The Forget-Me-Not Summer (8 page)

A
unt Sunny bounded out of the little house. She had short gray hair, small glasses, and a big smile. She greeted them all, getting a good long look at each of them and shaking their hands. Zinnie liked the way Aunt Sunny looked her in the eye, the way her favorite teachers did. “Oh, I can't stand it,” Aunt Sunny said. “I've got to give you all a hug.” She wrapped her arms around all three of them and squeezed. She smelled a little bit like pumpkin pie. As soon as she let them go, Lily stood shyly behind Zinnie. Marigold took a step backward and checked her cell phone's reception.

“Um, I don't have a signal, and we need to call Mom and Dad to let them know we arrived safely,” Marigold said.

Zinnie felt in her pockets for her phone. Maybe hers would get a signal. “Oh, no,” she said, rechecking
the pockets of her jeans and her sweatshirt. “I left mine in L.A.”

“Are you sure?” Marigold asked.

Zinnie nodded. She could picture her phone still plugged into the wall. She had left in such a rush this morning.

“You won't need it. We don't get really get any cell reception out here anyway,” Aunt Sunny said. Zinnie watched the color drain from Marigold's face. “But don't worry. You can call from the house. Okay.” Aunt Sunny clapped her hands three times. “Time for the grand tour.”

They followed her inside, dragging their luggage behind them.

The house was the strangest Zinnie had ever seen. It was like something out of a fairy tale. The front door was inside a stone archway and had a little latch that opened it instead of a doorknob. And everything was made of wood: wooden floors, wooden walls, wooden ceilings. In the kitchen, the countertops were made of wood. So was the table. So were the two long benches on either side of the table. And it was like a maze. It was full of tiny rooms, one leading into another, with either a step up or a step down between them. How was Zinnie going to find the kitchen at night if she needed a glass of water? She would have to make a map.

And there were pictures of boats everywhere: photographs of boats, paintings of boats, and drawings of
boats. There were tiny, intricate boat models. The other decorations were also ocean or boat related. There were paintings of waves, postcards of beaches, collections of shells in the windowsills, and a whale's tail carved out of wood on a side table.

Zinnie paused in front of one of the photographs in the study. It was black and white. There was a couple sitting inside a little sailboat, waving at whoever had taken the picture.

“Great picture, isn't it?” Sunny asked.

“Who are they?” Zinnie asked.

“Why, that's me,” Aunt Sunny said, pointing to the young lady with the long braid. Zinnie recognized Aunt Sunny's eyes. “I was with Ham in
Tippy
, our little catboat. She was a beauty,
Tippy
was.”

“I don't see any ham,” Lily said.

Zinnie nudged Lily and whispered, “I think Ham is a person.”

“Oh, was he ever!” Sunny said, her face opening into a smile that sent wrinkles in six directions. “Hamish Holt. He was a handsome devil, wasn't he? He was my husband.”

“Where is he?” Zinnie asked.

“I lost him to cancer many years ago,” Sunny said.

“I'm so sorry,” Marigold said. Despite their arguing, Zinnie felt proud of Marigold in that moment. It was the right thing to say.

“I think Berta's mother has cancer,” Lily said.

“Some people who have cancer get better,” Aunt Sunny said. “But not Ham. Now I visit him at the Pisquatuit Head Cemetery.”

“Where's the rest of him?”

“What do you mean?” Aunt Sunny said, leaning against the big wooden desk.

“Well, if that's where his head is buried, where's the rest of him?” Lily asked.

Zinnie bit her lip. This was the strangest conversation! Marigold covered her mouth with her hands. Aunt Sunny put her hand on Lily's shoulder and laughed and laughed.

“Oh, dear me,” Aunt Sunny said, and took her hand off Lily's shoulder to remove her glasses and wipe her eyes. “They buried him in one piece. Pisquatuit Head is the name of the land where the cemetery is. Come on now, shall we complete the tour?”

Sunny led them down another low-ceiling hallway and over a step and through a little archway to a room with a fireplace and sofa and some big comfy chairs. “And here's the living room,” she said, “which gets the most heavenly afternoon sunshine and is the best place to read a good book.” There was a large window that looked out onto a garden and, beyond that, the ocean. There was also a rug with a mermaid on it.

“Excuse me, but where's your TV?” Zinnie asked.

“I don't have one,” Aunt Sunny said, and gestured to the picture window. “I find nature puts on a fine show.
From here you can actually watch a summer storm move across the sky. And there's a family of foxes that lives just east of that tree.”

