A Summer to Die

by Lois Lowry

  "Stop it!" I said angrily. "Stop talking about it! If you want to talk about Molly, then talk about Molly, not her stupid medicine! You haven't even sent in her camp application, Mom. It's still on your desk!"

  They both looked as if I had thrown something at them. But it worked. I don't think I heard the word "cyclophosphamide" again, and for a while they talked of other things, and life was somewhat normal. And now Molly will be home soon, all better—and no more nosebleeds—and after all that business with the fancy drugs, it turned out that what she ended up with is pills. When she comes home, she'll have to take pills for a while. Big deal. They could have found that out when she got there, and sent her home sooner.

  But since they didn't, I made the Easter egg for Molly, to cheer her up, and I made another one for Will. Will's egg was blue, and special in a different way. I thought and thought about how to paint it, and finally I looked up spices in the encyclopedia, and found a picture of nutmeg. I painted tiny nutmeg blossoms all over his eggshell, intertwined so that they formed a complicated pattern of orange, brown, and green over the blue background. I varnished and packed it, and on Easter Sunday I took the box with his egg, and the envelope with his pictures, and walked down the road to his house.

  I hadn't seen Will since Molly got sick. Things were just too complicated at first. My parents spent a lot of time at the hospital, and I had to do most of the cooking. Then, when she was getting better, my father had to work doubly hard on the book because he hadn't been able to concentrate on it when she was so sick. I realized that I hadn't been concentrating on my schoolwork, either, for the same reason, so I had a lot of catching up to do too.

  But finally things were calming down. It was school vacation, Molly was getting better, and even the mud outside had dried up a little. At night it would still freeze, and in fact I noticed, as I walked past, that there were tire tracks frozen into the driveway of the big house across the field.

  That was another reason I wanted to see Will After that first awful night, when I had seen the light in the window, other things had been happening at the house. Nothing seemed as mysterious as that light in the middle of the night; still, I was curious. There was a car at the house occasionally, and the driveway had been cleared of the last spring-muddied bits of snow. Sometimes when the day was very quiet I could hear the sound of saws and hammers coming from the house. Once I had seen the figure of a man on the roof, working. It certainly looked as if someone were getting ready to move in. I asked my father if the nephew had gotten permission to turn the house into an inn, but Dad said he hadn't heard anything about it; on the other hand, Dad pointed out, he'd been so distracted and so busy that he probably wouldn't have noticed if spaceships had landed in the field.

  Will was under the hood of his truck again. I should have taken my camera with me. If there is one way in which I will always remember Will, it is under the hood of that old truck.

  "Is it your battery again, Will?" I called as I approached him.

  He straightened up and grinned. "Meg! I was hoping someone would drop in for tea. In fact, I have the kettle on. I'm so glad fate sent you instead of Clarice Callaway. She's been hinting for years that she'll come to call someday, and I live in perpetual fear of seeing her heading down this road with her Sunday hat on and a fistful of overdue library slips to deliver."

  I giggled. Clarice Callaway is the village librarian. She's eighty-two years old, and I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that, because she tells everyone that herself as soon as they're introduced to her. She's also the president of the Historical Preservation Society, and my father says that's a real exercise in irony, because Clarice herself is the best-preserved historical monument for miles around. Also, she has a crush on Will. He told me that whenever he goes to the library, she disappears into the ladies' room and then comes out again with bright pink rouge on her cheeks, so that she looks like a French doll his sister had when she was a child.

  He sighed and wiped his hands on a rag. "It's the radiator this time. In the winter it's the battery, and when spring comes it's the radiator. The tires go flat in summer. Sometimes I think I'll buy a new truck, but then I figure I'd have to learn to deal with a whole new set of disasters. At least now I know that every April the radiator hoses will break and the engine will overheat. Better to know what your enemy is before you confront him; right, Meg?"

  "Right," I agreed, even though I wasn't at all sure I wanted to be confronted by enemies or disasters, whether I knew them or not.

  "Come inside," Will said. "I have a surprise for you."

  But my surprise was first. After Will had poured tea for both of us, I opened the big envelope and took out the pictures. I laid the six of them on the kitchen table and watched as Will picked them up one at a time. He didn't laugh or blush or say "Oh, I look terrible" the way kids do when they see pictures of themselves. I knew he wouldn't. He picked up each one and studied it, smiling at some, looking thoughtfully at others. Finally he chose the same one that was my favorite: the one where his eyes were closed, and the smoke from his pipe was a thin line along the side and the top of the photograph. He took it to the window and looked at it in better light.

  "Meg," he said at last, "all of these are very, very good. You know that already, I'm sure. This is the best one, I think, because of the composition, and also because you hit on just the right combination of shutter speed and aperture setting. You see how the lines in the face are perfectly sharp—you must have a pretty good lens on that little camera of yours—but you slowed it just enough so that the line of smoke has a slight blur to it, as it should. Smoke has an ephemeral quality, and you caught that, but you didn't sacrifice the clarity of the face. It's a fine photograph."

