A Slider, Tumbling
By Anna Scott Graham
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Anna Scott Graham
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
The ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters, incidents, and places are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
For two brothers who lost their father in 2010.
Chapter 1 - Wednesday Morning, October 28th, 2009
Chapter 2 - Wednesday Afternoon, October 28th, 2009
Chapter 3 - Wednesday Evening, October 28th, 2009
Chapter 4 - Thursday Morning, October 29th, 2009
Chapter 5 - Thursday Afternoon, October 29th, 2009
Chapter 6 - Thursday Evening, October 29th, 2009
Chapter 7 - Saturday Morning, October 31st, 2009
Chapter 8 - Saturday Afternoon, October 31st, 2009
Chapter 9 - Saturday Evening, October 31st, 2009
Chapter 10 - Sunday Morning, November 1st, 2009
Chapter 11 - Sunday Afternoon, November 1st, 2009
Chapter 12 - Sunday Evening, November 1st, 2009
Chapter 13 - Monday Morning, November 2nd, 2009
Chapter 14 - Monday Afternoon, November 2nd, 2009
Chapter 15 - Monday Evening, November 2nd, 2009
Chapter 16 - Wednesday Morning, November 4th, 2009
Chapter 17 - Wednesday Afternoon, November 4th, 2009
Chapter 18 - Wednesday Evening, November 4th, 2009
Chapter 19 - Monday Morning, November 1st, 2010
Chapter 20 - Monday Afternoon, November 1st, 2010
Chapter 21 - Monday Evening, November 1st, 2010
Chapter 1: Wednesday Morning, October 28th, 2009
It was 4.34 by the faint digital clock on Summer’s bedside table. Hard to read, a lousy cross between a useful time-telling device and a techie piece of crap that she never properly used. Summer never plugged her iPod into it; she never thought about listening to music before she went to bed.
She rolled onto her right side, a small indentation in the mattress causing to her flop to her back. Laying on her right always seemed like falling over a cliff. The slight tinkling of wind chimes added to the effect, as if tiny pieces of hillside were giving way, specks of dirt rolling and falling, leading to larger pebbles and stones all coated in grit, or maybe they were grit. Summer felt around the mattress. Something was in her bed.
No light outside, not at four thirty in the morning. She noted it was now 4.36, but no different, only a Wednesday, hump day, start of the series. The World Series, but what was on the sheet?
Did she want to know, was it worth getting up, feeling the small chill? If she got up, she could go further, turning on the heater. The system was digital, complicated. She could program it to start at whatever time she liked, but then she would have to learn to program it first. Which would take days, ages, eons, and it was easier, if not colder, just to get up, pad down the hall, listen for other breaths, then hit the top button, check the time, and see just how cool the house was. Just how cool was it?
She turned from whatever gritty remnants lay along her mattress, slipping out on the clock side of the bed. The left side, not her side. Dressed in a three-quarter sleeve thin, pink pajama top besides her underwear, she stepped along the carpet, noting those slumbering rhythms. All were asleep, except for Summer, which was normal. The time wasn’t too off, 4.24. And the temperature of the house wasn’t miserable, sixty-four degrees.
Sliding the button to heat, she disappeared back to her room, then turned on the bathroom light, allowing just enough to illuminate her bed. What were those gritty remnants that she had obviously missed hours ago, but now demanded her attention? Not rough, or she’d have noticed. Not smelly either. Not something she had put there, she would have remembered. Instead, it looked to be graham cracker crumbs.
At least it wasn’t peanuts, she sighed.
Summer stood in the shower, thinking that if it had been peanuts, she really could give Nat the what-for. If he had gone to those kinds of lengths, then a little reprimanding would be entirely allowed. Instead it was Skye, and how to tell a three-year-old that eating graham crackers in Mommy’s bed was a no-no when it had been Mommy to invite the crumbs in the first place? Mommy was going to need to get her act together or Skye was going to run the house.
As a mommy, Summer Caravella had been lacking, maybe that provided enough reason for Nat’s constant reminders. Peanuts in her bed would have been going overboard, but she had found one on the nightstand, near the clock/iPod player. Some small piece of him, and she had left it sitting there, it caused no harm. It did nothing, only taking a bit of space, far less than the stupid clock. Less than the crumbs, less than… Less than a lot of things, peanuts miniscule in the grand scheme. Summer had found peanuts all over the house, even one in her car. But that might have been accidental. Summer wasn’t sure.
She never asked him about the goobers, which he sometimes called them, but Skye misheard, thought her older brother was talking about boogers. Boogers to a three-year-old were like gold, either the saying of the word or the boogers themselves. Boogers was easier to say than goobers; goobers took more emphasis, which was the whole point. Summer knew what the goobers were all about, even if she said nothing.
She knew what boogers were about too, but she only admonished her daughter to stop picking them, eating them, wiping them on the furniture. Not that the furniture was especially covered in boogers, but it was nasty to sit down and find one on the arm of the sofa. Better than other things, Summer allowed, but still no fun.
Boogers weren’t fun for her, but the goober issue… Goobers seemed to have caught Nat’s fancy, but peanuts were better than other alternatives, like boogers. Also better than Nat hitting kids in class or wetting the bed or how many other ways he could act out. He could be engaging in all sorts of nefarious activities, or whatever ten-year-olds did to drive their mothers and other caring individuals up the wall. Ten and a half Mom, he would sigh, kicking his shoes along the carpet. Ten and a half.
What did ten, and a half, year-olds do to cause a stir? Hers set peanuts around the house, on her keyboard, near the coffee pot, on the lid of the most recently dated yogurt in the refrigerator. Or sometimes on one way in the back. Never two on a yogurt at the same time, that would be overkill. And never the same place twice in a row; one peanut on a yogurt, then somewhere else that she would find within a day or two. How Nat had so much free time to plot out the locations of inadvertent goobers, Summer wasn’t sure.
But it was better than boogers and better than graham cracker crumbs in her bed. That was inadvertent and wouldn’t happen again. Summer toweled off, the door mostly closed, the tiny bathroom warm and pleasant. And peanut-less, as Nat didn’t invade this private space. Somehow his mother’s small master bathroom was hers alone. Maybe that was because over the summer, she had told him about sex. About the birds and the bees and what periods were for girls and erections were for boys. Maybe Nat didn’t want to run across an errant tampon.