Lily was busy looking for the family of foxes while Zinnie and Marigold exchanged the first sisterly look since before the strawberry incident. No TV? Dad had written for TV, and Marigold was on TV. All three Silver sisters had TV shows they watched regularly. It was one of the few things that they could do together without fighting.

“Um, do you have internet?” Marigold asked.

“Of course! I don't live in the Dark Ages. Come along now,” Aunt Sunny said. “I'll show you where you'll be sleeping.”

U
p the narrow staircase they went: Aunt Sunny, then Marigold, then Zinnie, and finally Lily. From her position two steps below Aunt Sunny on the staircase, Marigold couldn't help looking at the back of her aunt's legs, which were tan and strong for an old lady.

At the top was a bedroom with a ceiling that slanted on both sides and a window that looked out over the backyard. The whole room was painted white: the ceiling, the floor, the walls, and even the old radiator. There were four doors no taller than Lily that fastened with wooden latches.

“Are these secret passageways?” Zinnie asked, referring to the little doors.

“They're closets,” Aunt Sunny said, opening one to demonstrate.

Marigold turned her attention to the two narrow little beds parallel to one another, each with a pale-blue blanket, the sheet folded over in a band of white, and a single pillow at the top. These beds were pretty much the exact opposite of the pink, duvet-covered fluffiness the girls enjoyed at home, where no Silver bed suffered from any fewer than four color-coordinated pillows at a time, be they square, rectangle, or tubular.

If it hadn't been for the colorful hooked rugs on the floor, which sort of matched and sort of didn't, the two painted white dressers, and the dollhouse that seemed straight out of
Little House on the Prairie
times, Marigold thought, it would look as if the girls had joined the army. Clint Lee had been in a movie about the army, and the beds the soldiers slept in were almost exactly like these, only with green blankets instead of blue.

“They may not look like much, but these beds are quite comfortable. Ham built them himself. They're just like the berths he built in his boats. Just a piece of canvas stretched across a wooden frame. They suit a body nicely.” Lily and Zinnie each sat on a bed. Zinnie was smiling, her eyes lit up. Marigold guessed that she was pretending she was a stowaway.

The big relief was that there were only two beds in here, which meant that Marigold would be sleeping somewhere else. Marigold needed her privacy. She needed to be able to shut the door and block out her
sisters. She needed her own space: her own closet, her own window, her own four walls. Marigold was very particular about the way things needed to be set up. Zinnie was so messy, it gave Marigold anxiety to think of her room back home, with the clothes on the floor and the homework all over her desk. Marigold had lowered her expectations and didn't think she'd be lucky enough to have her own bathroom, but she took comfort from the thought that there had to be another room, another space, for her. No one would expect her to sleep on the floor, and these beds were way too small for sharing.

“I hope you girls will be happy here,” Aunt Sunny said. Marigold noticed Aunt Sunny's accent then. “Here” sounded like
hee-ah.
“I know it's simple”—Aunt Sunny continued—“but simple things are often the best.”

“Don't worry,” Marigold said. “l'll help them get settled just as soon as I put my things in the room where I'll be staying.”

Aunt Sunny smiled, walked across the floor, and unfastened a latch on the wall, and presto—another boat bed.

“A secret bed!” Lily clapped. Zinnie smiled. Marigold swallowed.

“Isn't that neat?” Aunt Sunny asked. “You'll all be here together. Three beds for three sisters. Now raise your hands, who wants a hamburger for dinner?”

While Aunt Sunny made hamburgers on the grill, the girls called home. The phone was in the middle of Aunt Sunny's living room, and the talking-into part was attached to the dialing part with an old-fashioned curly cord, the kind that was in the classrooms at school. Marigold didn't even know it existed in people's homes. With no cell phone reception and only one phone in the whole house, Marigold felt all hope of the privacy she treasured evaporate. Since she was the eldest, it was understood that she would be the one to make the call. She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” Mom said.

“Hi, Mom,” Marigold said, and out of absolutely nowhere a big lump formed in her throat. This was the first time Marigold was going to be away from her parents for more than a weekend. She had expected to miss Pilar and her bedroom and all her things, and she was prepared to take care of Zinnie and Lily if they missed their parents. She and Mom had talked about that. But she hadn't expected to be the one to be sad. Maybe it was because she was the oldest, and everyone depended on her to be strong. Or maybe it was because she'd been so mad about missing the audition for
Night Sprites
that she hadn't processed that they were going to be all the way across the country without their parents for three whole weeks. Or maybe she was just tired from a long, bumpy plane ride and fighting with Zinnie. But whatever the reason, Marigold hadn't
anticipated that the sound of Mom's voice, so warm and familiar, would make her feel like crying.

