Authors: Killarney Traynor
Summer Shadows
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Killarney Traynor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN: 1500751987
ISBN 13: 9781500751982
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014914062
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
Author photograph provided by Monica Bushor of Bushor Photography
For Janie and Jenna:
You believed.
Thank you.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Contents
1
J
ust after one o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon in June, Julia Lamontaigne turned into the short driveway of her sister’s house. The house was dark. If her eleven-year-old-nephew, Ron, was his usual diligent self, it would be locked tighter than a drum.
Welcome home, Julia,
she thought. She put on the parking brake, pulled out the key, and sank back into her seat.
Oh, Lord
.
In the yard next door, blades hacked through twigs and leaves without pause while their operator glared at Julia, sitting in her little silver Audi. Mrs. Gouldman, the retired neighbor, had pruned her hedges the same way for over twenty years and could probably do it in her sleep.
Julia could feel her disapproval.
Let her stare.
In the four or five months since Julia moved in, she had never been home on a weekday earlier than five in the afternoon, when her elderly neighbor was returning from her daily trip to the mailbox. In the morning, Julia always left promptly at seven a.m., when Mrs. Gouldman was either sweeping snow from her porch or watering her roses. The two of them were like clockwork.
Now, Julia was screwing up the whole routine, causing a ripple in the peaceful universe that was Mill Street in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Mrs. Gouldman glared. Julia could imagine her thinking:
Should I go to the mailbox now? Or did I go already? These young women! Always messing things up! Bad enough they come moving in here like they own the place
…
How would Mrs. Gouldman feel if she knew that Julia, in addition to being the single guardian of three children, was also newly unemployed?
“No, not fired. Laid off,” Julia said out loud. “‘Manly Stanley’ made that very clear, didn’t he?”
He had called her into his office at noon, then launched into his script like he was hyped on caffeine. He was very sorry, but the company’s revenue was not what it was, cuts had to be made, and she had to go. According to company policy, she had to clear out her desk under the supervision of the Human Relations Manager and be off the property within the hour.
Julia was stunned. She had gone over her personal budget just last Saturday and figured out how to survive the rest of the year. Now she would have no income.
“Sir,” she’d stammered. “I really can’t afford this right now – not with…”
But Manly Stanley, so nicknamed by the office managers after a particularly disastrous company outing, was firm.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lamontaigne,” he said. “But times are tough on all of us. If there’s an opening, we’ll call.”
And eight years of service ended.
Julia leaned back against the cushioned seat and closed her eyes, partly to ignore her neighbor, but also to calm the tornado of thought in her head. She tried to create a sense of order out of the chaos.
The air in the car became heavy as the heat crept in to replace the air conditioning, but Julia welcomed the humidity like a soothing blanket. If only she could wrap herself in it and sleep the day away, she thought. Perhaps today had only been a nightmare. Perhaps she’d find that everything that had happened since Valentine’s Day had been a dream. She would wake up and find herself clutching the pale blue comforter of her bed back in her old Taunton condo.
Encouraged by this fantasy, she opened her eyes.
No such luck. She was still here, it remained June, and she was in Springfield, sitting in front of her late sister’s house.
How could she face Ron with the news? How could she tell Dana or Jack, Ron’s siblings and her other wards?
Her heart sank at the thought.
A sharp rap on her window startled her from her gloomy thoughts. Julia jumped and saw Mrs. Gouldman, still holding the shears and glaring down at her. She made an impatient rolling movement with her fingers. Julia waved the older woman to the side and carefully opened the door.
“Yes?” she said, with some trepidation. The elderly matriarch was a formidable woman and, judging from the actions of the people on the street, Julia wasn’t the only one who was a little afraid of her.
“You sick or something?” the other woman asked sharply. The shears opened and closed unconsciously in her hands.
“No, I’m fine, thanks, Mrs. Gouldman.”
But she was not to be put off.
“Kind of strange for you to be home in the middle of the day and then just to sit in your car,” she pointed out.
Julia had to acknowledge that this was not her normal behavior. She nodded and swung her legs out of the car, smoothing her black pencil skirt as she stood up.
“It’s such a lovely day today,” she said, hoping to give the impression that she was playing hooky.
The game was over when she opened the rear door, however. Standing where she was, Mrs. Gouldman couldn’t possibly miss the cardboard box loaded with personal office equipment on the back seat.
Julia sent up a quick prayer that this would be misinterpreted; apparently, the suggestion was taken under consideration and rejected.
“Got the ax today, huh?” Mrs. Gouldman asked with her customary tact.
Julia bit back a snarky remark.
Awesome,
she thought.
Now the whole town will know.
Not that she cared about the whole town. She couldn’t care less about the town, but she didn’t want the news to reach Ron, Dana, or Jack before she had a chance to talk to them about it, aunt to nephews and niece. She’d even gone so far as to consider putting it off a few days, to buy herself some time and get some interviews set up to take the edge off of the situation. Mrs. Gouldman, who never spoke to children unless she had something frightening or depressing to say, would be sure to catch each one of them when they returned home this afternoon.
Julia knew just how Mrs. Gouldman would do it, too. She’d sit out on her big front porch, which she only used for situations like this, and find something home-spun to do, like shelling peas or clipping coupons. She’d nod to all the people who passed by, commenting on the weather and how terrible it is that some people seemed to get nothing but the shaft in life.
Then, when neighbor asked for clarification, Mrs. Gouldman would tell them about Julia being fired, and those poor orphaned kids of hers. “I don’t know what they’ll do with no money. Move in with their grandparents or go on welfare, maybe. It’s sad, you know. Once somebody’s on welfare, they never get off.”
Over my dead body!
Julia thought.