As if he found one, might it stop the peanut assault? Summer giggled, then set the damp towel on the rack. The bottom rack, the top one now empty.
“No more crackers in Mommy’s bed at night, you dig?”
“I dig. Mommy, I love you.”
“I love you too Skye.”
This was breakfast conversation, early in the morning, but two hours after Summer woke to crumbs in her bed. At 6.34, she administered toast to her three-year-old, then watched as the other two fended for themselves, Nat at ten, and a half, capable with his own toast, eight-year-old Erika pouring milk into her bowl of cornflakes. “Mom, we need milk.”
Summer nodded. Milk and more graham crackers, but where Nat got the peanuts, Summer didn’t know, wouldn’t ask. It was none of her business, unless someone came knocking on the door, asking where all their goobers were.
“Mommy, it was your idea about the crackers.”
“I know. Remind me it’s a no-no next time.”
“No-no next time,” Skye repeated, over and over, all through breakfast, then as they piled into the car, heading to Aunt Autumn’s, to drop off Nat and Erika. The kids had been released from the litany of no-no next time, but Skye chanted it on the way to day care. She was still saying it as Summer gave her a kiss and walked out of the building.
No-no next time followed Summer along the road, her eyes caught by the falling leaves, the falling of autumn. She hummed that notion, viewing trees along the highway, orchards on either side of the road. Prunes to her right, enormous English walnuts on the left. The walnuts were still green, leafy and imposing. The prunes were shorter, the tops yellow, but the scraggly branches seemed more visible. Was that because there was less to see, in the few seconds Summer allowed, her eyes catching not only the trees, but the permanence.
Falling fall, falling into autumn, which was similar to how her children landed at their aunt’s house Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every weekday morning. Her eldest children tumbled like yellowing leaves out of the car, onto the porch, into Autumn’s house. Then the door was closed and maybe if Summer was paying attention she might catch another glimpse, that of her sister alongside the season, but it was silly. Summer’s Autumn was born in spring.
Summer was born in winter and Spring was born in autumn and Forest was born in… No-no next time; Skye’s small chant returned to a mother’s head. No-no next time, Summer hummed, wondering for a moment why her parents had given their four children such ridiculous names. She continued along the road, almost hearing the clicks of dancing leaves which followed along. Pulling into the grocery store parking lot, Summer parked in the back. No-no next time seemed incongruous with fall, with seasons, with parents and siblings. No-no next time had to do with something else entirely.
More than graham crackers, more than peanuts. Or goobers or boogers, or work. But Summer was at work, like every other weekday of her life. Like two-thirds of her children at Autumn’s or Skye at day care. Or baseball. Stepping from her car, Summer shivered, a small wind reminding that it was autumn, not summer. It wasn’t summer anymore.
“So I told her that if she slept with him again, well, she’d be risking more than an STD. And you know what Shasta said to me, what she had the outright gall to say?”
Summer shook her head, setting cans of cat food in a paper bag.
“She said if I ever talked to her that way again she was gonna come to my house, my house Summer. My house, and dump dog shit all over my lawn! Now, I about slapped her right there, but you know, the kids were close and she’d have raised hell, and that’s the last thing I need. But I swear Summer, and I really, truly mean this. I swear to you and everybody in this store that if I find out she’s still sleeping with him, I will personally go to her house and empty my cat litter boxes all over her dahlias. And I mean it too.”
Summer scanned the bag of cat litter, then the second. “You want these in paper or plastic?”
“Oh plastic please honey, thank you so much. So I haven’t heard or seen anything of her lying ass all week. But I know she took my words to heart, I saw it in her eyes. Summer, you ever been cheated on?”
“Nope. Well, not that I know of.”
“No? Well good. It’s miserable you know.”
“I imagine it is.”
The total came to fifty-four dollars and thirteen cents. Summer waited as Hannah Lingley counted out that exact amount, holding up the line. Hannah never got out her wallet early, never used a card, never bothered to think about anyone standing behind her in line because she was too busy telling everyone within faint earshot all her life. Summer smiled, moving from foot to foot, having bagged all of Hannah’s purchases in paper, except the cat litter; that went in plastic. As Summer set bills and coins into their compartments, Hannah looked up and down the aisles. Hannah was searching for help, but it was early, no one handy.
Summer had bagged the items as she scanned them, but that was her habit. Why shove to them to the end when it was just as easy to set cans and cartons and produce into whatever carrier the customer wanted? A checker for fifteen years, Summer felt it was her duty, not just her job, to get people in and out as quickly as possible. Not in an impertinent rush, only that when she stood in line, nothing was more aggravating than listening to someone else’s bullshit when all she had was a gallon of milk set between sticks.
A gallon of milk; Summer couldn’t forget the milk! “Hannah, sorry. Nobody’s here to help with your groceries.”
The guy behind Hannah Lingley tapped his foot. Jordan Hower was twenty if anything, someone Summer had watched come in and out of this store from the time he was little. One time his mother Cheryl hadn’t been paying attention and Jordan rammed his head into the side of the cart, cutting the edge of his right eye, a thin trail of blood trickling along a five-year-old’s face. Summer still remembered that, but she didn’t have a moment to see if a scar was visible. She was too busy watching Hannah scouring for someone younger than herself to push the cart, set two bags of cat litter into the back of Hannah’s aged truck. Not that Hannah was an invalid. Pushing fifty, Hannah Lingley was just lazy.
Jordan heaved a long sigh. “Mrs. Lingley, if you want I’ll help you as soon as I get through.”
Sniggers hit all their ears, even Hannah’s. “Oh no, that’s all right. Back’s been acting up is all. See you later Summer.”
Hannah Lingley set spotted hands on the cart, then took her time wheeling it out, still attempting to catch the eye of anyone near. Summer scanned Jordan’s items, two bottles of vitamin water and a box of condoms.
“Stupid old bitch,” he muttered. “All that’s wrong with her back is too much time spent on it.”
Summer didn’t smile, didn’t nod, aware his words were correct, also a diversion from what he had needed that morning at not even eight o’clock. “Paper or plastic?” she asked.
