The Summer We Got Free

by McKenzie, Mia

  “Ava?” Helena asked, “Are you alright?”

  Ava looked at her. “My brother was murdered.”

  She could see the instant horror in Helena’s eyes.

  “He was beaten to death.”

  Helena put her hand to her mouth.

  “I can stop if you don’t want to hear,” Ava said.

  Helena shook her head. “No. But you can stop if it’s too hard.”

  It wasn’t hard. Ava was surprised by how easy it was to say, how it did not stick in her throat or stutter off her tongue the way she thought it would. How it came smoothly and surely. “Geo and Kenny, the pastor’s son, were found in the church parking lot. Kenny’s throat was cut.”

  Helena seemed almost unable to speak. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She reached out and took Ava’s hand, then tried again. “Who killed them?”

  “I don’t know. No one was caught.” She remembered the dream she’d had two nights ago, of the dodgeball game, the fight, Geo’s trembling hand in hers, and Pastor Goode watching from above.

  “Do you know why it happened? Why they were killed?”

  “No,” Ava said. And another flash. This time, only voices.

  Where’s Ava?

  Leave my sister alone.

  Ava felt a rush of lightheadedness and she leaned her head back against the railing. “I think it had something to do with me. I heard someone asking him where I was.”

  “When?”

  “Right before, I think.”

  “Right before what?”

  “Before they started beating him up.”

  Helena shook her head, looking confused. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Ava. Were you there?”

  Ava felt confused herself. “I don’t think so.”

  The screen door opened and Paul peered out at them. “What a brother got to do to get some dinner around here?” he asked, grinning.

  Sarah had wished for Helena. Prayed for her. Just a couple of weeks before she had shown up at their door, Sarah had got down on her knees and asked God to send someone. It had been the end of a bad day and she had gone to bed feeling lonelier than usual. Most of the time, she could handle the isolation. After so many years, she was used to it, and at some point she had even come to rely on it. It kept her safe from the unseeing eyes of people. But some days, and that day especially, it had been bad. She felt deeply alone, more alone than she thought any human being ought to be able to feel and still be a human being. She felt like a rock in a riverbed, or a leaf at the end of a tree branch, close enough to see others like her, but helpless to reach out, to speak, to hold or hope to be held. That day it had rocked her. Coming home from work on the bus, she had seen a little boy touching the hand of a little girl and it had torn at something inside her. It had made her lean her shoulder against the shoulder of the woman in the seat beside her, so desperate was she in that moment for some connection. The woman, reading a book, had not seemed to notice. When she had arrived home, Ava was there, and Sarah had gone right up to her and put her arms around her and hugged her close. Ava had been her normal self: when Sarah pulled out of the hug, she’d asked, “Did you have something garlicky for lunch?” Sarah had nodded and gone to start dinner. When the family had sat in front of the television that evening, she had looked around at every one of them and tried to feel some connection. Her mother had seemed disturbed. Her father had looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Paul had been exhausted. They barely spoke to each other. When the show was over, George had left. Regina had gone to stare at the tiny television in her room for the rest of the evening, while Paul had pulled Ava away upstairs. Sarah had gone to bed early, having seen no reason not to. Lying in her bed, she had prayed for someone to come. It had not been a thought that had occurred to her before, that there could be someone who could show up and make it better. It was an absurd idea, because, well, people didn’t just show up and make other people’s lives less unbearable. She had wished for it, anyway. Once she had, the moment she had, it had become something she thought she could not do without, something she was sure she would not be able to go on without having. It had seemed so necessary that she had got up out of her bed and kneeled on the floor like she had when she prayed as a child, her palms pressed together, her fingertips against her forehead. “Please send somebody, Lord,” she had prayed. When she awoke the next morning, the prayer had still been on her lips. She waited. Not because she expected anyone to come, but because she could not bear the thought of no one coming, and the only way not to think it wouldn’t happen was to wait for it to happen. Days had passed. A week. Two. Then the doorbell had rung. And Sarah knew Helena had come for her.