  Why did I want to cry when he finished talking? I don't even know what ephemeral means. But something inside me welled up like hot fudge sauce—sweet, and warm, and so rich that you can't bear to have very much. It was because someone who was a real friend was having the exact same feelings I was having, about something that was more important to me than anything else. I bet there are people who go through a whole life and never experience that. I sat there with my hand around the warm mug of tea, and smiled at Will.

  "Meg," he said suddenly, gulping his own tea. "I'll make a deal with you!"

  I laughed. People say that to me at school, and it means that they want to copy my algebra homework, and in return I get the Hostess Twinkie from their lunch.

  "Remember I told you that I had bought a camera in Germany?"

  I nodded.

  "It's a fine camera," Will said. "The best made, and of course something like that doesn't diminish with age. I don't know why I haven't used it in so long, except that I lost my enthusiasm for a lot of things when Margaret died. And that," he said gruffly, "is the last thing she would have wanted.

  "But I'm going to get it out of the attic. The camera, and four lenses, and a set of filters that go with it. I want you to use it."

  The hot fudge started up again. My own camera has just one lens, which can't be removed. I've read about using other kinds of lenses and filters, but I've never had a chance to try.

  "I don't know what to say," I told him, and it was true. "What could I possibly do in return?"

  "Oh, don't worry about that!" laughed Will. "I said I'd make a deal with you. I'm not going to let you off easily, either. In return, I want you to teach me to use the darkroom. Let me borrow your little camera while you're using mine, and we'll set up a regular schedule for lessons. I'll warn you that it's been a long time since I've undertaken to learn anything new. But my eyesight is good, and my hands are steady, still."

  "But, Will," I wailed. "I'm only thirteen years old! I've never taught anybody anything!"

  Will looked at me very sternly. "My dear Meg," he said, "Mozart wrote his first composition when he was five. Age is a meaningless commodity in most instances. Don't underrate yourself. Now is it a deal?"

  I sat there for a moment, looking at my empty mug
. Then I shook his hand. He was right; his hands were firm and strong and steady. "It's a deal, Will," I said.

  I remembered the Easter egg. In a way it seemed almost silly, now, but I brought out the little box and gave it to him. He held the egg up gravely and examined the design; his eyes lit up with recognition.

  "Myristica fragrant," he pronounced solemnly. "Nutmeg. Am I right?"

  I grinned at him and nodded. "I don't know about the mistica, or whatever you said, but it's nutmeg. You're right."

  He put the egg into a shallow pewter bowl, and took it to the living room. After he had put the bowl on a small pine table by the window, both of us stood in the room and looked at it. The blue of the egg was the same muted blue as the oriental rug; the rust and green shades seemed to reflect the colors of the old wood and the hanging, well-tended plants. It was perfect there; Will didn't even have to say so. We just looked at it together as the April sunlight from the window fell onto the bowl and the fragile oval shell, outlined their shadows on the polished table, and then brightened a rectangle on the pattern of the carpet.

  "Now, scoot," said Will. "I have to deal with my radiator."

  I was just at the end of his muddy driveway, and his head was back under the hood of the truck, when I remembered. I turned and called to him.

  "Will? I forgot to ask you about the big house!"

  He brought his head out and groaned. "And I forgot to tell you my surprise!"

  So I went back for a minute. I sat on the front steps and scratched Tip beside his ear, while Will pulled the radiator hoses off—"rotten old things," he said to them. "Why do you do this to me every spring?"—and told me about the house. My question, it turned out, was the same as his surprise.

  "I was right here last month," he said, "with my head under the hood, as usual. The battery then, of course. And a car drove up with a young couple in it. They asked if I knew anything about that house.

  "In the past year, at least ten people have asked me about the house, but they've always been the wrong people. Don't ask me how I know that. It's just something I can feel. And when this young couple—Ben and Maria, their names are—got out of their car, I could tell they were the right ones.

  "Ben helped me clean the leads to the battery, and Maria went in the kitchen and made tea for the three of us. By the time Ben and I had washed our hands and finished our tea, I had rented the house to them. When you know it's the right people, it's as easy as that.

  "They don't have much money. He's a student still, at Harvard, and he said he was looking for a quiet place for the summer, to write his thesis."

  I groaned. Next thing you knew, this whole valley would be noisy from the sound of typewriters. Will laughed; he'd had the same thought.

  "But in return for the summer in the house, they're going to fix the place up. He's been working weekends ever since I told them they could have the house. The roof needs work; the wiring needs work; the plumbing needs work. Well, you know what it's like when you get old with no one to take care of you!"

  We laughed together. I could tell already that I would like Ben and Maria, because Will did.

  "And Maria's going to put in a garden when the ground thaws," he continued. "They'll be moving in officially quite soon, I think. And I've told them about you. They're looking forward to having you stop in, Meg."

  Then Will looked a little sheepish, the first time I'd ever seen him look that way. "But I forgot to ask them something," he confessed.

  "What?"

  He looked in several other directions before he answered. He was embarrassed. Finally he explained, "I forgot to ask them if they're married."

