The Last Days of Summer (3 page)

No trace of him inside.

No football trophies. Baseball trophies. No school photographs. No old concert tickets. A whole childhood so long preserved now erased. Just a lone twin bed, chair, desk with a lamp. Not one poster or picture on the walls. Just a clock that never was his and it's ticking rather loudly. The hall was empty of him, too, the whole length of the stairs. He noticed that coming in. Baby photos of Lizzie in her stroller, smiling. On a blanket, smiling. Cake all over her face, smiling, pictures of Mama and Daddy growing up, and married, and getting old, pictures of Lizzie and her girls, but not one of him. And, oddly, not a one of Bobby, neither. He wonders if it was her that done it or Mama before she passed. Wonders what Bobby must've done to earn that same treatment. He crosses the room and sits on the bed and thinks about his cell in Huntsville. Then he starts to think back further to before, to dark curls and tan lines and big dark eyes. Stops himself. He doesn't allow himself to think about that. His face hardens, then twists.
How dare those bitches erase me?
He rises and smashes his fist into the wall. The impact shakes it but he doesn't notice. A low moan escapes him, something more beast than man, and he holds his now throbbing fist to his chest, rocking back and forth, back and forth, feeling his bones like creaking floorboards.
This isn't what home should feel like. This isn't what home should feel like …

A sound makes him turn. A girl in the doorway. Barefoot and brown. Still more child than woman, though the woman's creeping in. Eyes like a doe's widening. But the girl doesn't run. Doesn't turn like a doe would. Just stares, frozen in the doorway.
God, she looks like Lizzie.

He pushes that rage back down. Suffocates it in his gut, like he long ago learned was sometimes best in prison. Tries to smile at the child. Face twisting human again, twisting, he hopes, kind.

She looks at him as though sizing him up. Head to toe, not quite trusting. Not quite not. He finds the directness of her gaze unsettling.

‘You're my uncle Jasper.'

More statement than question but he answers anyway, aware of his pulse throbbing. ‘That's right.'

She seems to hesitate. He doesn't know what to say. When was the last time he saw a little girl? Shared a cell with Melvin Douglas for a while. Melvin was
real
fond of little girls.

‘I'm Joanne.'

He nods.

‘Mom says supper's ready.'

He nods again. The girl still lingers in the door frame. Doesn't seem right to leave her standing there so he invites her in. But what does he have to say to a little girl? Melvin told him he used to give them candy. Little sweets shaped like hearts that said things like ‘Cutie Pie' and ‘Sweetheart' on them. Tiny pastel shades of spring, colours, Melvin said, little girls like. And Melvin used to touch their hair. Comb it with his fingers. And he said after, always after, he'd lay them on the front porch like they were sleeping, bag of ‘Be Mine' candy hearts clutched to their chest like a bouquet of flowers, so that when their mommy and daddy realized they were missing they'd find them laid out all pretty, returned home intact. Or, well, almost intact. Jasper doesn't have any candy, and there's
nothing pastel or cute in this whitewashed room. And, anyway, this little girl's creeping into woman.

‘This was mine.' She inches forward, stepping through the door frame. He can feel the closeness of her. She smells like cut grass.

‘Well, it was mine once, too.'

‘She made me move my stuff out.'

‘Seems she moved mine, too.' Silence between them. ‘Where you sleepin' now?'

‘Mom says they shouldn't have let you out.' One bare toe is scratching the other bare ankle. Her legs burned brown as prairie grass. No, browner. The colour his legs once were, back when he used to tiptoe. Tiny hairs bleached blonde-white catch what little lamplight there is. She looks at him with big blue eyes, and he notices traces of Bobby in her, too. Lizzie mostly, but Bobby round the eyes.

‘She might be right.'

‘When you leave, can I have my room back?'

He laughs then. Can't help but laugh. Throws his head back to let the sound out better. When was the last time he laughed? And Doe Eyes is still standing there, watching. Like it's her business. More of Bobby in her than he first guessed. ‘Where's your daddy at?' His voice rougher than intended, but the child doesn't start, just keeps on staring with her big eyes, now widened even more with slight surprise.

‘Didn't Mom tell you?'

