Summer Shadows

by Killarney Traynor

  “I just want to thank you all so much,” she said. “For pitching in like that, helping us get rid of the squirrel, cleaning up the mess – I just don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You could buy us lunch!” Mitch offered, raising his hand.

  Billy clipped him playfully with his hat, but Julia smiled. “I’d really be pleased to offer you all lunch. It’ll just be hot dogs and salad, but you are welcome to it.”

  To Ron’s evident delight, they accepted. Amelia offered the cookies she’d baked the day before, and J. C. volunteered the soda he had packed in coolers in his truck. Wilde offered to help cook the hotdogs. When they discovered that the old grill in the shed had no charcoal, he and Amelia cheerfully wheeled their own over from their back porch.

  Julia was almost overwhelmed with offers of help. She fussed with the salad while Amelia and Dana swept the porch and spread a picnic cloth on it. Before long, dogs and buns were grilling on the flames.

  It turned out to be an unexpected party. J. C. and his friends tried to outdo each other in stuffing their mouths. Amelia and Dana huddled together giggling, while Derval and Julia chatted. Ron discussed the renovations with Wilde. Julia, sitting nearby, overheard some of it.

  “You’re both doing nice work. You did those rooms in just two days?”

  “Aunt Julia did most of it. I’ve been helping.”

  “It’s a big job. What colors are you using?”

  Ron told him and Wilde approved. They talked for a few minutes about application and drying times, and matte finish compared to gloss. Wilde told Ron about redoing his old house and all the trouble he’d had removing the wallpaper.

  “That’s a mess,” he said. He spoke comfortably, man-to-man, as though they were almost the same age. “Trying to get that guck off the wall made me never want to use wallpaper again. Give me paint any day.”

  “A whole bunch of the rooms downstairs are wallpapered,” Ron sounded worried. “I guess we’ll have the same trouble.”

  “Yeah, it’s a lot of work. If you two decide you need a hand, let me know. It’s been pretty slow around here lately and I’ll be glad to have a project to help with.”

  Julia saw Ron look up at Robert with new interest. The officer, busy helping Amelia with her food, didn’t seem to notice the boy’s burgeoning hero-worship.

  By the time the food was gone, an hour had passed and J. C.’s crew had to go to their next appointment. Before leaving, Derval made a deal with Julia to watch Jack a few times a week while they worked on the house. Wilde and Amelia left too, having made plans to go see a movie.

  After cleaning up the picnic, Julia set Dana and Jack up to watch a movie in the living room while she and Ron went upstairs to finish the sanding.

  When they were upstairs, donning their masks, Julia said, “Well! That was exciting.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s nice when you make friends at a new place, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it sure is.”

  They worked with the sandpaper for a few minutes, then Ron said, “Aunt Julia? Do you think I’ll be as tall as Robert?”

  Julia was glad that the mask hid her grin. “You’ll probably be taller. Your dad was.”

  She regretted the comment instantly. Ron’s expression, so open and innocent, closed again into his usual stoicism, and he didn’t mention Wilde again that afternoon.

  13

  Ron woke up feeling refreshed. Aunt Julia had let them all sleep on sheets and blankets on the bare living room floor. While his back was a little sore, it was far less stuffy than it had been in the sleeping bags. For the first time since they had arrived, he didn’t wake up damp with sweat.

  Dana and Jack were still sleeping as he lifted himself up off the floor. As he padded past the kitchen, he spotted Julia, already dressed in her paint-stained jeans, working on her computer at the kitchen table. By the time he was dressed, she’d set the table with his favorite cereal.

  He was hungry and ate two bowls. Julia sipped her coffee and nibbled on her breakfast bar as she alternated between scrolling and typing quickly.

  Ron watched her work. Her lips were tight – what she was working on wasn’t making her very happy. He thought it wasn’t fair that she got to bring her computer when she wouldn’t let him bring his, but he knew that she was trying to find a new job and keep in touch with the woman that was minding the house.