“Paper’s fine.”
To conceal the rubbers Summer allowed, so many years of ringing up anything the store sold whether it was cat litter or bottled water or prophylactics. She noted how Jordan used a card, swiping it as soon as she said the total. He took no time in punching the green button, then signing the receipt in legible, not far from high school script. Summer smiled as he left. She had already forgotten all about his bleeding right eye.
On her break, she remembered Jordan as a towheaded kid. His mother Cheryl was a bleached-blonde, so whoever had fathered Jordan gave him those fair genes. In a small town details were easy to retain, especially when constantly refreshed, like the blip of a scan, as if everyone that came through her line only had to reach Summer’s eyes, then their data bank was retrieved. All that Summer knew about Hannah and Jordan was lost until they returned to her aisle, Monday through Friday, fifty weeks a year.
Ten working days were holidays, precious time that Summer guarded. It was used if her kids fell ill, but now that Skye was nearly out of diapers, those days off were more for an actual break, like the one they took in July, she and the kids along with Spring and Forest and their partners, easing the load for Summer. One thing to concentrate on three kids and only one in double digits. Another to throw a disabled brother into it.
She would never say that to Forest, no-no next time Mommy. Keeping dubious thoughts from her goober-filled head, but not everyone was so astute. Not Hannah Lingley, asking if Summer had ever been cheated on. But what was Summer supposed to say?
After Jordan Hower left, Ann Simpson had stepped forth, saving Summer. Ann had tact and kind eyes. Ann was the same age as Hannah, their names similar. But there the parallels stopped; like Summer, Ann worked in retail, down at the CVS drugstore. Not Longs anymore, but everyone called it Longs and would, Summer assumed, until someone like Jordan was an old man. Would he still be buying his condoms at the grocery store? Didn’t Longs sell vitamin water too?
Maybe Longs or CVS or whatever it was hadn’t opened. Maybe that was why. Maybe they opened at eight and Jordan had some hot date in need of a good screw. Or he needed a quick lay. But at least he used condoms. No one knew who Cheryl Hower had slept with to make that kid, but at least Jordan wasn’t going to do that to someone else.
The next time Summer saw Ann, she would ask what time Longs opened. It was just down the strip mall, not more than a minute’s walk if one was active. Summer had no idea if Hannah’s boyfriend had been cheating, but if Hannah was too infirm to lift a couple of bags of cat litter into her truck, maybe his catting around was explained. She smiled, cat litter for a catty woman catting around. No-no next time indeed.
Summer would ask Ann, and Ann would probably smile. She had seen the few items Jordan placed on the belt; one box of Trojans, but Summer hadn’t noticed the style, and two bottles of vitamin water, maybe they were blue. Or purple. Or one was blue and the other was orange, bright, stand-out colors to obscure the real item Jordan had needed. Ann only bought the basics; bread, eggs, milk. Milk! Summer had to remember the milk!
Bread, eggs, milk, what else? That had been three hours ago, but Summer’s memory wasn’t poor. Neither was Ann’s, but Hannah was as dumb as a post. Ann had bought a loaf of wheat bread, honey wheat. A jar of jam, two cans of stewed tomatoes, spaghetti, onions, hamburger, and other miscellaneous items that totaled over a hundred dollars. Ann mentioned she was going to make spaghetti for dinner, that her husband Greg had been pestering her. Ann’s smile had been generous, but not overbearing. Warm, thoughtful. Only some people were that way.
But the biggest thing Summer had noted in that small exchange, one that would easily be swept aside for how many customers she had already rung through, was that Ann hadn’t said boo about that night’s game. As if some tacit acknowledgement, Ann with too much discretion to bring it up, too much insight. Discretion and insight were different, Summer allowed, also appreciated. Some people had asked if she was going to watch baseball, their quiet, muffled voices trying to be friendly, but everyone knew, no one but the Hannah Lingleys and Jordan Howers were ignorant. Hannah knew, Summer decided, but was too selfish to remember. Jordan probably didn’t know, too young to pay attention. All he cared about was getting laid and leaving no trace.
But everyone else in that town accepted what baseball meant to Summer, or more what it had meant to her. It had meant loathing the despicable Yankees, who would be making their eight-hundredth appearance, or what it seemed like. It seemed like the Yankees were always in the World Series. Summer wished George Steinbrenner would fall off a cliff, maybe in a rush of graham cracker crumbs or peanuts sliding his butt down a slope Summer didn’t wish to follow. But waiting at the bottom… She sighed, the clock ticking in her head, not the silent, hard-to-read numbers in her room. It was time to punch that clock, get back to work. Back to where everyone knew everybody. Small towns were notorious for that, nothing Summer didn’t already realize as well.
The Yankees crowded her thoughts; were there really so many Yankees fans, even here, on the West Coast? The series was an East Coast wonder, Philadelphia and New York, and Summer hoped to God the Phillies would clobber the Yanks, the stupid New York Yankees. Then she thought of Ann, making spaghetti, which sounded good. Summer wouldn’t go the lengths of Ann Simpson. She would buy three jars of Prego, two pounds of hamburger, a loaf of sourdough bread. And the milk, she had to remember the milk!
“Hey Dan, how are you?”
“Good. Been busy?”
It had been a busier than usual Wednesday with way too much talk about the game. Dan Bailey’s items streamed along the belt; bread, lunch meat, sliced cheese, and an assortment of chips.
“Busy, yeah. Been really busy. You?”
“Just working nights now, all that roadwork on I-5.”
“God, when are they gonna finish that?”
“Oh, probably 2020, but only if you’re lucky.”
“Dan, you’re great. Get to work man, get to work!”
“Employment is all I ask Summer, all I ask.”
He owed her twenty bucks even and he gave her that bill, then a smile. “Take care,” his voice telling. Not saying a thing about baseball, but he knew. Dan Bailey was like Ann Simpson. They knew.
