The Last Days of Summer (7 page)

Bug Eyes smiled. A tight, tiny smile that did not reach his eyes or stretch beyond his lips. Pencil back to page. Scratch. Rasp. Wheeze. ‘Is that so, Mr Curtis? I assume, then, that you know
why
you are meeting with me today.'

‘I reckon I do.'

‘And that would be?'

‘To evaluate my mental health.'

An identical tight-lipped smile. ‘That is correct, Mr Curtis, very good indeed.' Pencil scratch, scratch, scratched on the page.

Jasper was surprised to realize he didn't care what was written there. He knew the words were about him, but he also knew what lay inside far better than anyone else. He had never cared much what others thought. Time served did not alter that. And now, soon, he would be free.
She
cared. She always cared a bit too much what other folks thought. He could have told Bug Eyes that, but he didn't. Held his tongue. Didn't want to think about the way she used to be.

‘To be frank with you, Mr Curtis, I have been assigned to deem whether or not you remain a menace to society.' The pencil stopped scratching. Bulging eyes met his. ‘Tell me about Miss Saunders.'

Dark hair. And dark eyes. And a smile just for him. A smile no other man could have. Jasper paused. A door creaked open, just a crack. He lowered his eyes. Thought
about prairie grass running through open fingers. Her lying down in it, bluebonnets and daisies crushed beneath her hair. Carefully he shut down the memory. Met the therapist's gaze. ‘Do you meet with all the men coming in 'n' out of this place?'

‘Yes.'

Jasper nods. ‘ 'N' you evaluate 'em?'

‘That's right, yes.'

‘All of 'em?'

‘Most of them, yes. It's a standard procedure, Mr Curtis. We need to be sure that the convicts released pose no threat to themselves or others.'

Jasper nodded slowly, as though thinking. He shifted his weight in his chair. Met the therapist's gaze with cold, hard eyes. ‘Who evaluates you?'

‘Excuse me?'

‘Who's to say there ain't a bit of a “menace to society” inside you too, Doc?' Jasper laughed then, low and deep and long. ‘You know, I think I see it, that menace, lurkin' deep in there. It's in your eyes, you see. The way you squint. You can tell a lot from a man's eyes, Doc, and fact is you don't seem so different to me than the folks I shared cells with.'

Bug Eyes shifted in his chair. Swallowed. ‘We are here to talk about you, Mr Curtis, not me.'

‘And what do you decide exactly?'

‘I'm not sure I follow you.'

‘I mean, what difference does this make? I'm already due release. Board's granted that. Time's nearly up now. I've served. So I guess what I'm askin', Doc, is how does what I say here matter?'

‘Everything we say matters, Mr Curtis, don't you agree?'

‘No, that's not what I mean, Doc, 'n' you know it. Don't sidestep the question now, you hear?' Defiant eyes met defiant eyes, all trace of laughter drained from Jasper's voice. ‘What I want to know is: can anything I say here keep me locked up?'

The doctor shifted his weight from left to right. Back again. Looked uncomfortable squished in that tiny chair behind the massive desk. Sweat still beaded on his brow before rolling down his forehead to be wiped away only to form again. Clock a ticking bomb. Bug Eyes cleared his throat. Fidgeted with his pencil. Put it down. Picked it up. Chewed on the eraser.

‘No.'

‘So I'm a free man?'

‘Do you want to be free?' Pencil calmed, raised, ready to be back in action, busy on the page.

Jasper smiled. ‘Every man seeks freedom, Doc.'

‘You've been avoiding my question, Mr Curtis. About Miss Saunders. Does it bother you to talk about her?'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Do you regret your actions?'

‘You mean my crime?' A smile played on Jasper's lips but did not settle there.

‘Yes. I mean your crime.'

Jasper shifted in his chair, his hands clasped and folded in his lap before him. His cuticles, grown long, covered the half-moons on his nails. He stretched his legs out long, feet flexed before him. Thought about sunlight and open fields and showers not shared. Thought about long
dark lashes. And tan lines. And remembered the taste of Mama's peach cobbler hot on his tongue. At length he lifted his gaze. ‘That bitch got what she deserved.'

The pencil stopped scratching. ‘No regrets?'

‘Plenty.'