  She finally broke the silence.

  “I heard from your grandmother this morning,” she said.

  She meant Gran Budd, his dad’s mother. She and Gramps were on a trip around the world with a whole bunch of their friends and didn’t expect to be back for a few months. Gran had promised to call all of them every day that she was gone. So far, Ron hadn’t received a call.

  “They’re in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and having a marvelous time,” Julia said cheerfully. “She said to tell you that she loves you and misses you. They wanted to talk to you, but Gramps didn’t want to wake you.”

  Ron nodded. He knew that the Budds didn’t like Aunt Julia, even before his parents’ accident, and things had only gotten worse after she’d refused to give up custody. He remembered standing by when Aunt Julia told them, over the phone, about their summer plans. Although Julia hadn’t said anything to him, he knew his grandparents well enough to know that his aunt would have been raked over the coals. Gran Budd claimed to love the children dearly, but they all knew better than to cross her.

  “I’ve never even heard of Puntarenas,” Julia continued. “She said it’s lovely, and that the sun has been out every day. It sounds great. Anyway, I promised that you guys would call later, so please don’t let me forget.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  “Cool. I had a look at the walls this morning and I think we can go right ahead and put the next coat on. It’s drying beautifully. You’ve got a good eye for colors, you know, just like your mother.”

  Ron said, “Everyone says that I’m just like Dad.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re a lot like him, too.”

  To change the topic, Ron asked, “You have internet here?”

  She looked at her computer. “No, I’m afraid not. I think we’re going to have to schedule a trip to someplace that has free Wi-Fi. I haven’t been able to access my email in nearly a week. Maybe we’ll go out this afternoon.”

  “After we do the walls again?”

  “After we do the walls,” Julia agreed. “I’d like to see if I got any feedback from those job applications.”

  She poked at her keyboard for a few minutes while Ron played with his cereal. Then he asked the question that had been bothering him for two weeks.

  “If you don’t get a job, what will happen?”

  Julia looked up at him thoughtfully. She folded her arms and leaned on the table in front of her laptop and said, in a careful, even tone, “I will find a job. That isn’t the problem. The only real problem that I can see is that when I do get the job, we may have to move to accommodate it and it will probably not pay as much as my old job, which will mean that we’ll have to cut more corners. But we’ll be okay. It’ll all work out.”

  Ron met her gaze steadily. “How long will the savings hold out?”

  “Long enough. We’re good until December at least - providing, of course, that the repairs here don’t cost more than I expect them to.”

  “Do you think they will?”

  “Nah. Between the two of us, I think we can pull off the renovations and save a bundle on contracting costs. Your help is making it take half the time I thought it would.”

  Ron flushed with pleasure.

  She shut down the laptop and got up. “Why don’t we get back to work? If we can get to the walls early enough, we may be able to put the final coat on this afternoon.”

  He felt much better. He put his dishes in the sink, washed his ha
nds, and went upstairs to work.

  They put the second coat on the boys’ room, then carefully painted the two-toned walls of Dana’s room.

  By the time the walls were finally finished, Ron’s arms were sore and he was sweating again. Julia was tired, too. When they came downstairs, they found Jack on his back, screaming and kicking his heels on the hallway floor, while Dana leaned against the wall with her arms folded, pouting.

  When Julia snapped, “Jack!” they weren’t too surprised. He had it coming. They waited for her next move, watching warily.

  Jack stopped kicking and screaming, but he was still crying. He rubbed his eyes and reached to wrap himself around Julia’s leg, sniffling pitifully.

  Julia sighed and looked at her watch.

  “It’s 11:30,” she said. “I want you guys to go out and play nicely on the sidewalk until I have lunch ready, all right?”

  “Do we have to?” Dana grumbled.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I don’t want to go outside!” Jack whined.

  “Well, I need you to go outside anyway. I want you out of the fumes.”

  “Do you need help with lunch?” Ron asked.