  Now she lay in bed, beside her mother, who was snoring softly. She had returned to Regina’s room after Ava had called her a liar in front of Helena, and she had decided that sleeping on the sofa, exposed, unable to hide herself away, was now too high a price to pay for being righteously angry with Regina. She felt like a fool. She’d had such a good time with Helena, especially when it had been just the two of them in the house. They had talked and laughed like old friends. Now, Helena probably thought she was ridiculous. A silly liar. Or worse, much worse, Helena might not be able to see her at all anymore.

  She had to do something. She lay there, trying to think what. She could not erase the lie after it had been told and she was sure Helena had believed Ava. Helena was a nice woman and probably wouldn’t even mention it again, but that would be even worse, because she had been so interested in the story of the fire-eating man, so interested in Sarah because of it. Sarah still wanted that. She felt she had to have it.

  She realized what she had to do. Lying there in the dark, she knew there was something, one thing, she could do to fix it, and erase the lie forever.

  1956

  Sarah had loved Kenny Goode from the third minute she saw him, on a Sunday morning at Blessed Chapel, only two weeks after the Delaneys had joined the church. Kenny, who had been away at his grandparents’ house in New Jersey the whole week before, appeared that Sunday standing by the pulpit with his father. Sarah, who had been at Sunday school alone because the twins were both sick with colds, barely noticed the small boy in his grey suit. By six years old, she had already figured out that nobody really saw her. Ava was the one who got all the attention, and Geo sometimes, too, just because he was Ava’s twin. But no one ever really noticed Sarah. Even her own parents, it seemed to her, had trouble remembering she existed when Ava consumed so much of their thoughts and energy. That day at church was different, though. Without Ava there, Sarah had her parents to herself. When the buckle on one of her Sunday shoes came loose, her mother actually noticed it and refastened it for her. As they walked together up to the main sanctuary, her father held her hand. So, she was already happy, already smiling, when Pastor Goode brought his son over to meet the new family—or just the three-fifths of them who were in attendance that day.

  “This here’s my youngest boy,” the Pastor said. Then, to the child, “Say hello to our new neighbors, son.”

  That was when it happened. Kenny looked at Sarah and saw her. She could tell by the way his pupils widened and the way he swallowed hard and the way his voice shook when he said, “Hi, I’m Kenny.” He was looking right at her. Not by her, or through her, or around her, but at her. He knew she was there, standing right in the spot she was standing in. His eyes took in her face, and the lacy edges of her dress-sleeves, and the barrettes in her hair. He saw her. And she loved him for it.

  For a whole week after, they had been boyfriend and girlfriend, the way five and six year-olds sometimes call each other those things. From the front porch of the Delaney house, Sarah could see Kenny playing on his own porch down the street, and they would wave to each other, and giggle, smitten. When she played with her dolls, she called them Sarah and Kenny and made them kiss. When Ava asked her who Kenny was, she said, “You don’t need to know nothing about it.” When she said her prayers at night, in between the usual God-B
lesses, she added a “God bless my boyfriend, Kenny.”

  The next Sunday, after Sunday school, as they entered the upper sanctuary for church service, Kenny ran right up to her, with his arms wide open, and she stepped forward into his sweet, five-year-old embrace, without the fear she usually felt when hugging people, a fear that came from knowing the hug would be brief and loose, done out of politeness so that she

  wouldn’t feel bad when the hugger turned and lifted Ava off the ground and squeezed her as if she were the teddy bear they had loved and lost as a child. Kenny’s embrace was all for her. For seven seconds, it gave her what she needed.

  Then, over her shoulder, he saw Ava and he instantly fell out of love with Sarah, and instantly in love with her. He wriggled out of Sarah’s embrace and ran over to Ava, bright-eyed and eager, and said, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

  Ava looked the scrawny boy over. “Who are you?”