The road to town feels longer than Jasper remembers. Can't quite guess how many miles still to go, though there was a time, not really so very long ago, when, without thinking, he would already have known. He had left Lizzie in Mama's old chair in the parlour, bent over someone's lace tablecloth, mending. Open window beside her, but scarcely a breeze blowing in. Doe Eyes at her feet, lying on her belly, flipping the pages of a fashion magazine. Feet kicked up behind her. Blonde hair slipped loose from her ponytail falling down onto her face. Lizzie didn't look up as Jasper slipped out of the door, but Doe Eyes did. He paused for a moment, caught by her bright blue gaze. She stared back. Gaze too unflinching for a child. A woman's gaze. Almost. He didn't bother saying goodbye. Just slipped out of the door. It's been years since he could leave a room without permission. A long time since he could simply rise, and walk, and go. Unlocked doors amaze. He almost said something to Doe Eyes when her look caught him like that. But he halted the words on his tongue before they were spoken. Thank God. Little bitch in the making. More of Bobby in her than he'd like. Eyes he's not sure he trusts. And yet a softness to her that somehow makes him think perhaps there's still a chance to feel at home.

A mirage on the open road ahead rises up on the
concrete, like a pool of water, only to distort back into pavement as Jasper approaches. The afternoon sunshine feels healthy on his face, his neck, his arms. He can feel himself tanning, browning. He wonders how quickly he might burn. Doesn't care. Step by step, he feels his heart pumping, blood flowing. He can't remember the last time he felt that. Healthy.

Wind rustles burned prairie grasses together, a sound like crickets dying. No coolness in the breeze. June bugs buzz through the tall grasses. Too early still for cricket song. Far off the whir of a truck engine makes itself known and can be heard speeding closer. A sound low and lost as a brewing storm.

He stands on the shoulder and watches the Ford get closer. Blue. Bright, shiny, new-paint blue. He can see even from a distance not many miles have been put on that pickup yet. More toy car than true truck. The kind that folks in the cities and suburbs buy in an attempt to look country.
That truck has probably never driven a proper haul.
He watches it all the same, though. A speck at first far off on the prairie road, barrelling closer and bigger, approaching with almost alarming speed.

It's been a great while since he saw something move so fast, and he stands still, watching its rapid approach as though transfixed.

The wind hits him as the pickup passes him, and he closes his eyes better to enjoy the cooling blast of air. Over in a second, but still that second makes him smile. It feels like freedom on his face.

Brakes and tyres screech their halt. Jasper opens his eyes. Turns to look behind him. The pickup has stopped
about fifty yards up the road. Dark skid marks from the brakes darken the concrete. He can't see who is inside. Just the shadowed silhouette of the driver turned round in his seat to look behind him. A Stetson. Wide shoulders. For a second, Jasper thinks the pickup will back up to him. When it doesn't, he wonders if he should walk up to it. Wonders if he knows the driver. Wonders if perhaps he should wave or call out. Instead he stands in silence, hands in pockets, squinting into the reflected light from the shiny pickup's truck bed. A mirage on the road far beyond reflects and sparkles like water. Wind rustles dry grass. Earth parched for rain.

Jasper takes a step forward towards the truck, and as he does, it dawns on him. Dread rises in his gut. There is only one frame he can think of that matches that broad silhouette. And it's the one frame he had hoped not to see. Not yet. The engine revs once. Jasper pauses. Confusion creases his brow. He knows in his gut who this must be, though he'd imagined their paths crossing differently, had hoped maybe time could bandage up at least some wounds. He has done his term, served society's penance. But Jasper knows all too well how vengeance feeds. He cannot imagine a reality where her brother will not want blood. He draws a deep breath and walks forward. His knuckles crack as his hands fist. Ahead, the shadow abruptly turns, twisting to face the steering-wheel again, and the truck speeds on, tyres screeching. Jasper stops mid-stride. Watches for a moment, wondering. Eventually he can no longer find the Ford on the flat, open road. Eddie Saunders had never shied away from a fight. Jasper stands motionless, feeling an uneasiness creep up inside
him. When he finds his stride again, his footsteps lead back up the road he's walked already. Back the way the truck just sped, back towards home.

