Birds of Summer Read Free Page A

she could remember the day they moved in clearly, and how pleased she’d been with the trailer. It must have been pretty decrepit even then, but she’d liked the flickering propane lights and tiny bathroom, and it must have seemed luxurious compared to some of the places they’d been living. She had clear memories of that first day and then nothing much until an afternoon several months later when Sparrow was born. Summer had sat on the steps listening and crying while Galya, who’d had some training as a midwife, helped Oriole give birth. Danny had still been there that day, because Summer remembered his coming out to talk to her on the steps, but he’d disappeared soon afterwards, as all of Oriole’s men seemed to do sooner or later. But by then Galya and Oriole had become very tight, and even more important, Galya’s baby Marina and Sparrow had become even tighter. So the Fishers went on letting Oriole live in the trailer, even when she didn’t pay the rent for months at a time. Oriole was always saying they were going to move, but they never did and probably never would, unless the Fishers threw them out. Or, unless Summer did something about it, which she definitely planned to do just as soon as she possibly could.
    It was on the last turn of the trail, when the trailer suddenly came into view, that the uneasy tension in her stomach knotted into an ache, and something she’d been squeezing back into the far edges of her mind escaped in an overpowering flood. Careless of the rough surface of the path, she began to run at top speed, stumbling and nearly falling, her heart thudding against her ribs. She had reached the steps when Cerbe shot out of the bushes and raced her up the stairs, almost knocking her off her feet. Pushing him violently aside, she threw the door open—and stopped.
    Oriole was standing by the sink peeling carrots. Her wild red hair was combed and tied back with a ribbon, and she was wearing the pleated blue skirt that Summer had bought for her at a church rummage sale—which she hardly ever wore.
    “Hi, baby.” Oriole’s voice, always breathy and tremulous, was no more so than usual.
    Summer closed the door carefully and slowly while she stilled her face and blanked her eyes. Then, as if bringing herself back with difficulty from an absorbing daydream, she turned back to face her mother. “Oh hi,” she said.

2
    I N THE BEDROOM SUMMER put her books away, sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for the pain in her stomach to fade and for the ridiculous tremors to stop running up and down the backs of her legs. Clenching her fists until her nails pinched her palms and biting her lower lip, she punished her body for its crazy reactions. She had always blamed her body because her mind, at least the conscious and reasonable part of it, knew how stupid it was to get into such a state over nothing. Even years ago, when the sudden senseless attacks of anxiety had been almost a daily thing, she had never been certain just what it was she was afraid might have happened. In those days she had never even tried to figure it out—as if knowing what it might be could somehow make it come true. So she could only run home, shaking and panting like some kind of psycho, until she found Oriole and saw that everything was all right.
    But for the same thing to happen now, when she was almost sixteen years old and able to reason—now when she was able to imagine the worst and know that it wouldn’t be the end of the world—for the same kind of mindless panic to return now was just too frustrating. In the last few weeks she’d almost begun to hope that she’d outgrown it. But it had always been worse when something had gone particularly wrong—like last night.
    At first when Cerbe tried to nuzzle her hands away from her face, she shoved him back angrily; but then, when he whined mournfully, she peeked out from between her fingers.
    Cerbe was a big mutt, probably half german shepherd and half husky. He