Cicada Summer

by Maureen Leurck

  I wasn’t at all up for it, and I knew he would understand. I just wished that I understood myself why I felt like when the house caught fire, when all the work that we had done had been destroyed, that it was time to let Gavin go. And after sharing the small moment with Matt in the kitchen after the fire, I knew it wasn’t right to string him along. He deserved to have someone who wasn’t such a mess, whose life didn’t keep imploding with disaster. Someone who didn’t feel confused about her ex-husband.

  I knew that it wasn’t fair to keep him around in case I ever became ready for him. Dating him would have been like painting over wallpaper, or gluing layers of linoleum on top of one another—a temporary solution. Yet at some point, it would all have to be scraped away, and it would be much harder than if it had been done the right way the first time.

  I thought about Elsie’s words, that we didn’t get a second chance, and I knew she was right.

  * * *

  That evening, I tried to tuck Abby into bed, but she protested and insisted on sleeping with me. I lay down next to her in my bed, staring at the ceiling fan, until I heard the rhythmic breathing of sleep. I picked up my phone and took a long, steady breath before I started typing.

  I first typed a text to Gavin. I realized I should have called him, asked to meet in person, but I had to do it while I still had the courage from the recent depressing events.

  Thanks so much for the invite for this weekend. I’m afraid I can’t make it. Right now is kind of a tough time for me, with the house and Abby and everything. I’m sorry to do this by text, but I would love if we could be just friends for now.

  I hit Send and closed my eyes, waiting for a buzz when he texted back. When nothing came through, I thought he might be asleep, but underneath the text bubble it said that he had read it.

  Sadness washed over me, but I didn’t let myself think about it. I had one more message to send, and that one would be even more difficult.

  I typed out the e-mail, swallowing back my tears, pushing the image of the Maple house filled with laughter and children out of my head, and hit Send. That future was already gone, burned by the fire. Maybe it existed in some kind of alternate universe, where Elsie reunited with her daughter, and the house welcomed a new family into its restored structure. Maybe Matt and I had never gotten divorced in that universe, and Abby didn’t have to live in two places at the same time.

  Maybe all of our wishes and hopes for the future came true in this fantasy. It gave me some peace to think that maybe it did exist, in some ethereal plane. That in some small corner of the universe, all was well.

  Yet this was my corner of the universe, my reality, and it looked much different. And I had to live in that world, and make decisions based on what had happened, rather than what I wished had happened.

  And so I went to bed that night, but it took me hours to fall asleep, as I waited a response from Waterview Developers about my proposal to sell the house to them.

  CHAPTER 35

  I woke up the next morning to the smallest, quietest of tap tap taps on my bedroom window. I could feel the sun on my face, and I tried to will my eyes to open, but I had only fallen asleep an hour or two before. I knew the second I sat up in bed, I would reach for my phone and check to see if I had a response from Waterview. Then, it would all begin, and the roller coaster would sail down the hill. So I decided to remain in bed, still, until the last possible moment.

  That plan was quickly thwarted by the rapping on my window, like the cord from window blinds hitting against the slats. I turned toward it, squinting. I could see black ovals, about an inch long, rhythmically hitting against the glass like they were dive-bombing the house.

  “What the . . .” I was careful not to wake Abby next to me as I crawled over her and peeked out around the drawn Roman shade. I grabbed the pull and yanked it upward, flooding the room with light.

  Across my front yard, as far as I could see, were cicadas. Their newly hatched black bodies and delicate, lace-like wings flitted back and forth across the yard, flying erratically. They knocked into each other in midair, buzzing in surprise. The trunks of the trees were covered in their tan shells, and I could spot several in the grass. I opened the window slightly, and the buzz became louder, a constant hum of energy. It was the end of June, and they were late, which only made it seem as though they had waited to make a grand entrance.

  “Ab, Ab. Wake up,” I said as I shook her slightly. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. “No, really. You have to see this.”

  She slowly sat up, her eyes barely open. She knelt on the bed and peered out the window. “Ew! What are those things?” Her eyes snapped fully open and her nose wrinkled.

  “The cicadas. Remember?”

  “Oh. Why are there so many of them?” She tucked her messy hair behind her ears.

  “Because they only come every seventeen years. This is their big chance,” I said. “And they’re even late for that. About six weeks, in fact. Don’t you remember I told you about all of this?”

  A cicada landed on the windowsill, and we leaned in closer for a better look. Its lace-like wings rested on its black body, and its orange eyes had a perpetually stunned look.

  “I think they’re kind of weird-looking,” she said as she leaned closer to the windowpane. “When are they going to go away again?”

  “In a couple of weeks,” I said as I rubbed her back. “So, don’t worry. But I can promise you’ll remember this for a long, long time. Think about it—the next time you’ll see them, you’ll be twenty-two years old.”

  “That’s really old,” she said with a whisper. She wrapped her arms around my waist. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll still live with you when I’m twenty-two so you won’t be by yourself.”

  I swallowed hard as I hugged her to me. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry. You can live wherever you want when you’re older.”

  “Can I go outside?” she said.

