Page 43 of The Summer Show

The air went dead. She had ended the call without so much as a goodbye. I swear, Dad was the only reason she hadn’t eaten her young.

Taking slow, deep breaths, I willed my lungs to relax. The soup thinned. I’d avoided needing my inhaler—this time.

“Kathleen?” Nick said.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You’re going in the wrong direction.”

“Am I?”

I turned around. Nick was standing on the road, confused and curious.

“Which way?”

He tilted his head.

“I know where I am now,” I said. “You don’t have to walk me all the way.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” I rubbed my temples. The pressure did nothing to relieve the sudden pounding that always accompanied one of my mother’s calls.

“Something happened.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need to put this in its proper compartment. See you tomorrow? Between now and then I’m going brush up on any other weird skills I’ve forgotten I have. Maybe read some quick books on snake charming.”

“I’ll give you space because I get that.”

I threw my hands sort of helplessly into the air. “Thanks. Goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams. Don’t let the geese bite.”

That’s all it took. One joke about geese and the tension dissolved, and my mother vanished under her bridge until the next time I tried to cross.

We fell into silence for the rest of the walk. The quiet space between us stretched outward and formed a comfortable bubble. I got the feeling that Nick and I understood and respected each other, even though we were technically adversaries now.

But maybe that was a nice story I was reading to myself.

seventeen

That night I slept like a baby. Meaning I woke up every couple of hours, teary and needing to pee. And every time I did, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was crouching on my chest, sipping on my soul through a bendy straw.

That something had a name.

Mom.

Ruining my childhood and Brit’s was not enough for Susan Hart. Like a vampire, she wanted to drain the whole beast.

On the phone I had told her what she wanted to hear, but what now?

When the rooster crowed and dawn punched through the darkness, I gave up on achieving deep sleep and called my sister.

“Mom called you, didn’t she?” she said before I could squeeze a word out.

---