Read The Summer We Got Free for Free Online Page B

without saying just what she thought
that something was.
    “Well, I’ll be sure to let Pastor Goode know we got
another nice, God-fearing family on the block. Matter fact,” Doris told them, “I’ll
ask him to make some time to meet y’all before service tomorrow.”
    “That’s nice of you,” Regina said.
    George nodded. “We happy to have such friendly
neighbors.”
    A strange thing happened when George said the word we . He did not look directly at his
wife, but only glanced emptily in her general direction, almost as if the word
and the reality were not really connected in his mind, and Doris would have
almost been confused as to what “we” he was even talking about if Regina hadn’t
nodded in agreement and smiled when he said it.

1976

 
 
    G eorge was
glaring at Regina across the kitchen table. Regina was muttering to herself.
Sarah was talking with her mouth half-full of food. Ava was sipping her coffee
and looking bored. This was the scene that Paul walked in on and it was
perfectly familiar, the same sort of thing you’d witness walking into the
Delaney kitchen on any Saturday morning, though sometimes George would be
sneering instead of glaring, Regina would be screaming rather than muttering,
Sarah would be talking with her mouth entirely full rather than half-full, and
Ava would be looking distracted rather than bored, which was the subtlest of
differences.
    He was still
half-asleep and groggy, his exhaustion like a fog in his brain, and when he
came into the room he did not see, at first, what was different about the
scene, what was anything but familiar. It wasn’t until he had blinked a few
times that he realized that Ava didn’t look bored at all, but rather uneasy. It
was only after he had rubbed some of the sleep from his eyes that he saw that
Sarah wasn’t talking with food in her mouth, but rather laughing. He had to listen
more closely to hear that Regina wasn’t muttering to herself, but was speaking
calmly. And it wasn’t until he took a few more sluggish steps and could see down
to the other end of the table that he realized George was not glaring at Regina
at all, but at a woman who Paul was sure he was imagining, a vision from some
half-finished dream.
    “Paul,” Sarah
said, “you up.”
    Everyone at the
table turned and looked at him.
    “You got
company,” George said.
    His sister stood
up and took a few steps toward him. “Paul. I know I’m the last person you
expected to see.”
    She had barely
changed in twenty years. She was still built like a twelve year-old. Thin and flat-chested , with knobby knees beneath the hem of her
skirt. Her black black skin was black as ever, her hair kinky and as short as his own, and he could
almost swear that the black, horn-rimmed glasses she wore were the same ones
she’d had at twelve. She couldn’t be real, he thought. He shook his head, and
waited for the dream to fade away.
    “Paul, what the
hell’s the matter with you?” Regina said. “You going nutty or something?”
    Paul looked at
his mother-in-law. “What?”
    “It’s your
sister. Aint you gone say hello?”
    The sleep-fog
lifted and Paul stared wide-eyed at Helena. “It is you,” he said.
    She nodded.
    “Aint this
something?” Sarah asked.
    The smile that pulled across Paul’s face felt tight,
almost painful. “Yeah, it’s something, alright.”
    “I know you
weren’t expecting to see me,” Helena said again.
    He shook his
head. “How’d you know where to find me?”
    “I asked around the old block. Somebody knew somebody
who knew where you lived.” She smiled. “You look just the same.”
    He was sure he looked nothing like his scrawny,
fifteen-year-old self. He looked around at all of them at the table, at their
half-eaten breakfasts. “How long you been here?”
    “Not long. I didn’t want to wake you, and Sarah said
you’d be up soon.”
    He wouldn’t have gotten up at all, would have slept
for hours more, if not for the fact that the