“Will do!” Then came the next and the next and by the time Summer neared the end of her shift, only one person had actually mentioned Jody. Eighty-six-year-old Cora Harper was spry in health, addled in mind, hot and cold in spirit. That day Cora was peeved, too many teenagers ahead of her in line. Summer watched the old woman, her blue-white hair freshly set, bejeweled hands clutching the handle of the cart, her cane sticking out near those ancient digits. Cora’s few items were stretched along the length of the belt, leaving no space for those behind her to set their groceries anywhere.
In front of Cora stood teens that Summer knew by sight, their names eluding her. She knew their parents, but the kids were fifteen, sixteen maybe. Once on their own, using credit cards, then she would recall their names, but until then they were anonymous, too old to associate with Nat and Erika, too young to possess their own personalities. If they accompanied their mothers, Summer would recognize them, otherwise they could be from anywhere.
Not established like Cora or Hannah or Ann or Dan, names that rang in Summer’s head. Cora and Hannah and Ann and Dan were like no-no next time or falling fall. But that the teens wanted to buy cigarettes made Summer snap to attention, her next words by rote. “Can I see your ID?”
They fumbled, the candy bars on the belt only a ruse. “Oh uh, I left it in my car.”
“No ID, no sale.” She didn’t even ring up the candy. “You still want those?”
Heads shook and Summer smiled as they fled. How dumb were kids these days to think they could get away with buying tobacco uncarded in a union-operated grocery store?
Yes, the town was small. Yes, Summer was only a checker. But she had health benefits and two weeks of paid vacation and now that her kids weren’t tiny, she wasn’t spending much or even half of it wiping booger-filled noses or cleaning up puke that didn’t make the bowl. Summer set the candy bars to the side, then smiled. “Good afternoon Cora.”
“Hello Summer. My goodness, what are kids coming to these days?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Summer rang through the seventeen items, then watched as eighteen-year-old Elisa Gonzales bagged Cora’s milk and juice, saltines and tuna fish. Elisa worked her butt off, arriving as soon as she was done with her last class at the high school. Summer would be leaving in another fifteen minutes, but Elisa stayed as late as closing. That she was already eighteen had boosted her hours, that and she was the most efficient bagger on the premises.
Cora looked right through Elisa as if staring at the wall. “So Summer, you watching the game tonight?”
“Sure am. You?”
“Oh no, can’t stand the sport. But I know how you are with those Yankees.”
“Yup.”
“Still, it’s too bad Jody isn’t here. He always did like their skipper, Girardi right?”
“Yes ma’am, Joe Girardi. The only good thing about New York.”
“Well yes, I suppose. I really don’t know too much about them.”
“Better for you Cora,” Summer’s voice as light and airy as her name.
As Cora let the invisible checker wheel out her two bags, Summer noted how it was Elisa to take the cane from the cart, Elisa letting Cora lead the way. Then Summer smiled at the next customer, Tad Jarvis, who was thirty-seven, two years younger than Summer. Tad nodded, his face aware. Even Elisa was aware. But Cora?
An old lady who remembered that Jody hated the Yankees and knew enough about the game to refer to their manager as the skipper. Summer would bet ten bucks Cora Harper was going to watch baseball that night, until she was tired and went to bed.
But Jody? Summer smiled at Tad, ringing up his case of beer, some pretzels, two bags of tortilla chips, and one jar of picante sauce. “You watching the game tonight Tad?”
“Uh yeah. You?”
“Of course. Can’t imagine not, even if it is the Yankees.”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “I guess that’s right. Say hi to Forest okay?”
Everyone wanted Summer to say to Forest if they knew him. As everyone knew Jody was dead, they also knew Forest was still in his wheelchair, those two points now fixed forever. “I’ll pass that along. He and Betsy are coming for dinner, which I better start thinking about.”
Tad laughed. “Not just pretzels and beer?”
Summer felt a small glow, wishing that was all she had to do, eat some pretzels, drink some beer. She would drink a few if she could. Instead she had sheets to change, dinner to cook, a three-year-old in need of a bath, and baseball to watch. No use watching it if she couldn’t think straight. “Oh Tad, I wish it was just pretzels and beer.”
No beer to cry into that night. Maybe if she spilled some milk, but she would have to remember to buy it first. As Tad Jarvis walked away, carrying his case of Budweiser in one hand, the slight weight of the snacks in the other, Summer shifted in her shoes, then scribbled down the items for dinner. She added milk in all caps, underlining it twice.
Chapter 2: Wednesday Afternoon, October 28th, 2009
One gallon of milk gave birth to four bags of groceries, Summer a midwife hauling them to her car. Summer’s car was three years old, Jody having bought it for her right after they had Skye. For all of Skye’s life, her mother had driven an unassuming small SUV that Jody insisted was really a truck.
It was a game, Jody noting all the vehicles they passed: truck, truck, not a truck. Summer’s car was a truck with a capital T, which Jody pronounced with a small drawl, as if Summer owned a behemoth. As she approached the day care facility, she thought about Jody, serious thinking about Jody for the first time all day.
She could blame Cora Harper, but that wouldn’t be kind. Cora was an old woman, recalling what she liked. If she liked Jody or not was irrelevant. Summer had never been cruel to Cora, but perhaps someone in Cora’s past had.
Really, if Summer was going to blame anyone, it should be the dead man himself. She had gone back and forth blaming Jody; sometimes it felt liberating. Sometimes it burned like scalding coffee. Sometimes it numbed like ice.
At that moment, he was a pest, drumming truck, truck, not a truck into their children’s heads, what Summer thought, also what Skylar Sims thought too. She wasn’t tripping over no-no next time, only repeating the make of her mother’s small SUV. Forest also called it a truck. Summer said he was ridiculous.
“Truck, truck, not a truck!” Skye trilled at what seemed to be the very top ranges of her young voice. “Mommy, we have a truck!”
“We do not Skye,” Summer’s tone that of a tired grocery clerk aware her work day was nearly over. Get home, unstrap Skye. Lug in four bags of food; why had she bought so much? She was only going to buy milk. Summer was sure it must be Jody’s fault. Somehow, someway, it must be.
She had been thinking of him since Cora Harper, that old bag, then things began to pile in Summer’s cart. First it was pretzels, because you couldn’t watch a ball game without pretzels. A purist, Summer chose large twisted, an apt metaphor she considered. Then two bags of potato chips, one salted, the other barbecue. Forest would bitch otherwise.
