Summer's End Read Free

that curled and gleamed.
    â€œLong hair is too hard to take care of,” her mother told her, “and trust me, love, you look better in short hair.”
    Amy Legend was twenty-six now. She was wealthy, she was famous, and her mother was dead. She could have worn her hair however she wanted. But her mother turned out to be right after all—she did look better inshort hair. “You wouldn’t look bad if you let your hair grow,” various stylists had told her, “but you certainly look better with it this length.”
    So hers was still short. It was beautifully cut in a soft, feathery style. Now honey blonde, it glowed with carefully placed golden highlights. It was great hair…but it wasn’t long.
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    â€œWhat was it like?” Gwen asked. “Raising such a gifted child? You read all about how much is involved, the driving and the traveling and the money. It’s such a commitment.” She had always been glad that her two children had been all-around types, good at a lot of things, not overwhelmingly talented at any one.
    â€œFinancially it was extraordinary, just unbelievably expensive,” Hal admitted. “But Eleanor had some family money, so we never had to make any difficult choices, and once she turned professional, she paid us back completely even though we had not expected it.”
    â€œWhat about the rest of it, the logistics and all? Did it take over your lives?”
    â€œNo. She’s a lot younger than Phoebe and Ian, and I am afraid we focused more on them. We had a little-kid household when they were little kids; we were about teenagers when the two of them were teenagers. Amy just had to go along. Plus, Phoebe and Ian—especially Ian—were very bright in the ways that a college community recognizes, and Amy’s abilities were foreign to us. Then suddenly one day there were reporters in the driveway, wanting to talk about her.”
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    The Legend family loved to read. Their high-ceilinged, turn-of-the-century brick house in Iowa was full of books. There were books piled on nightstands, on the breakfront in the dining room, on the top of the piano in the front hall. There were books at the foot of the stairs waiting to be carried upstairs, books at the top of the stairs waiting to be carried downstairs.
    Eleanor—the family’s mother—always had a book with her. She read while waiting to pick the kids up at piano lessons, she read while eating her lunch, while waiting for a pot of soup to come to a simmer. Amy’s older sister and brother, Phoebe and Ian, were readers too. They took books to the grocery store and leaned against the base of the coin-operated riding horse, reading while their mother pushed a cart through the aisles.
    But Amy, lovely little Amy, was different. She did not like to read. When she was at the grocery store, she went to the cosmetic aisle and looked at the nail polish and lipstick. In good weather she played outside, turning cartwheels, dancing with her shadow, flipping herself down from the limbs of trees. In bad weather she roamed the house, restless, wanting to be entertained. Her brother and sister didn’t need to be entertained. They could take a book and disappear for hours. They could play Monopoly for most of a day. Not Amy. She was a little hummingbird, always in motion.
    The year she was seven winter came hard. Day followed day of freezing, sleeting rain. The skies were low and gray, the sidewalks were icy. The rest of the family loved it. They built fires in all the fireplaces, made popcorn balls, piled chamber music on the turntable, and reread their favorite books.
    Amy could watch the firelight for ten minutes. Thenshe was out of her chair, rummaging through her mother’s closet, trying on all her shoes and scarves, but Eleanor had little interest in clothes; her closet had few glittering treasures. Amy sneaked into her older sister’s room and played with her makeup,