Summer by the River

by Debbie Burns

  All of it combined really made him want to set a story here.

  Pushing thoughts of the manuscript aside, Carter noticed a worn, leather-bound book on the table in front of Myra and read the title upside down. Prayers for the Christian Housewife.

  Huh, he almost murmured again.

  Noticing the direction of his gaze, she held up a finger. “It’ll have a clearer meaning soon. But if you don’t mind, I made a pitcher of lemonade. Will you carry it out? It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  “Sure thing.” Carter was pushing back his chair when the door at the back of the house opened and Josie stepped out. She must’ve stopped in the kitchen first, because she was carrying the tray of lemonade balanced over one hand, practiced from serving the tea garden customers. Tidbit, who’d just gotten comfortable at Myra’s feet after his fruitless dash about the yard before the cats slipped through openings in the wooden fence, trotted over to greet her.

  Myra let out a satisfied chuckle. “She knows my needs before I do, half the time.” As Josie neared, she asked, “How was the bus? Did she make it on all right? No tears?”

  “No tears,” Josie said, with a nearly invisible shake of her head.

  She lowered the tray and placed the pitcher and two glasses on it but paused before setting down the third glass. “I’m not much in the mood for lemonade. And I want to go for a jog.”

  Myra raised the prayer book high enough to draw Josie’s attention. “I was hoping you’d sit with us. What I want to tell Carter, I’d like you to hear too. In fact, I suspect you’ll be instrumental helping me shed light on something I’ve put off far too long.”

  “What does this have to do with your prayer book?”

  “It was my mother’s. I was only eleven when she died, so I can’t say for certain, but I suspect she was an atheist, or perhaps a lackadaisical Christian with a derisive sense of humor. And oddly matched with my father in that regard; I can’t remember him missing a Sunday sermon, even in the last stages of his life.”

  Carter’s curiosity was piqued. The leather binding was old and branched with hairline cracks. Josie’s curiosity must’ve been piqued too. She slid the empty tray onto the adjacent table and sank into the open chair between him and Myra.

  Myra looked like someone about to dive into untested waters. “I’ve ignored this book’s contents too long. Had it not been for you coming here, Carter, I’m not sure I’d have gotten the courage to unearth this uneasy bit of my family’s past.”

  “I don’t understand.” Josie looked between them. “What could your mom’s prayer book have to do with Carter’s grandfather?”

  “That’s about to make sense.” Myra ran her fingertips over the smooth leather. “She entrusted this to me shortly before she died. ‘For another time,’ she said. ‘When you’re older.’ But the older I got, the more I kept putting it off. So, here I am. A bit later than she might’ve anticipated. I’m hoping it doesn’t matter how old we are when we learn these lessons as much as it matters that we learn them.”

  When neither Josie nor Carter had a reply, Myra opened the book.

  “Have you seen your grandfather’s picture, son?”

  “Yeah, back when I was a kid. He looked a lot like my father.”

  Myra flipped open the back cover and tenderly pulled at the seam. Carter sat forward in his seat in anticipation as he realized a secret pocket had been sewn into it.

  “She took such care to hide them that I knew this photograph and letter had to be of great importance to her.” Myra pulled a thin stack of folded paper from the hidden pocket. With a slight tremor in her hands, she opened the yellowed paper to reveal an angular, handwritten cursive trailing across an unlined page. As she did, a tattered, sepia-toned photograph fell onto the table, landing right-side up.

  A gasp escaped Josie, who had a better view.

  “It’s startling, isn’t it? One day, several years before she died, I caught her looking at this photo. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and afterward, she took to bed. When I asked why she was sad, she said she’d lost something dear to her.” Myra passed it over for Carter see. “Carter, meet your grandfather as he must have looked when he came to Galena. The genes he passed on must certainly have been dominant ones.”

