When Suzie smiled she looked like her mother after Mr. Epstein had first moved out: weary, and tired of carrying around so many secrets. “It’s okay. Just promise me. Okay?”
Sam took the envelope. “Sure. But you have to tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“Why did you choose me?”
Suzie blinked. “Because you had as much to lose as I did.” She threw herself against Sam, her arms tightly wrapped around his neck, kissed him somewhere between his ear and his neck, and then let go. “Goodbye, Sam Turner.”
“Goodbye, Suzie Epstein.” Sam was confused. Suzie always seemed so confident, and he felt foolish for never quite knowing what was expected. If he asked now what she meant, did it really matter?
Suzie turned and skittered down the steps and across the grass to her house. She didn’t look back. Sam watched as the Epsteins loaded up the trunk and Suzie and her brothers jockeyed for the front seat, Suzie ultimately ended up sitting in the back with the youngest of her two brothers. Mrs. Epstein came running out of the house with a cooler. She handed it in the window to Mr. Epstein and lingered on his side a moment longer. As she walked backward Mr. Epstein tooted the horn and opened the sunroof. Suzie and her brothers stuck out their hands and waved to Mrs. Epstein.
Sam stared at the envelope. He had never been good at waiting for anything. He ripped open the seal quickly and the contents—photographs, not a letter—spilled onto the floor. As he bent over to pick them up he caught sight of the bikes carrying Peter Chang, Johnny Ross, Frankie Cole, and Stephen Winters as they rounded the corner, their tires squeaking against the hot pavement as they pedaled to catch up with Mr. Epstein’s Mercedes.
Sam stood slowly, so it took him longer than it should have to realize that what he was holding in his hand were pictures of his mother smiling widely into the lens of Mr. Epstein’s camera. He looked up just as Suzie, her body half out the sunroof of the Mercedes, began tossing more photos onto the street.
Peter Chang was pedaling his bike hands-free, waving his arms as he yelled “Suzie, hey, Suzie Q, see you later!” The others bobbed and weaved behind the car, sliding first to the left, then right. Sam imagined Mr. Epstein cursing them as Johnny Ross, always the fastest among them, slapped a hand against the trunk of the Mercedes.
From deep inside the house Sam heard his mother calling his name. All morning she had been up and down the attic stairs, bringing down luggage for a trip he hadn’t known she was taking until this very moment. As Suzie Epstein moved farther away, shaking the last of the photos from the shoebox, the neighborhood mothers fluttered in the breeze, suspended for one long, graceful moment in the air, until they fell to the pavement like the paper in a ticker tape parade.
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About the Author
Robin Antalek’s work has been published in numerous literary journals. She lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with her husband and two daughters. The Summer We Fell Apart is her first novel.
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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE SUMMER WE FELL APART
“In The Summer We Fell Apart, the four children of an indifferent mother and an alcoholic, self-absorbed father stumble into adulthood. The most moving aspect of this very moving novel may be its author’s relationship to her characters. By portraying each sibling’s muddled life with tenderness, respect, and clear-sightedness, author Antalek proves herself to be the ultimate good parent.”
—Martha Moody, bestselling author of Best Friends
“The Summer We Fell Apart is a bright, bighearted novel about the complexities and heartaches of the way we live now.”
—Elizabeth Benedict, author of Almost and
Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on
the People Who Changed Their Lives
“Reminiscent of The Glass Castle, The Summer We Fell Apart tells the story of the four Haas kids who are at best neglected, at worst utterly demoralized by their self-centered parents. It’s told over the course of fifteen years, point of view shifting from sibling to sibling, as they grow into adulthood. Each perspective is so poignantly etched by Antalek that you can’t wait to hear what the next kid knows that the rest don’t, what each can tell you about the others, and whether they will succeed in their efforts to rise from the cigarette ashes of their upbringing. With every chapter the story grows richer and clearer, as does your appreciation for the characters’ humor, their burdens, and their devotion to each other.”
—Juliette Fay, author of Shelter Me
“The Summer We Fell Apart is a thoroughly entertaining and often heartbreaking romp through the chaos and comforts of a large and extraordinary family.”
—Jessica Anya Blau, author of
The Summer of Naked Swim Parties
“Robin Antalek’s debut is as haunting as it is gripping—a story of the events, both mundane and dramatic, that tear a family apart and of the often inexplicable love that binds a family together. The Summer We Fell Apart is a beautiful, memorable novel.”
—Diana Spechler, author of Who by Fire
“Sibling love and rivalry take center stage in Robin Antalek’s The Summer We Fell Apart, the story of the four Haas children, disconnected and adrift in the world, who somehow find their way back to one another in spite of themselves. Full of the best kind of heartache, it’s an unforgettable, bighearted debut that will make you want to pick up the phone and call your own brother or sister.”
—Will Allison, author of What You Have Left
Credits
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
Cover photograph © Eric Millette/Getty Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE SUMMER WE FELL APART. Copyright © 2010 by Robin Antalek. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
EPub Edition © November 2009 ISBN: 9780061960666
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