Then to dinner items; three jars of Prego, one with mushrooms. If she bought two, Nat would complain. The others were Flavored With Meat. Summer never bothered to see what meat. Instead she would add her own hamburger, the cheapest grind. She had parmesan cheese at home, but selected a pre-sliced loaf of sourdough. Spring would bitch if there wasn’t any bread.
Her siblings bitched, her children complained. Summer didn’t say boo until she checked out, heading to Joe Stammers’ lane. He was competent, overly friendly, somewhat dingy. But she would get through his lane the fastest, time at a premium. Not for collecting her daughter from day care, only in leaving work, getting home, making dinner before the game started.
If Summer missed the start of the game, she’d be the one whining.
Instead, Joe was affable but not cloying. He didn’t remark about baseball or Jody, even though like just about everybody else, Joe knew. But sometimes Joe acted slow, dim-witted. Not like Hannah Lingley, only as if Joe was using half the deck. He was great with numbers, remembered customers from twenty-five years back, when he had started at the store. Summer had been a checker for fifteen years, but Joe recalled those older, many of them dead, their families still living, still shopping. Everyone had to eat.
Joe wished her a good evening, even if it was still afternoon. It was the end of her shift, as if she worked nine to five, not seven to three. But now it was three-twenty, all Jody’s fault.
Autumn was bringing popcorn, Forest the beer and soda. Spring had brownies, or she better have brownies, Summer thought, as truck, truck, not a truck bounced from one side of the car to the other. Skye possessed her father’s voice, the only one of their children so gifted.
If Terry and Rafe stopped by, they would have drinks in hand, but no food. Maybe that was why Summer bought two bags of chips and the pretzels; they would bitch if not enough snacks graced the kitchen counters, looking as if Summer was the only cook in town, the only kitchen graced with their presence. Which wasn’t true, but it did make her feel…
Not forgotten. Loved, appreciated, wanted. Needed, but not desired. Which was fine. Summer required human contact, but no sex.
Not that Jody’s best friends would dream of it. Summer didn’t dream of sex. She dreamed of falling off the cliff in her bed, the small hump that had emerged over the years, years of kids in bed with her, years of boyfriends, maybe she might call them that. A boyfriend, just one in particular, in between Jody. Summer had never been cheated on, she was sure. But in a slight, accidental way, she had cheated on him. On Jody. Her ex-husband. Even if he wasn’t her ex-husband at the time.
“Truck, truck, not a truck! Mommy, what does that mean?”
Summer smiled. “It doesn’t mean anything Skye.”
“Oh. Truck, truck, not a truck!”
“Skye, do you remember who taught you that?”
“Nat did.”
“No, not Nat.”
“Uncle Forest then.”
“No, not Uncle Forest.”
“Uncle John?”
The child’s voice was at the end of the road, unless she thought to access her Aunt Autumn’s boyfriend, but Summer sighed. “No, your daddy did.”
“Oh yeah, Daddy! Truck, truck, not a truck!” Then the singing stopped. “Mommy, where is Daddy again?”
“Heaven Skye. He’s in heaven.”
“Oh yeah. Heaven, he’s in heaven with a truck, truck, not a truck!”
Summer laughed, the angry pit of her stomach churning.
By four o’clock the sauce was simmering, Skye was still singing, but Nat was in his room. Usually Summer would ask him to come out, even more usually she wouldn’t have too. But it was the baseball, she knew that. For as busy as she was, Summer didn’t miss that trick.
Nor had she missed the peanut sitting on her pillow, before she changed the sheets. Nat wouldn’t disturb her bathroom, but he did leave one unhusked nut on her bed, the dark brown catching her eye. Normally they were salted, generic looking. This one was rust-colored, as if a message. Baseball was on that day, it seemed to say.
And since she found it, Nat had been in his room. Erika was at Abby’s house, but knew to come home at four thirty. As Summer stirred the sauce, Skye ran into the kitchen. “Mommy, I remembered! I remembered!”
The little girl hugged her mother’s legs and Summer closed her eyes, allowing something good along the fabric of her jeans, reaching her hips, but not stopping, heading north to her arms, one of which stirred the sauce, the other down to her youngest. “What Skye?”
“I remembered Daddy teaching me that.”
Balancing the spoon on the handle of the pan, Summer squatted. “Did you really?”
What did Skye remember, Summer often wondered, if she was feeling morose. If she was in a mood, a Blame Jody mood, Summer would ponder what a three-year-old recalled of a man she was just starting to joke with, understanding parts of her father that meant she wasn’t a toddler anymore. She was a little girl, occasionally wetting through her naps, especially during the seven months Jody had been dead.
“Mommy, I remember Daddy liked baseball.”
Summer smiled. That was more like a recent prod. “What else?”
“Hmm. Well, he liked me. And Nat and Erika.”
“Uh-huh. Anything else?”
Skye wore a frown, then put her small hands in the air, her face a quizzical gaze. “Did he like you?”
“Yeah, he did. I love you pumpkin.”
An embrace to last was how Summer thought of it, as if Skye might forget anything about her one remaining parent. If Summer could, she’d shove herself into her daughter’s brain, but at three, too much teemed. Skye learned something new every day. And all those new things were crowding out the old things, not like Joe Stammers’ gray matter. Joe had room for more than Summer could imagine. But what Skye imagined when it came to her dad was growing smaller, if not gone altogether.
“Hey hey!”
“Hey hey!” Summer looked at her brother, a grocery bag on his lap. “You’re late.”
“Not that late.”
She bent down, kissing his face, taking the beers. “How many beans you count today and where’s Bets?”
“Erika’s showing her something.” He wheeled his chair past his sister, toward the kitchen. “Work was usual. God that smells good. You been cooking all day?”
“Oh sure. Grew the tomatoes myself. Tad says hi.”
“Hi back to Tad.” Forest Caravella’s warm voice floated through the large opening between the living room and the kitchen.
Summer looked out the front windows. Wind chimes hung from the awning over the abbreviated concrete porch that wasn’t raised, except for the ramp connected to her front door. She needed to fill the hummingbird feeder, maybe if she got a spare minute after dinner. During the commercials. When she wasn’t running Skye a bath.