Hands in and out of the warm soapy water. Brought in and out of the faucet's steady drip in steady bursts of hot and cold. The heat feels soothing on Lizzie's aching knuckles as she massages them back to life. Too long sewing, but at least the lace is done. Nearly good as new. Mama had arthritis. In her hands. Her thumbs. Her knees. Used to sit out on her rocker on the front porch, rubbing her knees with the palms of her hands as she rocked back and forth, back and forth. For hours. Used to say the movement eased the pain, but when she stood up her walk was as stiff as ever. Lizzie wonders if she'll be like that one day. If pain runs in her blood. Shakes her head.
Don't be ridiculous.
Hopes not.

She hears the truck before she sees it. Looks up out of the kitchen window beyond the tall prairie grasses and low-lying shrubs to the road beyond. Rumbling sound of the engine low as thunder and as distant, but uninterrupted and now quickly coming closer, growing louder, faster than any storm. Cobalt blue. Bright, shiny, new. Puts her rusted Chevy parked out front to shame. Lizzie turns the faucet off. Dries her hands on a dish towel. Places it, crumpled, on the counter beside her. Her hand fists around the cool fabric, gripping, squeezing, as it knots inside her palm. To her surprise, she is not shaking.

She knows that truck.

Whole town knows that truck. And it's the one truck
she hoped never to see. Or at least not yet.
It's too soon. He's only just home …

Lizzie knows that Jasper left the house. She didn't try to stop him. Didn't tell him, ‘Stay.' Or ask him if he wanted company or even a lift somewhere. He is not a prisoner in this house. And yet Lizzie couldn't help but feel uneasy as Jasper quietly walked to the door, as he paused there, hand already outstretched for the screen-door handle. For a moment, not looking up but still fully aware of where he stood, she wondered if he might not come back. It would be easier to leave with no goodbye. A part of her hoped he might never again enter through that door. A part of her worried to let him out of her sight.

When the door shut behind him, she looked up. Watched the empty doorframe for some time, staring through the screen into the nothingness beyond. Mid-afternoon, the sun golden above the golden grass.

But now there is that blue pickup speeding down the road, dust rising in a small brown cloud around it, and all Lizzie can wonder is,
Where is Jasper?
He's been gone – what? An hour? Two?
Her fear sticks like a lump in her chest. Like the panic that gripped her when Jasper had called all those years ago from the prison cell when Sheriff Adams had first dragged him in for questioning. His one phone call. And he'd called her.

‘I couldn't bear it.' That was all he'd said.

And her heart had stopped. Had never beaten the same since. ‘Bear what?' But on the other side of the telephone were only shallow breaths and hiccuped sobs and then, at length, strange, hollow laughter that was not her
brother's, and was her brother's, and then she'd cried until the opposite receiver clicked its silence, only the hollow drone of the dial tone there to question or to comfort.

Lizzie'd known that Jasper come back home might bring its share of trouble. She'd known, but still she'd hoped the past might stay gone.

Now, dish towel crumpled in her fist's tightening grip, she watches as the truck draws closer. Breath shallow and short. But, to her surprise, it does not slow. And then she knows.
No. Not yet. Not now.
A warning. And the warning chills her, freezes her insides and her heart with dread even as the afternoon heat eases in from the window before her to slide warm and sticky, honey-thick down her skin in dripping lines of perspiration.

Long after the pickup has sped away, Lizzie still grips the dish towel, her knuckles white from the pressure. ‘Oh, Jasper,' she finally gasps. Then mouths his name over and over softer and softer till the word itself crumbles into a dry rasp that cannot be heard. Dry lips rub together and chap to form his silent name.

Somewhere a blue jay calls, then an oriole, till both fall mute mid-song.

Katie's hair glows golden where the lamplight hits it. She's counting under her breath, ‘… forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four …' with every brushstroke. She looks like a princess. Like a picture from a story book Joanne remembers seeing. She can't remember what fairy tale it was – Rapunzel maybe, or maybe it was Goldilocks, or that princess from Rumpelstiltskin. But, no,
that princess was spinning golden thread, not hair. Joanne wishes she had hair like that. Like Katie's. Soft and shiny like the models in the magazines. Like golden thread. But all her hair does is tangle. That's why she ties it up. Wears it in the ponytail. And, anyway, she doesn't have the patience to brush her hair like that. It takes too long to reach one hundred. Hurts when she hits the tangles.