  “Kenny.”

  She looked at Sarah, who was on the verge of tears, then back at the little boy. “You got cookies?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “I can get some.”

  She shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

  He ran off. Ava turned back to the drawing she was making in the corner of their mother’s program. Sarah ran over to Regina, who was talking to Sister Kellogg, and wailed, “Ava stole Kenny from me!”

  Regina looked at her. “You can’t steal a person, Sarah,” she said, and turned back to her conversation.

  Sarah watched as Kenny ran back into the chapel with what looked like two oatmeal raisin cookies. She had no idea where he got them.

  For the next three Sundays, he brought Ava cookies, which she stuffed into her mouth before their parents could catch her. When she finally got caught, and told Regina she’d gotten the cookies from Kenny, Regina forbade him to bring Ava any more sweets. Without the promise of cookies, Ava had no further use for the boy. But he was still in love with her and that was where he stayed, for the rest of his very short life.

  By the time Sarah was twelve, and Kenny eleven, she had long ago gotten used to the idea that he would never really see her again the way he had for a whole week when he was five. He liked her, she knew that, but she could not begin to match the specialness of Ava, could not hope to inspire the feelings she inspired in him, and in everybody else. Sitting out on the porch with him one morning, in the spring of 1956, while they waited for the twins to get dressed so they could all play four-square together, Kenny asked Sarah if she was excited about going to junior high the next school year.

  She shrugged. “I guess.” She never tried to make herself more interesting in the hopes that he would see her again. In fact, she tried to be even less interesting than she really was, so that he would not feel obligated to pay attention to her out of charity.

  “Me, too,” he said. He was a small boy, on the runty side, but his personality was big like Pastor Goode’s. Sometimes, on special youth-themed Sundays, Kenny read the opening prayer at church service, and he reminded everybody of his father up on the pulpit, though he looked like he was always on the verge of laughing. “The only bad thing is that Ava won’t be there for a whole ‘nother year,” he said. “I don’t like that.” He sighed. “I think my daddy’s happy about it, though.”

  Sarah looked at him. “What you mean?”

  “He don’t like Ava.”

  Sarah frowned. “Everybody likes Ava. Except maybe Miss Liddy, but she don’t like nobody that much.”

  Kenny shrugged.

  “Well, why don’t he like her?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know. He just got a lot of rules about how people should act. He think kids is supposed to do whatever grown-ups tell them. He don’t like back talk or nothing like that.”

  Sarah had always thought that Pastor Goode was too strict with Kenny. He wasn’t allowed to listen to any music but church music, he had to wear a tie to school every day, even though nobody else did, and his curfew was a half hour earlier than the twins’, even though he was a year older than they were. Whenever his father was around, Kenny always looked a little stressed.

  “He don’t come right out and say he don’t like Ava,” Kenny told her. “I just get a feeling.”

  From then on, Sarah watched Pastor Goode whenever he was in the same place as Ava. At first, she didn’t notice anything peculiar in his behavior towards her sister. Soon, though, she began to see what Kenny was talking about. One Sunday after church, while everyone was gathered out front, saying long goodbyes to people who lived on their same block and who they would see all through the week, Sarah saw the pastor watching Ava as she sat talking to Kenny, and the look on his face was hard and strained, as if he were trying not to frown. Another time, when Sarah and the twins passed him on their way home from school, he smiled and said hello to all three of them as he went by, but Sarah was sure she saw a sneer on his face when she looked back after he had passed. It was subtle and anybody not looking for it wouldn’t have been able to see it. She knew it wasn’t meant for her, because the pastor was like everybody else in that he couldn’t really see her. She doubted it was meant for Geo, because he was quiet and sweet and never gave anybody a reason to sneer.