Then she saw her daughter and Forest’s girlfriend. In addition to a twelve-pack of soda, Betsy Plummer held Erika’s hand, arms swinging back and forth along with their long brown ponytails. They laughed and Summer was pleased. Erika’s smile was a rare gift anymore.
But they didn’t come right inside, Erika pirouetting in the yard. She hadn’t done a single cartwheel since spring, but had started twirling around like she used to. Something had gotten into her, maybe it was just the party, a week-long bash until either the Yankees or Phillies had won. Every evening Summer’s home would be an open house, even on school nights. Only one person was missing.
“Where’s Nat?” Forest asked.
“His room.”
Forest licked his fingers. “Sauce’s good. Could use some pepper.”
“You can put in your own pepper. How’d you taste it?”
His chair wasn’t as high as her stove and the sauce sat on a back burner. His smile teased. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Screw you.” Summer pointed to the hallway. “Go talk to him. Hey, are you the one giving him the peanuts?”
“What peanuts?”
“He’s been putting peanuts everywhere, well, in many different places. I found one on my pillow when I got home.”
“I don’t like peanuts.”
She smiled. “Me neither. And he knows that. Go talk to him. At least tell him dinner’s in ten minutes.”
Her brother wheeled away.
“And tell him he has to eat out here tonight!”
But by then, Forest was down the hall.
Down the hall to Summer meant maybe he’d heard her, maybe not. Maybe she could go check, but instead she stirred the sauce, thinking of this time last year. The first game of the series, and she had made spaghetti, but only now did she remember it. She had been standing in this spot, her kitchen full of people, when Jody had been alive.
When Jody had been alive was a phrase Summer tried to ignore, even if she prodded their youngest child’s subconscious with it. Maybe all Skye would recall was that he loved baseball. Or that someone had told her he did.
They talked about Jody, when they were alone. In the car on the way to day care, or coming home together. Or when Skye was in the tub, or at bedtime as Summer finished a story. She told Skye that Daddy had read stories too, sometimes more often than Mommy and certainly with more panache. But she didn’t say panache; she said that Daddy was funnier than Mommy. Skye always smiled, nodding her head.
But would Skye remember that herself or was Summer planting those notions, like spring bulbs, summer flowers waiting to poke through the ground months later. Months later all Skye knew was that her father loved baseball. And that he liked her and her siblings. Better than nothing.
Better than what she would know one day, that for as much as Daddy liked his children and baseball and maybe even Summer, for as much as Jody Sims had liked all those things and people, he had still hung himself. He had still taken his life.
Skye didn’t know that. She knew he was dead, but what was dead to a kid who thought truck, truck, not a truck actually meant something? Maybe she would understand those concepts, and the fallacies behind them, at the same time. Maybe she would be Erika’s age, maybe Nat’s. Maybe her mother’s which was only fair as Summer didn’t understand it either. No one did, and everyone knew that too.
Summer stirred the sauce so it wouldn’t stick. Then she set parmesan cheese on the table; they would be squeezed what with Forest’s chair on the end, three kids along the bench. Summer allowed snacks in the living room, but not spaghetti.
If Autumn and Milt arrived for dinner, which they were supposed to, they could stand. Maybe they would be late just to have a place to sit after everyone else had finished.
The kids had to sit and Forest never stood. Summer giggled as she heard the sound of his chair approach. “Okay Nat, we’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Well?” Summer asked her brother.
“He says he’ll eat, but he doesn’t want to hear any baseball.”
Summer looked to the clock, then sighed. “Well, that’s not gonna happen. Kid has to eat.”
“Says he won’t while the game’s on.”
“Not even for you?”
“Not even for me. Not even for his poor wheelchair-bound uncle,” Forest’s voice maudlin. And loud, loud enough that Summer was sure her son had heard him.
He did, as Nat’s door closed with an even louder slam.
“This is really good,” Betsy said, sprinkling cheese on her pasta.
Summer’s plate was cleared, she had eaten quickly. Was it that the game started in another five minutes and she didn’t want to miss the first pitch? Was it that her son was not among them, and if she got up now, fixing him a plate, he might wolf his food as fast as she had?
“NAT!” Skye yelled. “DINNER!”
“I think he heard you the first four times,” Forest smiled.
“Well, he’s not here yet.” Skye tossed pigtails to and fro. “NAT!”
“Here, sit with your uncle.” Summer stood, setting her daughter on Forest’s permanent lap.
Standing outside his door, Summer knocked, offering that courtesy. “Nat?”
“I don’t wanna hear it.”
“Listen, I don’t like the national anthem either but…”
He peeked from the door, Jody’s face staring at Summer. “Mom…”
“You’re gonna make Skye keep screaming.”
“Can’t you make her be quiet?”
“Hah!”
He sighed. “Can’t I eat in my room again?”
All through the playoffs he’d been eating in his room, Summer allowing small concessions. Or else he ate early, or else the games had been during the day, and it was a non-issue. It was the baseball, only the baseball, not any particular team ruffling his feathers.
“NAT! COME EAT!”
He sighed again, looking to the floor. “Can I use your iPod?”
Summer nodded. “But not during the commercials.”
“All right.”
That was how Nat Sims ate his dinner on the first night of the World Series. With his mother’s headphones in his ears, but not on the commercials.
Chapter 3: Wednesday Evening, October 28th, 2009
Each piece of popcorn is different, Jody had told her. Summer considered his words as she nibbled on the salty, unbuttered nubs that went from her hand to her mouth, but not without first going to her eyes.
The Phillies were winning in the bottom of the fifth, one to nothing, pitcher Cliff Lee with a stellar performance for the visiting team. He owned the mound, throwing strikes as if it was so simple, the way Summer gnawed all the kernelled edges from every piece of popcorn she ate.
Did he feel the same, noting the catcher’s signs, considering each batter only a piece of popped corn? Summer didn’t mind the shape of the kernels after popping; if it was a round, solid puff with a hanging skirt, or whether it seemed to have imploded, tiny fragments of skin scattered all over. She ate them without regard to their contour, but only once she had bitten off all the kernel specks first.