  I burst out laughing. "Oh, Will," I said, "do you think it matters?"

  He looked as if it hadn't occurred to him that it might not matter. "Well," he said finally, "I can tell you that it would have mattered to Margaret. But, well, I guess maybe you're right, Meg. I guess it doesn't really matter to me."

  Then he wiped his hands on his rag and grinned. "It might matter to their child, though. From the looks of it, there's going to be a baby coming this summer."

  A baby. That was a strange thing to think about. I'm not overly fond of babies. Molly adores them. She says she's going to have at least six someday herself, even though I keep telling her that's environmentally absurd.

  I told Molly about it on the phone that night, and she was thrilled at the thought of having a baby in the house across the field. Her voice sounded good, stronger than it has since she got sick. I've talked to her on the phone a lot, and sometimes she's sounded tired and depressed. But now she's feeling well again, and she's looking forward to coming home.

  "It's a drag, being here," she said. "Even though there are some good-looking doctors."

  That made me laugh. I knew she was feeling normal again if she was noticing the doctors.

  I told her how much Will liked his photographs, and that he was going to let me use his German camera.

  "Hey, Meg?" she asked. "Do me a favor?"

  "Sure." Usually I wouldn't say "sure" without knowing what the favor was; but what the heck, she'd been pretty sick.

  "Would you take my picture when I get home? I want a really good one, to give Tierney for his birthday this summer."

  "Molly, I'll make you look like a movie star," I told her, and she giggled before she hung up.

  6.

  Will Banks is learning to use the darkroom, and he's fantastic. Ben and Maria have moved into the house, and they're terrific. Molly is home, and she's being thoroughly unbearable.

  Well, as they say, two out of three isn't bad.

  I suppose you can't really blame Molly for being a pain. She was awfully sick; no one knows that better than I do. I don't think the sight of her lying there in all that blood will ever go out of my mind.

  But apparently she got used to being the center of 74 attention in the hospital. Who wouldn't, with all those specialists around? Still, here she is at home, and supposedly well—or why would they have discharged her from the hospital?—and she acts as if everyone should still be at her beck and call. And my parents put up with it; that's the amazing thing.

  "Could I have a tuna fish sandwich?" asked Molly at lunchtime, the day after she came home. She was lying on the couch in the kitchen, in a pose like Playmate of the Month, except that she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

  "Do you want lettuce?" my mother asked her, scurrying to get the bread and mayonnaise. For pete's sake. Do you want lettuce. Two months ago she would have said, "Make it yourself, madam." That's what she would still say, to me.

  And after all that, Molly didn't even eat the sandwich. She came to the table, ate two bites, and then drifted back to the couch and said she wasn't hungry after all.

  "Are you sure you're feeling all right, dear?" asked Mom.

  "Quit bugging me, will you?" said Molly, and she stormed off to our room, slammed the door (which fell open again; Molly will never learn that the door to our room is totally useless in a tantrum) and took a nap for the rest of the afternoon.

  Molly never used to be like that. I used to be like that, sometimes, and I hated myself when I was. Now Molly is that way, and I find myself hating her, or at least hating what has happened to her to make her different.

  My parents don't say a word. That's different, too. In the past, when one of us was grouchy, my mother always said and did things that were both understanding and funny, so that we would start to laugh and whatever was making us irritable would just disappear in a comfortable way. Or Dad would be very stern. He says he doesn't have time to waste on rudeness. "Shape up," he would say. And we would shape up, because he didn't leave any choice.

  But now Mom doesn't chuckle and tease when Molly is awful. Dad doesn't lay down the law. Instead, Mom gets worried and confused, which makes things worse. Dad gets tense and silent and goes off to his study without saying anything. It's as if an upsetting stranger has moved in with us, and no one knows what to do about it.

  Part of wh
y Molly is being so obnoxious, I think, is because she doesn't look very good, and it was always so important to Molly to look pretty. But she lost weight while she was in the hospital (because the food was so dreadful, she says), so that now her face is thinner than it used to be. And more pale. The paleness, I guess, is because she had to have the blood transfusions, and it probably takes the red blood cells a while to build up again.

  Worst of all, for Molly, her hair is falling out. That's because of the pills she has to take, my parents said. One of the side effects is that your hair falls out! I told her that there might be medicines with worse side effects, like making your nose fall off, but no one thought that was very funny. My mother told her that when she is able to stop taking the medicine, after a while, her hair will grow back thicker and curlier than it was before, but when Mom said that, Molly just said, "Great," very sarcastically and kept staring at her comb full of blond strands. Then Mom said that if it got worse, they would buy her a wig, and Molly said, "Oh, gross!" and stomped off to our bedroom.

  So things are kind of difficult at our house now. Molly can't go back to school until she gains a little weight and gets her color back. She says she won't go back to school anyway if her hair keeps falling out. Mom and Dad don't say much about school. They're depressed about the whole thing, I can tell.

  It will just take time. If we're all patient and wait, everything will be the same as it used to be, I know.