He looks around the stark room. The bare desk. The pictureless walls. He thinks about funny faces that used to make Lizzie laugh, about her stubborn silence in the
truck earlier that afternoon, which chilled him despite the baking sun and thick humidity. Whole drive home and not one word between them till they were up the porch steps, Jasper's hand reaching out to open the screen door. She caught it then, by the wrist, and Lizzie's grip was stronger than he would have guessed. ‘You listen here,' she had said, her voice weathered in ways he did not remember, face lined by hardships he did not truly wish to learn of. ‘You listen good. This here is my house now. And my family. My girls. And you so much as set one toe out of line, Jasper Curtis, 'n' I'll make them years in Huntsville look close enough to Heaven.'

Pots and pans down in the kitchen. ‘Joanne! Jasper!' Lizzie's voice, strained. He meets the girl's quizzical gaze, the echo of their names still fading. Looks into those blue doe eyes. ‘I suspect there's a lot your mama don't tell me.'

Downstairs, right now, Lizzie regrets having sent her up to get him. ‘Fetch your uncle down to supper,' she'd said. Matter-of-fact, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Fetch your uncle down to supper.
Moment the words left her lips, Lizzie felt uneasy. Wanted to suck them back in but it was too late. What the hell was she doing, acting like they were just a normal family fixing to have a normal supper?

Hearing her mother's command, Joanne's eyes had widened. ‘He's
here
?'

‘Told you he was comin', didn't I?'

‘Yeah, but …'

Never you mind, hon, I'll fetch him myself.
The words rose
within her but remained unspoken. Lizzie had made up her mind when she wrote Jasper that letter months back. She wouldn't have them all living under the same roof in fear
.
No matter what.
What kind of life would that be?
Too late to take words back now. She'd cut her daughter short instead. ‘You set that table for four, you hear? Then fetch your uncle.'

But now Joanne is gone, and every bone in Lizzie's body wants to call the child back. Almost does but holds it in. Bites her tongue. The taste of blood fills her mouth, and when she swallows, it's blood not saliva that goes down. Outside, streaks of pink and gold mar the day's clear blue. Evening breezes struggle to cool.
It's just Jasper
, she tells herself.
Jasper come on home.
But still the painful heart-lock, gut-lock, like Joanne's first day of school, or Katie's first night off at a slumber party. And worse somehow. Still the lingering taste of blood oozing from Lizzie's tongue.

The cutlery's stopped clinking in the dining room, and Lizzie's ears strain for footsteps on the stairs. A loud thud from above. Footsteps creaking, pausing, resuming, then stopping, and the stop is even worse. Voices loud enough to hear the murmur but too soft to make out words.

‘She'll be fine,' she tells the mash, ears straining as she stirs in the milk, butter, sour cream. The potatoes are fluffy, smooth as icing, but for once Lizzie isn't even aware of her wrist tiring from the mashing. She releases a breath she did not realize was held. Reaches for the salt. Doesn't notice the top's not on right. Swears under her breath as a small white mountain pours down. ‘The mash's near ruined,' she hisses, and the sound of her own voice in the quiet kitchen surprises her.

Then Jasper's laugh erupts. At least, it
must
be him, but it's no sound Lizzie remembers. Jasper always had a deep laugh. Throaty. Even when he was a boy. The kind of laugh that catches you off guard and tickles you and warms you up and makes you chuckle, too. Infectious. But that is not this sound.

That is not this sound.

It hits her chest hard, like the breath is knocked out of her, and she stands, dazed. The brisket needs to come out of the oven. There's still bread to butter. But Lizzie stands paralysed, listening to her brother's laugh that is not her brother's, spoon held before her like some useless shield against whatever unknowns may come to pass. The reverend's words haunt her. Half a day with Jasper and her inner response is still the same:
I reckon I don't know at all.
Except he's here now. His strange laughter tearing through the thin walls. An inhuman sound that peels the yellowed wallpaper right off till there's only bare wood left, every room a skeleton, the whole house a skeleton, and inside it Lizzie feels stripped raw too, like there is no hiding or place to hide even if she wanted to.