  We stepped onto the front stoop, and watched as the cicadas circled overhead, occasionally buzzing close to us in curiosity, but never landing near, a fact that I was happy about, since although Abby seemed to have mild curiosity about them, if one landed on her I was sure her feelings would turn to sheer terror. And then I would have to battle with her every time we left the house. I could picture her staying inside like an agoraphobic until they were gone, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the insects as they buzzed around the yard.

  “I think they’re kind of cool, but a little bit scary,” she said.

  “Well, a lot of stuff that’s cool can be scary.” I laughed. “But don’t be afraid. They won’t hurt you. I promise.”

  I heard my phone vibrate from my pocket, and I slowly lifted it, my heart beating fast as I remembered my e-mail to Waterview. I relaxed when I saw it was Traci calling.

  “Can you believe this?” she said when I answered. Abby and I moved inside, although her nose remained pressed to the glass on the side of the front door.

  “Just as they predicted, albeit six weeks late. So far, Abby seems okay with it, which was my main concern,” I said as walked into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee. I threw a frozen waffle into the microwave for Abby.

  “Well, Chris is completely freaked out. He woke up at five a.m., and came into our room in a panic because he heard them buzzing outside. For the life of me, I couldn’t hear it, but we went outside, and sure enough, those jerks were starting to hatch. It’s so bizarre—he won’t respond when I’m practically shouting his name from two feet away, but this? This he heard.” She sighed. “I have to get him out of the house. He’s so lost in the summers when school is out. And I tell you what, those things better be dead by the time school starts or else my students are going to go buck wild. Speaking of school, how’s Gavin?”

  I set my coffee cup down and frowned. “Oh. Well . . .”

  “Shit. You broke up with him, didn’t you?” she said.

  “We were never a couple, so I don’t know if ‘broke up’
is the right term,” I said evenly. “I just said that I would love to be friends.”

  “You’re deflecting the question. Why? Didn’t you like him?”

  “Of course I liked him. He’s a great guy. That’s not the issue. It’s just—”

  “Please, please don’t do the whole ‘it’s not him, it’s me’ thing. It too early and my lawn is covered with black bugs from outer space.”

  I didn’t respond as I tried to think of a reason she would accept.

  “It’s Matt,” she said. “You’re still in love with Matt.”

  The silence over the line was deafening as words escaped me. I would never have said the sentence, but now that she had, I couldn’t deny it. She was right. Even after everything that he had done, and all that we had gone through, I still had feelings for Matt. And I couldn’t move on with Gavin because of them.

  It was as though I was swimming in a pool—drowning, more likely—and holding on to the edge, but desperate to reach the other side. But there was no way I was ever going to reach it without first letting go of the edge. And I just couldn’t do it.

  “I had hoped that Gavin would help you get rid of those feelings, but they must be pretty strong if even really great sex didn’t stop them,” she said. “But you are always going to worry that you made a mistake in filing for divorce after everything happened. You worry that you didn’t stick it out longer, and try to make things better.” She paused. “So, what are we going to do about this?”

  “Do? Nothing,” I said. “It’s just something I have to get over. Manage. Make go away.”

  “Yeah. And how’s that been working out for you for the past, oh, five years?”

  I rubbed my forehead wearily. “Please. It’s too early for this.”

  “All right, but at least you’re admitting it now. And think about what you’re going to do about it as you’re replastering walls and staining floors or arguing with the insurance people about whatever it is you’re doing to repair the fire damage,” she said.

  I swallowed hard, thinking of my e-mail to Waterview. I couldn’t tell her that I was giving up on the house, too. So I just said, “Will do,” before I hung up.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Oh, dear. No, you cannot do that. No.” My mom’s voice crackled over the phone, and I heard her cover it and whisper something to my dad in the background. “You cannot sell the house to those people. Please, that would be just terrible if they tore the house down after everything.”

  I rested my head on my steering wheel while parked in my driveway. It had been a week since the fire, and I had just dropped Abby off at Matt’s house, with Susan. She hugged me and told me how sorry she was to hear about the house and that she knew I would make it great again. I couldn’t bear to tell her that it would likely never be fixed, so I just nodded and smiled.

  “It’s not something that I want to do, it’s something that I might have to do. All that work, money, is gone. The insurance money isn’t going to cover it.”

  As if on cue, I had received the estimated settlement from the insurance agent, delivered straight to my voice mail. The amount they were willing to pay was laughable, and tens of thousands of dollars below what it would cost to recoup all of the work.

  “I have to think about my finances, and about Abby. Cutting my losses and moving on is the only way to get out of this situation.”

  I had already received an e-mail back from the CEO of Waterview. She wanted to set up a meeting the next day to go over a preliminary plan for sale. It was that simple. We would hash out the arrangements, and then sometime soon after, I would come back, sign a few documents, and receive a check for the fire-damaged house that would be far more than whatever I might get from the insurance company. I could deposit the money and move on, like it had all never happened. But, of course, it had.

  “Except you’re not so good at moving on, Alex,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?” I sat up straight and frowned.

  “You know what I mean. You can’t let go of him. Things for you were difficult, yes, but then you gave up.”