  Sarah wasn’t sure if Ava was aware of Goode’s dislike of her, but she didn’t mention it to her, or to anyone else. She liked the idea that someone—and not just someone, but the pastor of their church and the leader of their community—wasn’t in love with Ava, for a change, and she decided to just keep watching and see what happened.

  The hottest summer ever came in 1956. At least it seemed that way to the twins. The heat came hard in May and by July it had settled in so good that the sidewalks radiated it even at night. There was no reprieve, whether in daylight or moonlight. In the mornings, even before the sun came up, the sticky air hung heavy. By sunrise it was thick as butter and it stayed that way all day, getting hotter and hotter as the day wore on. It never rained.

  Blessed Chapel Church of God ran a day camp program in the summer months and Ava, Geo, and Sarah spent five days a week there while their parents worked. It was a lot like Sunday School, with bible study and sing-alongs, but there was also arts and crafts, coordinated kickball games, and swimming excursions to the public pool.

  One afternoon during arts and crafts, Ava and Ellen Duggard were painting with watercolors, flowery garden scenes modeled after some of the front yards on their block, when Sister Hattie, who was the arts and crafts teacher, came by and nodded approvingly at Ava’s painting. “You sure are a talented child, Ava Delaney. The Lord has surely blessed you with a gift.”

  Ellen nodded in agreement, and smiled at Ava. When Sister Hattie had moved on, Ellen whispered, “You’re wonderful, Ava,” and kissed her on the cheek.

  Ava started to wipe away the moisture it left on her face, but decided she kind of liked it, and went back to her painting without complaint.

  A second later, she heard, “She think she so great. Shoot. She aint nothing. She aint nothing but a stupid, nappy-headed wanna-be,” and when she looked up she saw Sondra Liddy glaring at her from the other side of the room, where, instead of doing anything remotely arts-and-crafts-related, she was watching what other kids were doing and making fun. Her cousin, Lamar Casey, was at her side and Ava thought he looked sad as he sat there with his arms folded across his chest, his brow drawn tight above his eyes, staring down at his shoes. She thought of her father and the sad looks he sometimes got when he didn’t think anyone was looking. Geo was like that, too. Sometimes he looked sad but wouldn’t tell her why. Boys were funny like that about their sadness. She was thinking about all of that when Lamar looked up and caught her watching him. The sad look on his face changed then, morphed into something angry and mean. “What you looking at?” he asked, getting up and moving towards her across the room. He stood on the other side of the table where she and Ellen sat, hovering menacingly.

  Ava wasn’t in the mood for a fight. She just wanted to finish her painting, so she didn’t say anyth
ing and hoped he would just go away. Instead, he picked up a bottle of black acrylic paint and squeezed it all over her painting. For a moment, she sat there in shock. Then rage surged up in her belly and she lunged across the table at him. She could almost feel the skin of his eyeballs under her fingernails, but she never made it that far. He jumped back and she missed him completely, and fell over the table onto the floor at his feet. She heard Ellen scream her name in a worried voice, and heard Sondra cackling. Lamar raised his foot off the ground, his dirty sneaker poised for a kick, but suddenly Sister Hattie was there beside him, pulling him away, saying, “Y’all stop all this roughhousing. Lamar, take a seat.”

  Lamar turned and sneered at her. “You aint my mother,” he said, and then walked swiftly from the room.

  “You right I aint,” said Sister Hattie, “and it’s a good thing for both of us.” She shook her head and mumbled, “That boy aint got the sense God gave him.”

  Still on the floor, rubbing the shoulder she’d fallen on, Ava watched Sondra follow Lamar out.

  The first half of July was burning hot. Whenever they weren’t at day camp, Ava and Geo kept holed up in the house, lying half-conscious in front of the fan and only getting up every few minutes to stick their heads in the freezer. Finally, one day, after a dry lightning storm that had gone on for hours and killed a couple of people somewhere out in the boondocks of Pennsylvania, they awoke to some cool. Relatively speaking. Eighty-five degrees and balmy. They decided to spend that day outside.