‘Joanne!' she manages to gasp then shout. ‘Jasper! Supper!' but now her voice, too, rasps: unnatural. Harsh yet quivering. And had she been in another room listening in, Lizzie would not have claimed that sound as hers. She sets the sweet tea on the table. Hurriedly slaps butter on the bread. Doesn't breathe natural till two sets of footsteps are coming down the stairs.

It's been years since a man sat at the head of the table. Used to be Daddy's spot when they were children. He would sit still and powerful and silent, glaring down if
ever they were heard instead of merely seen. Not that Mama got freedom of speech exactly either, but she could talk about church and gardening and the weather, little bits of town gossip. She could talk about some things, woman things, but not about others. And before Bobby run off, he sat there awhile. Sunday dinners. Christmas. Easter. Thanksgiving. For the important meals, that was his spot. But after he left, Lizzie took over that chair. It felt strange at first. But Katie and Joanne had set the table up that day, and they'd put a plate at the head, small as the girls were back then, not knowing maybe it weren't right with there being no man in the house. Not knowing yet that their daddy was gone for good. So when she saw that plate there, Lizzie had sat down. For the girls. That's why she'd done it.

She had imagined being her father. There, sitting for the first time in his chair, she had seen a fleeting glimpse of the world through his eyes. It was not a kind or pretty one. Mama was staring at her from across the table. Like she'd never set eyes on Lizzie before. The girls were too little to notice, squirming and restless and hungry in their chairs. Mama had looked long and hard at Lizzie and there had been something like pride in her eyes. And something else a bit like shame.

So when Lizzie comes into the dining room it stops her short to see Jasper sitting there at the head of the table. That seat has never been his.

‘Something smells good.' Jasper leans back in the chair so that the two front legs hang off the ground. Arms crossed behind his head. Mama would have slapped the back of his skull if he'd ever sat there like that. He's still
wearing the grey Coca-Cola T-shirt, and from him the slight smell of sweat sweetens the already sticky room. He's smiling. That cold, mischievous smile that is her brother and isn't her brother, and for a moment Lizzie wonders who this man is, sitting in her chair, smelling of sweat, about to eat her supper. But the twinkle in the corner of his brown eyes, that
is
Jasper. That's the spark that pulled the faces that made her laugh at all those childhood suppers. It's the spark that now relaxes her enough to step forward and set the brisket down.

‘Glad to see you're comfortable.'

‘That there grub looks mighty fine.'

She takes the seat at the foot of the table. Feels wrong somehow to be sitting in Mama's old seat. She turns to Joanne. ‘Where's your sister?'

Joanne shrugs.

Jasper goes on as if there's been no pause: ‘Reckon they fed us all right in there but this here smells a whole lot finer.'

Lizzie glances at the grandfather clock. Quarter past seven. Told Katie be home by half.
So she isn't late yet. It's the brisket that's early …
Lizzie sighs. ‘We might as well start.' She rises to carve the meat.

Jasper rises too. ‘Let me. As I recall it's the man that usually does the carving.'

Above the table their eyes meet. Like how many countless times before. Stealing glances round the room while Mama said grace. Sneaking bits of food. Making those funny faces. The twinkle is still in Jasper's eyes. He's smiling at her.

There's nothing sinister in that smile. Nothing bad.
He's older, tireder, greyer, but it's Jasper. For the first time all day it's really Jasper. Her brother, home. Lizzie hands him the carving knife handle first. He takes it. ‘Yep,' he murmurs, as the first cut slices, blood and juices dripping from the pink meat onto the serving plate, ‘this here sure is a lot nicer than what we was bein' fed.'

He dishes out four platefuls. Sits back down. The mash is passed round. And the corn. The bread. Half past now.
Where is that girl?
Lizzie takes a big bite of mash. Jasper's eyes across the table stop her. ‘Don't we say grace no more?'

Joanne looks up from her plate. Head turns from her uncle to her mother and her gaze sticks. Lizzie can feel the girl's eyes on her, but she holds Jasper's cool gaze. Brakes squeak in the driveway and a car door slams. Crickets and July flies have started to come out to greet the evening, and their songs mix with the falling night, blown in through the open window and its screen. The front door opens and slams, and Katie's clear young voice calls, ‘Sorry! I'm home!' Footsteps fast approaching in the hall.