  Carter stared at the picture in silence. It was a photograph of a man about his age, from the chest up; a slight hint of a smile curled the man’s lips. A chill passed over him, snaking down his spine. The fact that this man may have died from a few shots in the chest and then been dumped in the river suddenly carried a bit more significance. “You’d be hard-pressed to deny the resemblance.”

  Myra humphed. “It’s an uncanny likeness to say the least.”

  Shaking his head, Carter passed the picture to Josie for a closer look. A flush colored her cheeks as she studied the picture. “How old do you think he was when this photo was taken?”

  “Early thirties, most likely, if it was taken here,” Carter answered.

  “The photo is yours to keep, Carter,” Myra said. “I committed it to memory in my youth after this book was passed on to me.”

  Josie offered it back to him without meeting his gaze.

  “Thanks, I’ll give it to my father.”

  “As for the letter, she went to some length to keep it hidden, sewing in a hidden pocket and writing in her native tongue in the event it was found.”

  “That letter is written in Italian?” Josie’s tone relayed the surprise Carter felt.

  “Yes, and it’s addressed to me. I rarely heard her speak it, but she learned the language as a child. Her parents immigrated here when she was a baby.”

  “May I see it?” Josie asked.

  “Of course.” Myra passed it her way. “It’s my hope you’re the key to helping me unlock whatever it is my mother wanted me to know.”

  Carter watched Josie’s eyebrows knit together as she studied the writing.

  After a minute passed, she offered Myra a pointed look. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Very sure. Whatever secrets that letter holds, it’d be my honor if you could bring them to light.”

  “You’re fluent in Italian?” Carter was as surprised by this as he would’ve been to discover she had a second career as a software engineer, given her lack of enthusiasm for technology.

  “Not fluent, but I can carry on a conversation.” Josie flipped through several more pages. “I’m better at speaking it than reading it. Still, I can understand this, most of it. I’d need an Italian dictionary for some parts, but I could translate it fairly easily. So long as you’re certain you want to know, Myra. No matter what it says?”

  “Yes,” Myra said with a nod. “The disservice in not knowing all these years has been to me as much as it has been to her.” Myra looked back and forth between them. “So, where do we go from here? A trip into town to buy Josie an Italian dictionary and an afternoon to see what she can come up with?”

  “The trip into town isn’t needed,” Carter said, pulling up an Italian to English dictionary and sliding his laptop Josie’s way.

  “That’s it then?” Myra’s tone carried a bit of incredulity. “A few hours of Josie’s time and a computer, and my mother’s longest-hidden secrets will be unearthed?”

  Carter ran two fingertips over his lower lip. “Your call.”

  Myra nodded more to herself than to them. “I’m ready. Finally. My mother’s words have waited a lifetime to be heard. And, Josie, I was never one to coat my medicine with sugar. Whatever it says, it says.” To Carter, she added, “Whatever becomes of this, I trust our newfound friendship can prevail, don’t you?”

  Carter went over to help her up, trying not to pay attention to how thin and frail she seemed. “Myra, I respect the hell out of you, and nothing in this letter could change that.”

  “Then so it shall be. Josie, no rush. My bones are aching t
his morning. A short rest may do wonders.”

  As Myra headed for the house, Carter stepped to the side of Josie’s chair. “Want me to show you a few things?” he asked, leaning over her. “Since it seems technology hasn’t made it to High Street quite yet.” Damn it anyway that he couldn’t keep his desire for her in check. He couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was, but he was flayed open by her.

  “I know how to search the internet.” She gave the slightest shake of her head. Maybe she was trying to pull back that tiniest hint of flirtatious response that seemed to slip out in response to him. The one that awakened a slumbering fire inside him. “But thanks for the use of your laptop.”

  He shrugged and reached over her for the photo. “Help yourself. I’ll leave you my phone so the internet will work. So, you think I look like him?”

  “If anyone but Myra had pulled out that photo, I’d have bet it was a hoax.”

  “Yeah, well, considering he met a watery grave here, let’s hope that bit about history repeating itself isn’t true.”

