Ali Standish - The Mending Summer

For Dad,

who taught me there is no need

to move mountains

if you can find the strength to climb them

Some summers are just meant to break your heart.

Georgia had heard those words last summer, on a sweltering July daythe kind that sticks to your skin like honeyand she remembered them still. It had been rest hour at Camp Pine Valley, and Georgia should have been dozing in her bunk, but it was far too hot. So shed snuck out to the lake and dived in, letting the mountain water seep the sun from her skin. When she saw two counselors approaching on the shoreline, she ducked beneath the nearby dock.

Two pairs of tanned legs presently appeared, their toes skimming the water just inches from Georgias nose. She was surprised to hear that one of the counselors was crying.

How could he? she said. Why would he do it, Jen?

Georgia treaded water silently, feeling guilty for listening but equally unable to do anything else without getting caught.

The second counselor was quiet when she answered. Her voice was little more than a whisper, but it wriggled its way through the cracks in the rickety dock planks and into Georgias ears.

Oh, Annie. Im sorry. It seems like some summers are just meant to break your heart.

All the rest of that afternoon and into a night still too hot for sleep, Georgia couldnt stop thinking about those words. She couldnt say how she knew, but she was certaincould feel in her bonesthat they were true.

In the days that followed, Georgia imagined heartbreak to be a sudden and violent thing. Like when she had accidentally knocked over the Wedgwood vase that her grandmother had given to her mother on her wedding day. A single crash, a shattering into a thousand pieces.

Georgia should have been at Camp Pine Valley this summer. Today. Right now. Throwing her arms around the shoulders of old friends, racing them to claim a top bunk. Now that she was twelve, she would have finally been in a cabin in the Upper Girls camp.

Instead, she was leaning against the trunk of the crepe myrtle that grew in front of her house, listening to the rain pattering down around her. Thinking.

And she thought, as she folded the paper she was holding into halves, that perhaps she had been wrong about heartbreak. Perhaps heartbreak was something that happened bit by bit over time, so slowly you almost didnt know it was happening until it had.

Georgia considered the puddle that had formed in front of the tree, between the street and the curb, where water always collected during a good rainstorm. It would be the perfect size for the paper sailboat she was constructing.

From inside the house came the sound of shouting.

Georgia looked down to consult the guide to origami that she had bought at the school librarys end-of-year sale. It was splattered with rain. She pulled the book closer to her, deeper under the branches of the blossoming tree that sheltered her like a giant pink umbrella. She needed to concentrate on folding the edges of the paper into just the right size of triangles, or she would have to ball this one up like her last two attempts.

And the book made it look so easy.

A muffled clapa door being slammed inside the house. Georgia winced.

And just like that, she had botched the triangles again, so she crumpled up the paper and pulled a dry sheet from her backpack. The crease in her brows matched the neat creases she made in the paper as she pinched it together between her fingers. Harder, perhaps, than was necessary.

But perhaps some things needed a hard touch, because soon the paper began to resemble the picture of the boat in the book. She felt a tiny lurch of triumph as she held the thing up and inspected it. It looked entirely seaworthy.

Georgia leaned over the puddle and caught sight of her rippled reflection. Brown hair untidy over a narrow face. Green-gray eyes wide and flighty. She ran her finger through the water, down the long line of her nose, splitting her reflection in two.

Gingerly, she set the paper boat down in the puddleprobably she should call it a very tiny lake, because what respectable boat wanted to sail in a puddle?

For a few moments, she watched as it bobbed in small satisfying circles. Imagining it might be a pirate ship loaded with cursed treasure, or an explorers vessel heading for icy, uncharted lands.

For a few moments, she left the tree and the house and the shouting behind.

Having fun?

Georgias head whipped around. She hadnt heard her father approach.

She looked up at him for a moment, taking in his black, slicked-back hair and his smile. Her father had a nice smile; people said so all the time. He was tall and long-limbed, like Georgia. Her heart filled with the sight of him, like a ship taking on water.

Hi, Daddy, she said. I made a boat.

I see that, he replied with a wink. Well done, Captain. You better get inside, though. Its almost suppertime. If youre lucky you can sneak past your mother and change before she sees youre sopping.

The smile flickered.

You arent staying? Georgia asked. Though she already knew he wasnt. He carried his car keys in one hand and had one of his nice suits on.

Cant, sweetheart, he said. Ive got a set. His fingers flexed and curled, as though already feeling for the piano keys. But Ill see you tomorrow, so no long faces, all right?

He didnt wait for her answer. He was already halfway in his car.

Georgia thought of the countless afternoons shed sat right here on the sidewalkor perched up in the crepe myrtlewaiting for him to come home. It was always the best part of the day, when he emerged from his car and stooped down as she ran to him, lifting her in his arms. Wondering if he might suggest making pancakes for dinner so Mama could have a break from cooking, or going to the Chargrill for milkshakes, just the two of them. If he might pull a new book from his briefcase and hand it over, telling her hed seen it and thought of her.

Watching his car drive off through the rain, she wondered if he was thinking of her now, or if she had faded from his mind as soon as shed disappeared from his rearview mirror.

She could almost feel her heart break a little bit more.

G eorgias mother was sitting at the kitchen table, poring over one of her textbooks, when Georgia clattered through the door, cradling her boat in one hand. It would dry overnight and then she would put it on her bookshelf, where it would live between Stuart Little and Peter Panbooks she and Daddy had read togetheruntil the next storm.

Her mother looked up, then did a double take.

Youre soaked, she said, sighing.

Under her reading glasses, her eyes were red rimmed.

I was playing outside. I didnt realize it was raining so hard, Georgia lied.

I didnt either. Hang your things to dry off a little and then put them in the hamper. What do you want for supper? Turkey? Chicken? Beef?

Before Georgias mother had gone back to school, she used to make all their suppers herself. Now most nights they ate frozen dinners. Georgia didnt mind. They werent bad, especially the turkey, and she wanted Mama to have the time she needed to study.

She didnt even mind that paying for Mamas school meant that there wasnt enough money to go to Camp Pine Valley this year. That is, she minded not goingminded a