One Summer’s Knight

her child’s hair just once more, breathe in the dusty, salty, little-girl smell-liberally laced with chlorine, naturally. And nothing had ever smelled so wonderful.

At her elbow, David was beside himself, waving his arms and screeching, “What did you do that for? Helen, sometimes you are such an-”

“David,” Summer warned in a tremulous voice, “not now. Not another word, do you hear me?”

He threw her a furious look, then frowned at his feet and muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Helen, did you say thank-you to Mr. Riley?”

They all turned, but Riley was no longer there.

When they went back into the house, Summer heard the sound of water running upstairs in his bathroom. A little later, while she was shampooing the dust and spiderwebs out of Helen’s hair, she heard footsteps on the stairs and the distant sound of a door closing. And from the window in the children’s room she watched the Mercedes back out of the garage and roll away down the long, curving drive to finally disappear under the canopy of live oaks and their waving fronds of Spanish moss.

I don’t blame him for leaving, she thought What are we doing to him? What am I doing?

She felt such a heaviness inside. And at the same time, wired and edgy, as if her skin had been charged with electricity. Yes, like that, she thought as thunder rumbled suddenly outside. Just like that.

Though that particular storm passed them by well to the north, the thunderclouds lingered through the afternoon, hanging over them like a threat while the heat and humidity became almost palpable and the sun played a malicious little game of hide-and-seek with poisonous-looking clouds. Summer finished mowing the lawn with one eye on the sky, her skin prickling with that peculiar sensation of awareness, as if every nerve and cell were listening…

Afterward, with the thunder still keeping its distance, she gave in to the children’s pleadings and let them swim, even joining them in the pool, wearing the streamlined white tank suit Riley had bought for her. It wasn’t the first time she’d worn it, but for some reason today everywhere it touched her, with her skin in that strange, sensitized state, it seemed to itch and burn, as if she’d broken out in an all-over rash.

It’s the weather, she told herself; all this electricity in the air. Sure, they all felt it-the children were wired and nervous, Cleo was shrieking dire warnings from the living room, and Beatle was upstairs shivering and shaking under David’s bed. California-raised, none of them had quite adjusted yet to thunderstorms. Why should she be immune?

By early evening Riley still hadn’t returned. The sky had turned the ugly blue-black of bruises. It was as dark as if night were falling, even though Summer knew that at that hour, somewhere up there beyond the clouds, the sun must still be high in the sky. Thunder rolled and rumbled almost continuously; the wind picked up, howling and moaning around the house like some wild creature denied entry, lashing out at the trees in its disappointment and rage. Summer covered Cleo’s cage with a cloth to calm her and while the children watched with round, worried eyes, made popcorn in the microwave. And all the time, her skin prickled, the back of her neck tensed, and her ears seemed to hum with…listening.

When the popcorn had finished popping, she poured it into a big wooden bowl and carried it upstairs. Then they all-including Beatle-climbed onto Summer’s bed, pulled the edges of the comforter around them and settled down to watch Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book, Helen’s favorite video, on the VCR. David and Helen had already watched it several times-Summer had asked Riley to rent it for them a few days ago and he’d purchased a copy instead, so she’d made up her mind not to ask him for another one. And now, seeing it herself for the first time in years, she began to get an inkling of what might have inspired Helen to crawl out onto that tree limb!

Meanwhile, the storm hit like an artillery barrage. The thunder no longer rolled and rumbled; it cracked and boomed and shook the house. Rain rattled against the windows and the wind screamed like a creature in agony. Beatle crawled under the covers and the children huddled closer against Summer’s side-but she noticed they never once stopped the methodical relay of popcorn from the bowl to their mouths, or took their eyes from the television screen.

Through all that terrible din, Summer bumped up the volume with the remote control and sat tense and still, trying her best to concentrate on the movie. But every nerve ending in her body vibrated… listening.

Right in the middle of the climactic battle between Shere Khan and Mowgli, there was a crr-aack! that rattled the windows, and the lights went out. Both children yelped-partly in fear, Summer was sure, but also in outrage that their movie had been so cruelly interrupted. Though it wasn’t late enough for the darkness to be total, she sent David next door to his room to fetch the flashlight she’d given him to keep under his pillow-a bit of extra security to take the place of his bunny blanket. After all, who knew how long the electricity would be off? Then, to pass the time and help allay the children’s disappointment, they sang all the songs they could remember from the movie, and Summer let them pretend to be Kaa, and hypnotize her with the flashlight.

Somewhere in the midst of that, the lights came on, but they were having so much fun, instead of starting the movie going again, they just kept on with their game. So it was, that David was crooning “Come to me-e-e…Mom- cub…” while Summer walked around on top of the bed in stiff-legged circles with her eyes crossed and her arms thrust limp-wristed straight out in front of her, and Helen was rolling around on the comforter shrieking with laughter, when Beatle suddenly gave her soft “Wuf!” of welcome, jumped off the bed and scampered over to the half-open door.

The door opened slowly inward. Summer froze, and for several long seconds before she remembered to uncross her eyes, stared at the twin Rileys that hovered there, framed in the doorway.

David broke off in midsentence and Helen’s giggles subsided, and in the stillness they heard the thunder, which they’d all completely forgotten about, go grumbling away in the distance. In that stillness, Summer felt her heart beating hard and fast. Because at that moment she knew at last what it was she’d been listening for.

Riley had been dismayed, to say the least, to arrive home at the height of the storm to find his security system shut down and his front gate locked up tight. He’d immediately called the security company from his car phone, and was told that the automatic lockdown in the event of a power interrupt was a fail-safe feature of the system, to prevent intruders from gaining access by cutting off the power. The gate could, he was assured, be opened manually, with a key. Which, of course, Riley did not happen to have with him. Which meant he had no choice but to sit in the car and wait for the storm to pass and hope the power would be restored soon. If it didn’t, as soon as the rain let up, he planned to climb over the damn gate and walk to the house and get the damn key.

He was uneasy about Summer and the kids, though, alone in the house and without power in the middle of one of the worst storms of the season At least he had the assurances of the security company that the house alarm system would remain active on its backup batteries for a minimum of two hours. Although what in the hell good that would do anybody was beyond him, when the “armed response” unit wouldn’t be able to get through the front gate!

Needless to say he was out of sorts and edgy as hell by the time the perimeter lights flashed bright and the courtesy light came on again above the intercom and keypad. He punched in his code, waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in rhythms that were in no way in sync with the Vivaldi concerto on the CD player and, once the gates were open, gunned through them with an angry little spurt of gravel.

By the time he pulled up in front of the garage, the rain had slackened off to a light mist. When he opened the car door he was greeted with the busy dripping, rustling, rushing sounds of the earth setting itself to rights, and off to the west, a strip of crimson sky showed through between indigo clouds and lavender earth. He popped the trunk, got out and locked up the car. Then, taking with him one of the smaller, if heavier of the boxes from the assortment in the trunk, he went into the house.

All seemed quiet. Although there were lights on and remnants of an appetizing smell, the kitchen was empty. Then he heard sounds-voices, laughter-coming from upstairs. A woman’s voice…children’s laughter-until recently, alien sounds to him and to this place, and yet, somehow incredibly alluring. Drawn as if by a siren’s song, Riley hefted the box and began to climb toward the laughter.

Just outside Summer’s room he halted. Through the half-open door he could see them, the children laughing, rolling around on the bed like puppies, Summer-a grown woman!-walking around on top of the bed as if she were in