She sat in the corner of the sofa, Skye on her lap, Erika sitting on Forest’s limp legs. The kids had never seen their uncle without his chair, and only Nat might recall Forest without Betsy. Summer chewed another piece of popcorn, thinking how last year she was in the center of the sofa, Jody to her right, Spring on the left. Then Forest, which lead to Autumn and Milt squeezed on the loveseat, Nat between them. Betsy had stood behind Forest for much of it, then when Erika went to the floor, Forest’s girlfriend took that space as if they were one body and she had been surgically removed for a short time.
The way Jody had held Summer was similar, as if they were together, and they sort of had been, all through the playoffs. Not that the Yankees had been involved, but that Jody and Summer were kind of entwined. Together, in the loosest sense, except when he held her on the sofa, Skye between them. Now it was only Summer and Skye.
Summer crunched another piece of popcorn, the seating arrangements somewhat altered. Terry and Rafe had the loveseat, Autumn and Milt watching from the kitchen, eating dinner. They were late and neither Terry Quarters nor Rafe Marlowe looked at all willing to budge from the smaller sofa.
No one spoke of Jody, but he hung around everyone and everything, mostly because Nat refused to watch. But even as Summer’s son slipped from his room for handfuls of pretzels and the occasional brownie, the night would still feel clunky, cumbersome. Maybe it was just the way of mourning, the first this and the first that after someone dies always a bitch. Summer wasn’t looking forward to Thanksgiving in a few weeks, or Christmas. But those holidays were one day long, a build-up yes, but the actual festivities were short. As soon as December twenty-sixth arrived, it was over.
The World Series was at least four games over five days, and if it went beyond that… Summer couldn’t go past four games. Maybe the Phillies would take it in four, get it done and over with. She loved the nation’s pastime, but that night she stared more at the popcorn than at the television.
The kernels were mute until she crunched them, unlike the people in her living room, or the wind chimes which swayed in the breeze. She could hear them, but no longer noted the buzz of hummingbird wings. That was only due to the timing, dusk having silenced those small creatures, but the chimes didn’t care. She had risen to them that morning. That and crumbs, and the feeling of losing her balance.
Losing her grip, so instead she took another piece of popcorn. Sometimes she dissolved the puff in her mouth, but that night she crunched and crunched, getting kernels stuck between her teeth. Like crumbs in her bed, the ache on her skin. Like the girl on her lap, reminders of the past.
Skye really needed a bath, her hair oily, her feet smelly, having kicked off her small tennis shoes after dinner. “You’re stinky,” Summer whispered to her.
“Am not,” Skye replied.
“I’m gonna start a bath. And you’re gonna be in it.”
“Bubbles please?”
“Bubbles thank you.”
Summer handed Skye to her youngest sister, bypassing Erika, who was actually watching the game. “If someone needs to pee, you’ll have to use mine.” But no one seemed to care.
Summer imagined either Terry or Rafe would have to go, but if they moved, Autumn would take that seat, didn’t matter which man remained on the sofa. “I’m fine,” Terry muttered.
“Me too,” Rafe said.
“One of you is gonna have to pee eventually,” Autumn called from the kitchen.
Neither man answered her.
While Summer’s bathroom was no bigger than a closet, the house facilities were spacious, and actually, any of the women who needed to go could. It would be the men to squeeze themselves into Summer’s bathroom, all but her brother unless the situation was dire. “Forest, you sure?”
“Yeah,” he called, distracted.
Summer started the water, then plugged the drain, adding a small bit of soap. Bubbles rose, the scent inoffensive. Nat had complained until Summer bought something less feminine.
“Knock knock.” Autumn Caravella smiled, then closed the door. “Decided if those jerks weren’t gonna give up their seats, I might as well go.”
“Get here earlier tomorrow night.”
“We’ll try.”
Summer watched the tub. Skye only needed a small amount of water, enough to splash around the walls and spill on the floor. “Can you send her in here?”
“Sure. Take out her pigtails?”
Summer smiled. “Yeah.”
“You got it.”
Autumn closed the door, keeping the room warm. Not that it was cold outside, but Skye was little. Summer would sit with her or just crack the door, less than two inches of water in the tub. Jody had never left her alone, but then if Jody was watching her, Summer was close. Now Summer was a single parent, even if a houseful of adults sat ten feet away.
Autumn returned with a wiggly three-year-old, Skye’s light brown hair poofed from the sides. “C’mere Princess Leia.”
“Am I a princess?”
“Of course. Thanks Autumn.”
She smiled, then shut the door.
Skye slipped from her clothes. “Mommy, was Daddy here this time last year?”
Summer set her daughter in the tub, then sat on the floor. “Yeah. Why?”
“Rafe and Terry were just talking about him.”
Not around me, Summer smiled. “And what’d they say?”
“That Jody would be really glad the Yankees are losing. Mommy, why do they spit all the time?”
Not Rafe and Terry, Summer knew. “I have no idea. Isn’t it gross?”
Skye made a face. “I think it’s dumb.”
“Don’t say dumb. Say silly.”
“I think it’s silly.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
Summer wondered what else Rafe and Terry had said after she had stepped away. Was it muffled, so all Skye heard was a bit about the Yankees, or was Skye listening for her father’s name. He was Jody and Summer was Mommy or sometimes she was Summer if Skye was forgetful or others were close.
Summer’s parents never thought anything odd in those outdated monikers. Jody had called her Summer until Nat was born. Then she was Mommy, what Summer preferred. “Skye, did they say anything else?”
“Something about Aunt Autumn not getting the couch.”
Summer smiled. “I’m gonna wash your hair once all the bubbles are gone.”
“Okay. Are you gonna stay here?”
“Do you want me to?”
Skye nodded. “Unless you wanna watch baseball.”
“I’d rather watch you.”
“Is that ’cause Daddy’s dead?”
A hole emerged and Summer fell and fell. “Yeah honey. ’Cause Jody’s dead.”
In the kitchen with her sisters, Summer recounted that short conversation. Short because all a three-year-old needed was a straight answer and then Summer had left the room.
She hadn’t left her daughter alone, Betsy with Skye. But Skye was tiring of Betsy. “SUM-MER!” echoed down the hallway.