  I cleared my throat as my back began to prickle with anger. “I’m sorry, but that’s not fair at all. He cheated on me. He had a girlfriend while I was at home with our baby. He was the one who ‘moved on’ without our family, not me.”

  I heard her exhale slowly. “That may be true, but sometimes life leaves room for a second chance. Have you considered that?”

  “So, I’m supposed to be the one who just forgives? He gets to mess up, and it’s on my shoulders to fix everything, to give him a second chance?” I spat the words out quickly, in a rat-a-tat fashion, surprised at the heat in my tone.

  There was a pause. “Honey, sometimes. Yes. Sometimes we have to accept the bad to get back to the good. Some things, some people, deserve a second chance. Not everyone, or everything, but some.”

  “Right. Not everyone,” I said quickly.

  “What matters is how you feel about it. You haven’t been able to move on, that should tell you something,” she said. “I’m not telling you to forgive him and just forget what happened. I’m just asking you to think about what you really want.” She paused. “That goes for him and for the house. You don’t really want to sell the house, do you?”

  I shook my head slowly. “Of course not.”

  I heard a rustling, and my dad came on the phone. “You can’t sell it. Find a way to repair it. Don’t give up, not yet. It can be the beauty that it once was, it just takes some extra love and special care. I saw how much you love that house, and I know you can make it great again. Think about how you always pictured it, and what you wanted to do.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes as I thought of the white painted porch with the swing gently moving in the breeze, the scent of the rosebushes floating around the house. It was summertime, and a mom sat on the swing, moving back and forth with a little girl tucked under her arm. The air was getting hot and humid, and the afternoon bugs were just starting to buzz. Two cold glasses of lemonade were on a white wicker table by the swing. The hot sunshine reached the grass in the areas not shaded by the giant maple tree in the front yard.

  The little girl was getting sleepy on the swing, and her head drooped from the motion and the hot air. The mom smiled and hummed quietly, waiting just a few more minutes, savoring one of the dog days of summer when everything was effervescent and silent at the same time. She looked up at the house and smiled, knowing that other mothers had sat out there with their children, smelling the sweet scent of the garden and listening to the leaves rustle in the trees overhead.

  Back and forth, back and forth they rocked, until the mother carried her daughter inside the cool house, their shelter from the summer afternoon heat.

  Shame washed over my shoulders and down my back, and I put my head in my hands. I sniffled into the phone and took a deep breath.

  “Honey, don’t cry.” My mom was back on the phone. “Don’t waste your energy on tears. Save it for the house. You know, there’s an old superstition about living in a house that’s had a fire. It’s actually a good thing, because it cleanses all the old energies and brings forth good fortune . . . and new beginnings,” she said.

  “A new beginning,” I repeated slowly before I nodded.

  I dreamed that night of the family at the house, but this time, they weren’t anonymous faces. This time, it was Elsie and David at the house. They held their little girl on the front porch, rocking her back and forth in the summer heat. The little girl turned her head toward me, her hair sticky against her forehead, and I saw it was Abby. And when I looked again at the couple on the porch, it wasn’t Elsie and David anymore. It was Matt and me.

  CHAPTER 37

  I doodled on the edge of the notepad that contained my budget options for restoring the fire damage. Even with the check from the insurance company, I was still coming up several thousand dollars’ short. It had been ten days since the fire, and I hadn’t had any brilliant ideas to raise money. I made
a row of dollar signs across the bottom of the page as I looked around my desk. I didn’t have anything of value left to sell, and my checking and savings accounts didn’t have enough to cover the overages.

  I sighed as I closed my eyes. I had started with such a healthy contingency fund, and it was long gone, swallowed up by the leaking roof, electrical rewiring, plumbing issues. Not to mention the fire.

  I couldn’t go to the bank and ask for more money. I was already maxed out on what I could borrow against the property. Nor could I mortgage it against my own house, not that I thought that option was financially prudent.

  I sighed and sat back in my chair, slowly typing in the address of a few local real estate blogs, hoping something would spark a brilliant, light-bulb plan. On the second one that I clicked, Jack Sullivan’s scowling, lined face popped onto my screen. The blog was about how he had sold his latest renovation project—a row of town houses near downtown—for a six-figure amount, and that he was looking for something new to start.

  I thought back to when I saw him at Harpoon Willie’s, and his warnings about Waterview Developers. He hated them as much as I did, and now he had some serious cash to burn. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my car keys.

  I found him once again at the bar, a tall beer in front of him. He signaled to the bartender as I fought off a drunk woman for the bar stool next to him.

  “Sparky’s drinks are on me,” he said. When I started to shake my head, he raised a calloused hand. “It’s the least I can do instead of saying I told you so.” He leaned forward and smiled, that creepy, gap-toothed smile. “By the way, I told you so. Those old houses are full of nothing but problems.”

  Anger began to bubble up inside of me as I thought of my poor, charred upstairs, but I took a slow, deep breath and relaxed my face into a smile.

  “That you did,” I said as nicely as I could muster. I took a sip of the beer in front of me when the bartender placed it down.

  “So, tell me one thing: Has Waterview contacted you yet?” he said as he folded his thick forearms on the bar.