  Chapter 12

  The crates Sam and Nico took from behind the bakery were stacked to the ceiling. They had been used to create a wall through the center of Josie and Sam’s bedroom, leaving a narrow entry space on one side.

  Staring at them, Josie frowned. Once the sheets were fastened on, one side—the windowless one—was going to be a cave. “If you two are going to do this to my room, I’m going to need the window.”

  “You can’t just call the window. It’s my room too.”

  Nico had pushed the creation of the wall even more than Sam. Josie was thirteen; Sam was twelve. Nico insisted Josie have privacy, and Sam, who’d announced last week that he’d found the first hairs on his privates, agreed.

  “If the window was in the middle, you could share it, but it’s not, so you’re going to have to decide who gets it,” Nico said.

  “If the window was in the middle, these god-awful crates would cover it completely.” The idea of sleeping in a makeshift twelve by six–foot room was getting to her. “And I’m not willing to do something stupid like draw straws for something as important as a window.”

  “What, then?” Nico asked.

  “I’ll do your homework and laundry for a month.” She knew Sam hated those two things more than anything else.

  “A month?” Sam kicked at his mattress in protest. “No way.”

  “Two, then.”

  “A year. And not a day less.”

  Knowing she did the bulk of the work anyway, Josie agreed but made it seem as if she was relenting. “Fine.”

  Sam dipped his head. “You have a window, sis.”

  Wound up by his win, Sam tackled Nico, unsuccessfully attempting to take him down.

  Josie left them to their wrestling and headed into the kitchen. Her stomach was rumbling loud enough to draw attention. She glanced again at the note her mother had left telling them to grab dinner on their own. Skye had a chance for a part in a sci-fi movie and was going to hang out with a few of the guys from special effects to see if they’d put in a good word for her. Not surprisingly, she didn’t know when she’d be home.

  Josie wadded up the note and tossed it into the trash can. Grab what for dinner? The kitchen was emptier than it’d been the day before when they had cleaned out the last of the Ramen Noodles.

  They could go to Nico’s. Francie would feed them. Like always. But Josie was tired of imposing on her and giving her nothing in return.

  Having smashed her brother into a pancake, Nico walked in, his hair disheveled. Josie blinked away the tears brimming in her eyes. There was no fixing this. She and Sam were growing up in crappy public-assistance housing with a makeshift bedroom just a little bigger than a shoebox. Her mother was an alcoholic dreamer who’d never get her act together. And her father was never coming back.

  “S’up?” Nico asked, yanking her ponytail.

  “Just hungry.”

  “Liar.”

  Sam rounded the corner, shifting his shirt back into place. “What’s there to eat? I’m starving.”

  “There’s some tuna and crackers.”

  “You can put that away.” Nico leaned against the counter. “We’re going out. My bro’s gonna hook me up at his uncle’s place. All the fried chicken I can eat. For free. You two can come.”

  “Why would he do that?” She searched his eyes for the truth.

  “’Cuz I’m his homie.”

  “What do you have to do for it?” Not a day went by that Nico wasn’t being hit up by an ever-expanding group of kids who’d dropped out of school and were turning to drugs—using and dealing. In the nightmares that woke Josie even from the deepest sleeps, he’d found their offers too tempting to resist and joined them. School was hard for him, all of it. The sitting all day, the homework, the rule-following.

  “You wanna know what I have to do for it?” He leaned in so that their noses were almost touching. “I have to eat chicken, that’s what I have to do. Now, you coming or not?”

  Her empty stomach cramped in anticipation at the promise of freshly fried chicken. Besides, it might be worth the trip to see what Nico really had to do for it. “I’m coming.”

  They’d made it four blocks and were cutting through an empty parking lot when the shooting started. Sam had just spotted an abandoned baseball and dashed to the other side of the lot.

  The bullets erupted from two cars on the street nearby. Josie felt like they’d stepped smack into the middle of a fireworks display, only instead of shouts of appreciation, there were screams of panic from people nearby. Bullets ricocheted everywhere, pinging against metal, shattering glass, and thudding into pavement.