Spring laughed. “My god, when she says it like that I just can’t help it!”
Summer giggled, wiping tears that weren’t from bliss. “I know, what a comedian.”
“SUM-MER! I’M DONE!”
“COMING!”
“Shut up!” Forest yelled. “You too Skye!”
“UNCLE FOREST?”
“What?”
“TELL MOMMY I NEED HER!”
“Mommy…”
“Yeah yeah.”
“No, I’ll go. You look like shit.”
Three years Summer’s junior, Autumn walked down the hall, Skye’s small voice as large as she could make it. “MOMMY!”
“Funny how when she talks to you, it’s Summer, but then to Forest, it’s Mommy.” Spring set an open beer can in front of her sister.
“Funny,” Summer sniffed, taking a long drink.
“Should we not do this tomorrow?”
“Well, qualify we.”
Spring looked to those in the living room. Erika seemed non-plussed, Rafe and Terry slightly squirmy. All that was visible of Forest was his back, but he raised his arms, then set them down again.
“Forest, are you stretching or cheering?”
“Shut up!”
“Like it matters,” Spring huffed. “All they’re gonna do is swing and spit.” She looked at her sister. “We don’t have to come make such a big deal out of it.”
“If you’re not here Nat’s still gonna hide in his room, Skye’s still gonna scream, the Yankees are still gonna win.”
“Not tonight. It’s four to nothing Phils.”
“Tomorrow for sure. No, I mean, unless you don’t want to.”
“Maybe just me. I think John has to work.”
“Whatever,” Summer sighed.
A wet, wiggling girl ran down the hall in a long faded nightgown, landing in her mother’s lap. “You’ve been crying,” Skye said.
“Yeah baby.”
“Because of the game?”
Spring left the room as Summer nodded, burying her face into Skye’s clean belly.
After the game was over, Summer said goodnight to her children. The Yankees had lost six to one and Erika was disappointed. She was rooting for New York, but no one could get out of her exactly why.
The kitchen was tidied as Skye was put to bed, three sisters cleaning, one brother spinning a yarn that took little time to ease Skye to sleep. Forest wouldn’t say what it was about, but Spring had caught enough, something do to with fairies and vegetables, a rutabaga in particular.
“Why a rutabaga?” Summer asked, drying the last of the large bowls.
“Rutabaga is just the most hilarious word. She had no idea what it was anyways,” Forest said.
“Was it a rutabaga, in the story?” Summer asked.
“Actually it was the name of the fairy queen. Just so you know.”
“Just so when she starts singing queen rutabaga tomorrow in the car I’ll get it. Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he smiled. “Bets, you ready?”
She stood behind him, her hands to his shoulders. “Yeah. Summer, tomorrow, are we on?”
“I am. Anyone willing to brave the insanity, stop on over.”
“We’ll be here, early too. What’s for dinner?”
“Whatever you bring,” Summer smiled at Autumn, then looked to Spring, who was shaking her head.
“We’ll see you guys on Saturday. Phils’ll kill them at home.”
“They killed them in New York,” Summer smiled.
“Cliff Lee killed them in New York,” Forest said.
“As long as someone’s killing somebody.” Summer walked them to the door, her brother easing himself down the ramp. Half of his life spent sitting, but now at thirty-four, he didn’t need to careen, possibly spilling out of his chair. In years past, Forest had taken that ramp as a challenge. Lately he seemed subdued.
“Goodnight,” Summer said, not loudly.
“Goodnight!” voices answered, just as softly.
Once all cars had departed, Summer closed the door, then the blinds. The wind chimes made a few gentle pings, as if announcing it was time for slumber. Summer heard them, but paid no heed.
Instead she sat at her computer, staring at the wallpaper. The beach, from summer, when she, Spring, John, Forest, and Betsy had taken the children to Santa Cruz for a week’s vacation. Jody had been dead for four months and as if a trip might erase the truth, they piled in three cars, caravanning down Interstate 5, through San Jose, over the mountains. Landing at the Pacific’s edge, they went from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to various spots nearby, spending a day in Monterey. Summer had paid for those excursions, but the cost had been well worth it, ridding themselves of the hot Sacramento Valley for seven days, not to mention the weighty ghost from which there was no escape.
Not in vehicles or in the hearts of children bereft, adrift, confused. Even then Skye was hurting, wishing for her father, unable to comprehend how Daddy had been right there, visiting every day, staying at night until she was so tired Jody had carried her to bed. For three weeks, not that Skye would recall the number of days, but three weeks straight a father had spent the afternoons and evenings with his family, with his kids and ex-wife. Then a man and woman shed those terms, making out on Summer’s sofa. How it began, just two former spouses, long time lovers, getting horizontal.
But at the beach it was Summer alone, Summer unaided. Summer as a single mother, which technically she had been since the divorce. Since 2003; that Skye was born in 2006 was just another slip, like in March, when Jody started coming round, baseball season right around the corner.
In the photo, a small curl of wave extended, just spilling over itself in the center, still forming on the ends. The day was cool, high cloud that felt good on overheated bodies, this one of the last pictures Summer took. So many had been snapped, she tended to forget about the others, concentrating on only a beach, the children waiting in the car, Spring on the stairs that led to this part of the shore.
Forest hadn’t seen this at eye level, only in photos. He had wheeled himself around the Boardwalk, but this was Capitola, a few miles down the road. It wasn’t a bright day, but something about that view made Summer take rickety steps, the whole area a construction zone. It was the second time Summer had been there, the first years back, on her honeymoon with Jody.
But the children didn’t know that. Nat wouldn’t care and Erika was too young to ask. Would she ever ask now, Summer wondered. Erika’s parents had divorced, her father was dead. Her dad was gone, but Jody had taken Summer to a San Francisco Giants game, then they made love in a mediocre Bay Area motel. Then he drove her to Santa Cruz, where they spent the last days of their week-long honeymoon walking along the beach, ignoring the Boardwalk. Then finding this spot, The Hook, in Capitola. She wasn’t exactly sure where they had sat, watching the water curl and retreat, waves never the same to what had rolled in hours or minutes before, but this shot was close enough. When Summer gazed at her computer wallpaper, she was back there, safe in his arms.
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