  “No thanks,” Julia said. “You guys go out and I’ll call you in a few minutes.”

  Sitting outside on the sidewalk a few minutes later, Dana said, “It’s boring out here.”

  “It’s boring,” Jack repeated, but then his attention was captured by a parade of ants.

  Ron knew better than to agree.

  “I’m bushed,” he said, leaning back into the sun. He welcomed the rest. The day had grown hot, and a few lazy butterflies circled them. The roar of a plane could be heard competing with the birds and the tree frogs; across the street, a sprinkler system started up and made a grating noises. Fluffy clouds floated by the sun, occasionally casting shadows.

  Dana was right. It was boring.

  “I wish I had my game system,” Ron said.

  “It’s not fair,” Dana pouted. “Amelia says that there’s a great big lake and a beach to swim at and we can’t go because of the stupid house.”

  “We have to fix it, Dana, to sell it.”

  “I know! But I don’t like it. Paint smells.”

  “It smells good,” Ron insisted. He was proud of his efforts that morning. He rubbed at the paint stains on his pants and smiled. “It’s looking nice up there. Jack, don’t go into the bushes!”

  “You’ll be eaten by a tick,” Dana warned.

  “No, I won’t!”

  Ron and Dana got up from the pavement and retrieved him, wriggling and squealing, from the depths of the jungle-like growth. Jack wasn’t happy, but Ron tickled him and that took his mind off the indignity of it. They sat on the pavement again, and amused themselves by throwing tiny stones to the sidewalk on the other side of the road.

  They were enjoying themselves; then Dana, who had gotten to her feet to see where the last stone had landed, froze in place. Her face, expressive even in the calmest moments, had gone white. She was staring towards the old Victorian.

  Ron got up and touched her shoulder. She jumped.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  She looked wide-eyed at him, then thrust her finger towards the mansion.

  “Did you see it?”

  Ron looked towards the house, always in shadow thanks to the trees, and saw nothing.

  “See what?”

  “Something moved,” Dana insisted. “One of the branches by the porch. Like someone’s there.”

  Ron’s heart was pounding, but he couldn’t let the younger ones see that. They’d panic. Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted anything to be there.

  “No one’s there, Dana. Amelia said it’s empty. It was probably just the wind.”

  She threw up her arms. “What wind?”

  She was right. There wasn’t even a breeze.

  “Maybe it was a cat.”

  She gave him an exasperated look.

  “Sure,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “An awfully big cat.”

  Ron shuddered.

  At that moment, however, they heard something that put all thoughts of ghosts and prowlers right out of their heads. Behind them, at the other end of the road, came a parade of yapping dogs, managed by the sturdy figure of Mrs. Jurta and trailed by Amelia. The dogs jumped around so much that Ron couldn’t count how many there were.

  Jack, frightened by the noisy animals, drew near to Ron and took hold of his jeans with one hand. Ron could feel his trembling through the cloth.

  Dana shrieked, “Amelia!” and ran to meet her.

  Mrs. Jurta struggled to keep the dogs under control, but Ron had serious doubts about her ability, so he moved to pick Jack up just in case. But before he could, the little boy bolted for the house, screaming Julia’s name.

  Mrs. Jurta yelled, “Quiet! Down! Hello, there, young man,” she said to Ron, speaking loudly over her charges. “It’s all right, they’re all friendly.”

  Some of the dogs tried to escape their leashes, but with a few more commands from Mrs. Jurta, the dogs sat - except for one small black and white dog. He strained at the leash, his tail going a mile a minute.

  “I think Packer likes you,” she said.

  Ron took a step closer and put out his hand. Packer sniffed and joyfully licked it. He patted Packer’s back, and the dog leaped all over his arm, trying to lick his face. Ron noticed that one of Packer’s ears had been torn and healed over.

  He observed Dana sitting on the pavement with a large, coal-gray puppy in her lap, licking her face. Amelia was next to her, cuddling a tiger-striped puppy, and the two were chattering away.

