I’m so, so worried. I don’t know what to do,” she said it all in one long breath, then gasped for air and cried some more.
“Keep both feet on the ground for starters. You had me worried.” Ben raised his hands and cupped both of her cheeks, then used his thumbs to wi
pe away a fresh storm of tears. “It’s going to be okay.”
She wondered for an instant if he was going to kiss her, but then her panic over Sunny Sunshine took center stage once again. “If anything happens to that bird, my Aunt Iris will die. She’ll just stop living, Ben. We have to get him back!”
“I’m going up,” he said, pushing his sleeves up to the elbows and gritting his teeth as he placed his hands on either side of the ladder.
“I don’t think so, young man.” Now the cops were here, or at least one of them, and he grabbed Ben by the shoulder.
“Sheriff Grant, the bird, he—”
“I know all about what happened, son, but if anything happens to you, your mother will kill me. I’ll go get the little fellow. You wait here. Keep her calm.” He gestured at Summer, then, before anyone could say a word, the sheriff ascended the ladder and climbed to the peak of the roof.
“Does Sweet Grove really have so little crime that the sheriff personally rescues every animal in need?” she asked in disbelief.
Ben shrugged. “He’s the chief of the volunteer fire department too, and as far as Sweet Grove goes, this is exciting stuff. Dramatic stuff,” he explained.
In an embarrassingly short amount of time, Sheriff Grant had lured Sunny Sunshine into his outstretched hands and was climbing down the ladder with the bird sitting happily on his shoulder. “Here you go, Miss Smith,” he said, handing the creature to Summer.
Summer was so happy she kissed the little bird right on its fluffy head. Sunny Sunshine screamed at her, but did not bite. Still, he clearly knew whose fault all of this had been.
“How’s your mother doing, son?” Summer heard Grant ask as she rushed inside to return the bird to its cage. If she pushed her luck too much, he would definitely bite her and she would toss the thing so hard he’d need to be rescued again.
When Summer came back into the yard, the crowd had already begun to dissipate.
“We’re all heading to Mabel’s on Maple to celebrate,” Ben explained. “C’mon!”
Love's Prayer (The First Street Church Romances Book 1) Page 8