“How are you, honey?” Mom asked. “How was the flight?”

“Okay,” Marigold said. Zinnie and Lily were sitting on the couch, staring up at her with their big brown eyes. Marigold couldn't let them know that she was on the verge of tears. As angry as she was at Zinnie for ruining her first kiss, she knew that if Zinnie saw her cry, she would cry, too, and then so would Lily. Marigold took a deep breath and said, “We just wanted to let you know we're safe.”

“Oh, good. I love you so much,” Mom said.

“Me too,” Marigold answered. “Here's Zinnie.” She passed the phone off and turned away as fast as she could so that no one would see the two tiny tears that had escaped despite her best efforts to hold them back.

T
he next morning Zinnie woke up to the smell of pancakes. Lily wasn't there, though her small body had left an imprint on the sheet and the blue blanket was all bunched up at the bottom of the bed. Marigold was asleep, one arm flung dramatically over her head, the other resting on her heart. Zinnie walked downstairs in her pajamas and saw Lily standing on a chair over the stove, pouring pancake batter out of a ladle onto a black griddle that was frothy and hissing with butter. Aunt Sunny, already dressed, stood beside her. She was guiding Lily's hand as she poured three small circles of batter. Zinnie's mouth watered in response to the delicious smell of almost-burning butter.

“Good morning, Zinnia,” Aunt Sunny said. “There's juice on the table, and the tap is perfectly fine for water. Blueberry pancakes will be up shortly. Your
young sister is doing a fabulous job here with the last few. How'd you sleep?”

“Fine,” Zinnie said, and poured herself some juice. “Do you know how to make champurrado?”

“Shampoo what now?” Aunt Sunny asked.

“Not shampoo!” Lily said, laughing. “Champurrado.”

“It's a Mexican drink. Kind of like hot chocolate?” Zinnie said.

“I'm afraid not, but maybe you can teach me,” Aunt Sunny said.

“Only Berta knows how to make it,” Lily said sadly.

“We might be able to find a recipe online,” Zinnie said. She paused for a moment, her mind half remembering something odd, something she couldn't quite grasp. “Oh, I had a weird dream.”

“Tell us,” Aunt Sunny said as she put a plate of blueberry pancakes in the center of the table. “People have claimed to have had wonderfully vivid dreams in those beds.”

Zinnie sipped some orange juice and tried to remember. “There was a fairy there, flying in the darkness.”

“Poetic,” Aunt Sunny said, “perhaps spiritual.” She used her hands to distribute the pancakes among four plates. “Was this fairy friendly or threatening?”

Zinnie put her orange juice on the table. “Wait, there were two fairies. One good and one evil.”

“Ah, two sides of life, the light and the dark,” Aunt Sunny said.

Zinnie was thinking about this, about how she sometimes felt she was probably the nicest person in the world, like when she'd helped Lily into her Pull-Ups last night and assured her that sometimes even big girls needed a little extra protection, but also how just twenty-four hours earlier she'd enjoyed stealing Marigold's friend. Light and dark. It was a lot to think about over blueberry pancakes. Just then Marigold traipsed down the stairs in her T-shirt and leggings.

“Good morning,” Aunt Sunny said. “Come join our feast. Then I thought we could go to the beach for a swim.”

“Not Lily,” Zinnie said. “She's afraid of the water.”

“Is that so?” Aunt Sunny said. “Why?”

“When I was little, a big wave knocked me over and I went tumbling and rolling and I couldn't breathe . . . and I almost died,” Lily told her, saying the last bit in a whisper. “My daddy saved me.”

“Terrifying,” Aunt Sunny said. “That California surf can be a beast.”

“She was caught in the undertow,” Marigold said. “And she hasn't been in the water since.”

“Oh, no,” Aunt Sunny said, “How frightening.”

“But that's okay,” Lily said. “Because my nanny, Berta, doesn't swim either.”

“Well, then, Lily can build a sand castle. Or she could stay here with me and work in my garden, and you girls can walk into town and see what's what,”
Aunt Sunny said. “I'll draw you a map.”

“We can go by ourselves?” Zinnie asked.

“Sure,” Aunt Sunny said.

“It's just that back in L.A. only I'm allowed to walk to the neighborhood stores without an adult. Zinnie needs a grown-up,” Marigold said. Zinnie shot her a dirty look.

“Well, Pruet is a lot safer than Los Angeles, so I think it'll be just fine,” Aunt Sunny said. “As long as you sisters stick together.”

Zinnie grinned and sopped as much maple syrup as possible onto her last bite of pancake.