  Josie felt herself being shoved forward onto the asphalt, and her chin slammed against the ground. Searing pain ripped through her as her upper and lower jaw smashed together. Nico dropped on top of her, covering her and draping his arms over her head.

  In a daze, she struggled to get free to find Sam. Nearby, a scream of fear turned into a scream of agony.

  “Sam!”

  Nico forced her to the ground. “He found cover,” he yelled in her ear. “He’s okay.”

  Sirens started up in the distance. Another burst of shots went off, then tires screeched as both cars raced away. An eternity passed. The sirens grew closer, dulling the agonized moans that sounded like a bizarre lullaby.

  Nico rolled off her, and Josie was able to look around. Sam was crouched behind an abandoned car with his arms still covering his head, a baseball grasped in one hand. She looked at the street and saw the aftermath. Windows of storefronts were shattered. People were huddled where they’d found cover. A woman was bent over an old man who was splayed on the sidewalk. It didn’t take any guessing to know how much pain he was in.

  Standing proved too much. Josie leaned forward, gripping her knees. Blood from her chin dripped relentlessly to the ground.

  The sirens grew closer, and Nico grabbed her arm, pulling her upright. Seeing her chin, he cursed. She brushed her free hand over it and found it covered in blood from a cut she couldn’t feel.

  “We gotta go.”

  Nico dragged her across the lot to Sam, who was still crouched behind the car. He yanked Sam to his feet. “We can’t be seen talking to the cops or those guys will come for us later.” Half-shoving, he led them down an alley and out of sight before the first police cars arrived.

  It took forever for the shock to wear off and for Josie to realize what Nico had done for her. When it did, she was sitting on the couch in Francie’s living room. The three of them were still alone, and not one of them had so much as thought about food since the shooting started.

  Sam was planted on the floor, lost in a video game. He’d started up with it right when they came in, making Josie wonder if it was his way of processing what had just happened. Or not processing it. She sat on the cou
ch watching him, thinking how the bullets in Grand Theft Auto didn’t sound like the real thing. Her chin was swollen and raw, but the cut was small and hopefully wouldn’t scar.

  Nico sat next to her, not talking, not sharing whatever was going through his mind. Like always. He’d risked his life hoping to save hers. In the space of a single second, he’d made that decision. Before she’d even realized what was happening.

  Josie dropped the ice bag from her chin and wrapped her hand around his wrist. “Promise you’ll never do anything like that again.”

  “Like what?”

  “Trying to save me and not you. That was so stupid.”

  “Of the three of us, you’re the only one who got hurt.”

  She twisted to look at him face on. “I mean it, Nico. I couldn’t live knowing you died for me.”

  From the floor below them, Sam pulled away from his game long enough to scoff. “Toss me some ear plugs, will you? You douchebags make me want to puke.”

  Nico whipped a pillow at him. “You’re just pissed because I wouldn’t have covered you if it’d been you next to me and not Josie.”

  For the first time since they’d met, Josie found herself wondering what she actually meant to Nico.

  Chapter 13

  It took longer than she anticipated, but Josie was able to translate every word of the four pages of precise, distinctive script in Abigail Moore’s letter to Myra. She sat still after she finished, taking in the weight of what she’d translated. Her imagination was roaring like a wildfire and famished for more, and her mind was racing so fast she felt disconnected from her body.

  She picked up the loose-leaf pages she’d written on and reread her freshly translated words, somehow hoping they’d answer more of her lingering questions.

  My dearest Myra,

  I envisioned telling you this over a cup of tea out in the garden after you had grown into a woman. In the face of my declining health, I cannot risk waiting. Yet, my pen freezes over the paper at the thought of telling you my most-guarded secret. If I don’t, I fear you’ll grow up on gossip and assumptions. When we are dust, we are nothing more than our children and our stories. You should know the truth of this one.