I’ve never taken charity and I won’t take it now.
I’ll work twenty-four seven, minimum wage before I do that.
And then Mrs. Gouldman would wait until the three Budd children were going up the drive before saying something disguised as sympathy, like, “You just tell your aunt that if she needs any home cooked meals or anything to let me know. It’s going to be tough on you kids, now that she doesn’t have a job and all.”
They would be shocked. Then Dana would start crying, because that’s all that she ever did lately. Jack would join in because he didn’t understand, but wanted to sympathize with his sister. And Ron would grow more stone-faced and distant as he ushered the younger ones inside.
Thanks, Mrs. Gouldman. Remind me to TP your house someday.
Then Julia, becoming angry by her own prediction, did something that was quite out of her nature. She lied.
“Just redoing the cubicle, Mrs. G,” said she, using the nickname that the woman hated. “Got tired of the same-old, same-old and wanted a fresh look, a change. You know what I’m saying?”
There was a moment of silence. The shears breathed quietly as their owner glared at Julia, clearly disbelieving and waiting for a crack in the façade. But Julia maintained her bright expression, refusing to turn away.
Finally, Mrs. Gouldman ended the standoff by saying, “Seems to me you’ve had enough changes for one year.”
And with a snap of the shears, she stomped around the fence and disappeared into her tool shed.
Julia waited until her neighbor was out of sight before she hauled the heavy box out of the car and up the front steps. She wedged it between the door jam and her hip as she fumbled about for the keys and opened the door.
The house alarm, which she’d forgotten about, immediately began its countdown just as Julia’s cell phone started to ring. She dropped the box, wincing at the tinkle of broken glass that accompanied it, and dashed for the key pad. By the time she put in the code, her cell phone was quiet and the corner of the box was beginning to get wet – she’d forgotten about her snow globe.
With an aggravated sigh, she practically threw the box into the foyer and slammed the door shut behind her. The house was quiet and dark, and humming from all the automatic appliances that her deceased brother-in-law, Timothy, had been so fond of. It was cooler than outside, but Julia knew that the AC was off – it was set to turn on at 3pm, which would give it enough time to cool the place before the children got home from their after-school activities.
Her cell phone rang again, but she left it in her purse. She wasn’t in the mood to talk. It might be her mother or, worse - Miriam Budd, the children’s other grandmother. Both had a habit of calling, both liked to interfere in the daily running of the house; but while Julia’s mom did it out of concern, Mrs. Budd was quite another story. Julia felt nervous about telling her parents about her unemployment, but that was nothing compared to the chill she had when she thought about telling Miriam Budd.
Not until I at least have an interview,
she thought, as she hefted up the box again.
Although, I’ll be in almost as much trouble for keeping it from her. I’ll have to caution the kids against texting her.
Not that she thought Ron would. He was pretty introverted.
She brought the box over to the table and began to empty it. Some of her paper memorabilia was wet beyond saving, so she tossed them away without a second thought. She scooped the glass into some old newspaper, and then laid the rest of the things out on the counter to dry.
Only then did it occur to her that the phone call might have been from one of the kids. She was still new at parenting, so her instincts were slow; but once the idea struck that one of the children may be in trouble, she nearly panicked. She pawed through her bag, found the cell phone, and saw the ID: Sherri Lawton.
She relaxed. It wasn’t an emergency. Sherri Lawton was the realtor who was trying to sell the condo.
Julia put the phone on the table and took a deep breath. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. She ran her fingers along the velvety edge. It was an elegant monster of a table, dark and rich in tints of red and brown. It suited the kitchen perfectly. The room was all stainless steel and dark paneled cabinets, perfectly modern, so perfectly like her sister, Amanda.
None of it felt like home. Her own kitchen table had been made of pine wood with a colorful inlay, surrounded by slender-legged chairs equipped with thin cushions that were forever slipping off of the seat. All of her furniture had been like that: simple, bright, and welcoming. It was all gone now, sold in an open house along with a lot of other things in preparation for the sale of her condo. The bright, cheery little condo with the blue walls and the familiar creaks and groans was now empty and quiet. A
For Sale
sign stood on the lawn. Who knew how many strangers had tramped their dirty shoes over Julia’s hardwood floors.
She hadn’t minded the sacrifice. Not really. She was needed here and wanted to be here, but she did miss the homey feeling. After all these long months, Julia still felt like she had to knock on the front door before entering, or ask permission before she used the coffee machine. It was her sister’s kitchen. This was her sister’s house, her sister’s furniture, her sister’s decorations, and her sister’s kids. Not Julia’s. The name on the property might be Julia’s, but it really belonged to Amanda and Timothy Budd.
Julia’s hand had left prints on the shiny finish. She rubbed them out automatically, thinking,
Amanda hates when I leave fingerprints.
Hot tears stung at the back of her eyes. She still couldn’t think of her sister’s death without crying. It seemed that she and her niece Dana had more in common than she had thought.
Julia’s older sister, Amanda, had been a fun-loving spendthrift who adored travel, fashion, adventure, the finer things in life, and fun. Although several years separated the sisters, they had been very close until Amanda went off to college and discovered her dual-calling: corporate accounting and Timothy Budd. They were an ideal match: he was studying banking, and loved all the things that a young Yuppie is supposed to value. When they married, the wedding took place in a church, but the reception was at the exclusive country club that Timothy’s family had belonged to for decades. It was the first and last time that Julia had been inside of it.
After the wedding, the two moved from place to place until they found the house in Springfield and, between travels, managed to have three children: Ron, now eleven; Dana, eight; and three-year-old Jack. Having children didn’t slow them down: they either took the children with them or, more often, left them with one of the two sets of grandparents.
