One Summer’s Knight

“Well…” The shoes bobbed furiously. “He said I talk funny.”

“You do talk funny,” said her brother.

“Do not!”

“David…”

“He talks funny. And he called me a name.”

“What name?” Summer braced herself. “Come on, honey, tell me what Jason called you.”

“He…he called me a yankee,” Helen huffed. “I don’t even know what that is. Mom, what’s a yankee? It sounds nasty.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

All Summer could do was shake her head; she had a hand clamped tight across her mouth to hold back a gust of laughter.

“Plus, Jason told Keisha her hair looked ugly and hurt her feelings. She was crying.”

“Who’s Keisha?” Aha, this sounded better. Definitely grounds for justification.

“Keisha’s my friend, and her hair’s not ugly,” said Helen. “She has millions and millions of little tiny braids. Mom, can you do my hair like that?”

“I doubt it.” Summer looked at her daughter’s rather sparse blond curls. Both of her children had inherited the Waskowitz coloring, like their aunt Mirabella-fine red-gold hair and fair, tell-all complexions. “And don’t try and change the subject, little girl. Jason was wrong to make Keisha cry, but you still shouldn’t have squirted him with grape juice, of all things.” A delayed realization struck her. “And where did you get a water pistol, anyway? You know how we feel about toy guns of any kind.”

The two children exchanged guilty looks.

“David?”

“Don’t look at me, Mom.”

“Helen? Answer me this minute. Where did you get the water gun?”

Helen stared at the toes of her sneakers, which were no longer bobbing. Her chin sank onto her chest. “I took it.”

Oh, God. It was worse than she’d thought. This was serious stuff, in the world of childhood, a class-A felony. “Helen,” said Summer in a voice low with dread, “do you mean to tell me you stole it?” Helen’s head moved slowly up and down Her brother made a disgusted noise. “Where? Who did you steal it from, Helen? Tell me right now.”

Helen’s voice was barely audible, and seemed to come from the vicinity of her belly button. “From Jason.”

“From Jason? You mean, you…” Shot him with his own gun?

Summer put a hand over her eyes. Silence reigned in the back seat as she counted slowly to ten, then turned back around and put the car in gear. “Buckle up,” she said briskly. “Now.” There was a subdued and dutiful click from Helen’s side. Summer had just put on her blinker and was starting to pull away from the curb when she had to hit the brakes and wait for a fire engine to roar by, siren screaming. Right behind it came another one. Then another.

“Wow,” David breathed, following their progress with avid eyes, “it must be a really big fire. Can we follow them and see, Mom? Can we?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Summer, who in adulthood had developed a city-dweller’s indifference to emergency vehicles. “Hey, what do you guys want for dinner? I didn’t have time to stop at the store. You feel like pizza?”

“Aren’t we going to get Beatle and Cleo and Peggy Sue?” David asked in a worried vice. “They’ve been at Jason’s four whole days, Mom. First you said it was just for the weekend while we were at Aunt Bella’s, and then you said just till you got back from Charleston, and now-”

“I know, I know,” Summer interrupted him with a sigh. She met her son’s accusing frown in the rearview mirror. “But I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to go over to Dr. Mott’s right now, do you? After what Helen just did to Jason? Maybe we could let things cool off a little bit first?”

“Things” meaning Jason’s mother, Debbie. Debbie Mott was a former high school cheerleader and beauty queen who’d given up on getting her figure back after her third child and made up for it in the self-esteem department by being somewhat of a snob. Summer was well aware that she wasn’t Debbie’s favorite person-she had good instincts for things like that-and suspected it had something to do with the fact that she spent most of every day sharing the intimacy of a motor home with Debbie’s lean, lanky and still reasonably good looking husband. Summer didn’t really think Debbie had enough influence in such matters to get her fired over this grape juice incident, but the next meeting between them didn’t promise to be a pleasant one, and it definitely wasn’t something she felt like tackling on an empty stomach. She’d call first, she told herself. This evening, when Dr. Mott was likely to be home to referee.

She watched David’s eyes spark with understanding, then flick resentfully toward his sister. “I guess,” he said unhappily. “It’s just, I hope they don’t think we abandoned them, or something. Jason said his mom made Cleo stay on the porch because she was making so much noise. He said she says bad words. Does she, Mom? How come I never heard her say any bad words?” He sounded disappointed.

“Maybe she never felt the need to,” Summer muttered. She sought her son’s eyes in the mirror once more. “Honey, I miss the animals, too, but they’ll be fine at Dr. Mott’s for one more night, okay? I promise we’ll go get them tomorrow. Right now, let’s have something to eat-I’m starving. So how about it? Pizza sound okay to you guys?”

“Can we have tacos?” Helen piped up. “We haven’t had tacos for a million years.”

“Then we’re definitely due. What about it, Davie? Tacos okay with you?”

“Sure.” In the mirror, Summer watched him shrug and go back to staring out the window, his face somber, a vaguely depressed slope to his shoulders.

Sadness tightened her throat and lay heavy in her chest. Oh, sweetheart, these burdens of mine are way too big for your shoulders. Please don’t try to bear them for me. You’re only nine years old. I’ll make it up to you, she promised her son silently. We’re going to come through this all right.

Since tacos were way too messy to eat in the car, even one as decrepit as the Olds, Summer parked it and they went inside. She wasn’t particularly eager to get home, anyway, and with the animals at Dr. Mott’s, she could think of no reason to rush. It hadn’t always been so. Once, “home” had meant her nest, her haven, her place of belonging. These days, “home” was the soul-sapping bleakness of a cramped mobile home, where every rust streak and shriveled blade of grass was a reproach and a reminder of her failures. And where, more recently, the ringing of the telephone carried with it the electric shock of fear.

But, she reminded herself, at least now I have a lawyer. A good lawyer. Riley Grogan. His confidence and quietness filled her. In her mind, his eyes regarded her-cool, blue and appraising. Unexpected warmth flooded her cheeks and spread into her chest

I’ll find a way to pay him, she vowed. I know he doesn’t believe that, but I will.

Though it would be difficult, she acknowledged, since he lived so far away. Well, of course, she had no idea where he actually lived, but his law offices were in Charleston, so she had to assume he lived somewhere nearby. What must his home be like, a single man, a wealthy man, with no kids and no pets? It was hard for her to imagine. As elegant and imposing as the man himself was, probably. But godawful lonely. Maybe.

“Mom?”

She started and focused guiltily on her son, who had obviously just asked her a question of some importance. The children had been bickering over the movie monster action figures that had come in their kids’ meals when she’d tuned them out and given her mind permission to wander. But how had she gotten so far off the mommy- track?

“Yes, hon-I’m sorry. What?”

“I said, do you think Jason’s mom will still let us swim in their pool?” His red-gold hair hung slack, waving a little, as he tilted his head sideways to accommodate a bite of taco. His blue eyes regarded her somberly as he chewed, then swallowed with an audible gulp. “Mom, what am I gonna do if I can’t practice? I’ll be so out of shape, I’ll never be able to make the swim team again. And it’s all because dodo, here-” he gave his sister a fierce nudge in the side with his elbow “-just had to go and squirt grape juice all over dumb old Jason.”

“Quit it,” Helen whispered, nudging him back and fixing him with a narrow-eyed glare. “Or I’ll have my Godzilla