The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach Read Online Free PDF Page A

left knee. Then I straightened, licking the salt from my lips and peering out across the horizon where greenish bay water met overcast gray sky.
    My hand wrapped reflexively around the mizpah pendant, fingers feeling the engraved Hebrew: May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other , or so Mamma had told me once when I was little and had asked about the charm around her neck. Hebrew was nonexistent in our home, and the item’s value to Mamma was sentimental, not religious. I had not taken it off since Mamma fastened it around my neck that night she put me on the ship. I pictured the other half in my father’s pocket, close to his heart. Sadness seemed to seep from the cool metal through my fingers as I thought of them and what might have happened in the weeks since I left. Had their lives had gone on much the same without me?
    The sound of a car engine interrupted my thoughts. I looked down through the screen window, surprised. Our street was narrow and not a major thruway; vehicles this time of day other than the milkman and garbage truck were scarce. A boxy black station wagon lumbered into view, with suitcases strapped to the roof that looked ready to topple off at any moment.
    The car stopped just past the duplex. I stood up, curious. The sprawling house next door with its wraparound porch had been vacant since we’d arrived three weeks earlier. Aunt Bess had sniffed at its dilapidated state, but I liked the empty place—I played under the eaves and even found a rabbit’s nest there. There had been signs in recent days that someone was working on it, though: a whiff of fresh paint coming from a suddenly open window, a pile of fresh lumber on the back porch. Once I thought I glimpsed a man through one of the windows, but when I moved closer to peer inside, he was gone.
    But there was no mistaking the arrival now. A woman got out of the driver’s seat. She was pretty, with pale skin and strawberry-blond hair I would have loved for my own, and a smattering of freckles that said she’d better keep out of the sun if she didn’t want more. Behind her, several brown-haired boys spilled out of the car and raced toward the house, shouting and laughing. At first it seemed that there were too many to count. A little one, not more than ten or so, scampered ahead. He was followed by two boys about my age. They looked nearly the same, except one wore thick glasses. I’d heard of identical twins, but these were the first I’d actually seen. A dog bounded from the car, barking noisily at their feet.
    Finally an older boy unfolded himself from the front passenger seat. He had long legs and wide shoulders, hair in a neat side part but that still curled at the edges. My stomach flipped, like the time Papa had taken me on a roller coaster at the carnival.
    A family moving in. I waited for a father to appear, but the woman and the boys began unloading things and carrying them to the house. The oldest boy lifted a case from the roof of the car, his muscles flexing under his T-shirt. One of the twins hung back, head low, until his mother went to him and said something, cajoling a smile. They laughed at a joke I could not hear.
    When the boys had finished unloading the boxes, they disappeared into the house. I looked down at the street, which seemed emptier than it had before they’d come. Then the screen door to the house next door banged open and the boys appeared once more. They jostled like puppies as they pushed outside. One of the twins carried a football, which the boys began tossing among them on the thin strip of grass that separated our two houses.
    I watched the scene play out below, wanting to go down and join them. I stepped forward, starting toward the door that led downstairs. Then I stopped. But I kept watching, fascinated. The hair of the oldest boy seemed to glow gold in the morning sun. He didn’t so much run as fly, feet barely touching the ground. He leapt for the ball and his shirt