The Last Days of Summer Read Online Free PDF

Lizzie turns to him, not
asking, just nodding. Laughter drifts out from the kitchen window round the back where the girls are washing up. Jasper lights a cigarette. Drags on it long and deep. In the darkness the tiny butt moving from hand to lips looks like a caught firefly trapped and now forced in repeated migration. The porch light is off. And the stars can just about be seen.
    ‘Do you remember that time when you was a boy ’n’ that July fly shed its skin on you?’
    He searches for her face in the dark. It is not turned towards him. He cannot read whatever shadowed secrets might have offered themselves there. He looks back out across the garden and breathes in again the familiar smell. Garden. Closes his eyes and opens them and it’s still there. Garden. ‘Haven’t thought ’bout that in a long time.’
    Silence between them, but not the uncomfortable kind. ‘What did it feel like?’ Lizzie says at last.
    ‘What?’
    ‘That July fly.’
    ‘Stung like crazy.’
    She laughs a little, but not for long, and when she’s stopped and fallen silent he says softly, so that she can barely hear him, ‘Must be nice to hold on to someone and shed your skin like that.’
    Together, they watch darkness fall. She hums under her breath, but he does not recognize the tune, and when she falls silent, he does not ask. He wonders if she is even aware that she was humming. He tips his rocker back far as it goes, digging his heels into the porch, enjoying the slight strain on his legs as he watches the last streaks of golden light disappear. At length he releases his heels,
letting the rocker rock itself still, soothed by the changing pace of the motion. He looks out across the lawn and tries to find the horizon, but can’t make out where prairie turns to sky. Too dark now. He breathes deep, holding Garden in his lungs. Thinks about the family photographs that line the stairs. All the pictures, once hung, now missing. He’d thought, maybe earlier, when he’d sat at the head of the table, Lizzie might have said something. Might have mentioned not to sit there, that was Bobby’s seat. He thinks again of Doe Eyes’ surprise when he asked where her father was. Out loud, Jasper says, ‘I could use a change of clothes. Reckon I could borrow some of Bobby’s things?’
    Her rocker stops rocking. Crickets call out and answer. Lizzie rises slowly, looking out over the garden to the prairie and up to the night sky. ‘He don’t got no things to borrow.’ Voice just above a whisper but hard. Too hard. She turns and walks to the door. Pauses as she opens it, inside light spilling out. She looks back at him but her face is shadowed. ‘There’s a box of Daddy’s old things up in the attic. Reckon that can tide you over. I’ll take you into town in a couple days. Get you them things you need. But I won’t have you growin’ lazy in this house neither. You’ll have to see to that, too.’ The door closes quietly behind her. A little girl’s laughter drifts out into the falling night, constellations brightening.
    ‘I’m obliged.’
    Only darkness there to hear his answer.
    ‘Katie?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘You sleepin’?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Joanne rolls to face her sister, mattress springs squeaking as she turns. In the darkness she can just make out Katie’s shadowed silhouette, back to her. She can feel the heat radiating off her sister’s body. The sticky cling of the sheets is uncomfortable against Joanne’s clammy skin. She is thinking of her own small bed down the hall. Of the man who’s sleeping in it. How cosy and comfy that bed always was, how she could kick the covers right off her if she wanted to, but Katie likes the sheet tucked up around them, and she smells of the perfume that Joshua Ryan gave her last Easter. Like one of those pink gumballs left out in the sun too long that’s melted into its own sticky sweet paste. Joanne did that once. By accident. Melted a gumball. It rolled out of her pocket and melted in