  “No doubt about it,” said Mrs. Jurta, taking advantage of the quiet to wipe her forehead. “He likes you.”

  A bang at the side door had all the dogs on their feet and barking again.

  Julia, with a cringing Jack wrapped around her neck, hurried over and stopped short when she saw what the fuss was about.

  “Oh!” she said. “Hello!”

  “Sorry about the ruckus,” Mrs. Jurta greeted her. “They get a little excited when they meet new people.”

  Jack shuddered and buried his face in Julia’s neck.

  “Not at all,” Julia said. “We just aren’t used to having dogs around, are we, Jack?”

  He shook his head, and Mrs. Jurta clucked her tongue sympathetically. She lifted a hand full of leashes.

  “If you ever decide that you need a dog,” she said, “let me know.”

  Julia laughed. “I think we’re all set, but thank you. I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Julia Lamontaigne. This is Jack, Ron, and Dana.”

  “Helen Jurta. I’m awfully glad to see a young family moving in. It’s nice to have a young, stable presence in this neighborhood, not to mention that Amelia’s been looking for someone to play with. Do you want to play with Packer?”

  She offered the leash to Ron and he took it, feeling a little awkward. Packer, after leaping around him for a few minutes, sat down for a long, hard scratch.

  “I’m afraid we’re not staying,” Julia said. “We’re just here for the summer.”

  Ron thought that Aunt Julia must be getting tired of explaining that to everyone.

  “Oh?” The older woman glanced at Amelia. A mixture of pity and concern crossed her weathered face, but it faded quickly.

  She brightened and turned back to Julia. “Well, you never know. You might change your mind. When I first arrived here, I had no intention of staying. Now, nearly fifty years later, people are starting to wonder when I’ll leave!”

  The two little girls squealed suddenly as the gray puppy licked Dana’s face. She giggled and wrapped her arms around the dog who seemed content to stay right there.

  “Now that,” said Mrs. Jurta, “is a nice thing to se
e. You know, that poor little puppy was abused before I got him. Wouldn’t even come out of his crate, and he took two weeks to adjust to Amelia. And now he’s thick as thieves with Rona there…”

  “Dana,” Aunt Julia corrected.

  She carried on like she hadn’t heard, “…just as if they’d been pals for years. That’s love at first sight if I’ve ever seen it.”

  “Yes…”

  Ron heard the caution in his aunt’s voice. Dana was prone to getting attached to things quickly, and she’d wanted a dog for years. Dana’s potential obsession had to be stopped before it started. Ron stood with leash in hand, wondering how to do that while Packer, having scratched every reachable inch of himself, went to the end of the leash to sniff around in the bushes.

  Julia asked, “Where do you get all of these dogs?”

  Mrs. Jurta looked at them with pride. “I’m their foster mother,” she said. “Whenever the ASPCA gets overloaded with rescues, they send some of them to me. I care for them, train them, and report any anomalies to the office. In return, they pick up the vet’s bills for me.”

  “That must be a lot of work.”

  “It can be, but I’m retired so I’ve got the time. Amelia is a big help when she can make it. I’ve always loved animals, so this is sort of a dream come true for me.”

  “How nice,” Julia commented politely.

  “It is. I’ve taught here in Franklin for twenty five years and I’ve lived here twice that. I think I know just about everyone who lives here, and I’m friends with most of them. You’ll find this to be a friendly, safe neighborhood, Mrs. Lamontaigne. Even though some of the tenants in your house were a bit… well, strange. We haven’t had any violence here in, oh, twenty years now. Yes, just twenty years ago this year, as a matter of fact.”

  Packer came dancing away from the bushes and began to sniff around Julia’s feet, causing Jack to cling even tighter. Ron, intrigued by the last remark, tried with no avail to convince the dog to go back to the bushes.

  Julia struggled to loosen Jack’s death grip. “That’s certainly good to hear.”