Page 41 of The Summers of Us

It took some convincing, but we got Blair to agree to let us spend the night out here. She called our bluff, predicting we would sneak in by midnight thanks to the creepy crawlies and incessant insect songs. I heard the differences now, clear as the night sky, thanks to Everett.

I looked back at the kitchen window to see if Blair was checking on us again. The mason jar of weeds made a silhouette in the orange light, already slumped down to say goodnight.

We filled the tent with a couple of sheets and every stuffed animal Hadley owned, including her current favorite, the dolphin from the aquarium. But this was not goodnight.

We peeked our heads out of the tent to find the constellations from the book—for real this time. Even after memorizing the book, the only constellation I could find was the Big Dipper.

I’d been able to spot it for years. Ever since Dad and I had one of our firefly-fluffernutter nights and he pointed it out to me before it was too dark to see his finger against the darkening sky. He told me some story about how the Big Dipper was the dad and the Little Dipper was his favorite daughter. He said they were on a mission to scoop every star in the universe into their dippers as gifts to each other, one for each day they loved each other. I added that part whenever I relived the memory.

Obviously he’d made it up. I figured that one out all on my own.

I couldn’t miss the Big Dipper when it was visible. Once you finally saw a shape in the stars, your eyes never forgot where to look. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it shone even brighter for me under a clear night. Especially when I didn’t want to see it at all.

I dug my nails into my palm to stop a cry that threatened to explode out of nowhere. That story was not real. It was time to rewrite it for me and my baby cousin who was real and not so much a baby anymore. She used my arm as a pillow, but I didn’t mind the pinpricks of it falling asleep.

I tried to show Hadley the dippers, making up a new story about two cousins on a star-scooping mission. After a couple tries explaining left versus right, I gave up and suggested we play a new game.

“Let’s play One Sentence Story. We will take turns telling a story one sentence at a time. I’ll start: There once was a cat named Mr. Whiskers.”

Her head lifted off my arm and planted back down. Her hair tickled. “Mr. Whiskers is the king of space!”

I whispered so I didn’t wake the dwindling fireflies. “Mr. Whiskers has a best friend who is a mermaid named Aquamarine.”

“One day,Acca-marine ran away and it made Mr. Whiskers very sad.” Hadley made her voice sound sad.

I looked up and saw a triangulated cluster of stars that looked like a pool of fish, so I added, “Mr. Whiskers asks his fish friends for help.”

“They all go looking for him until they run into a snake. The snake’s name is Quinn!” Hadley giggled so loudly it certainly woke the fireflies.

“First I’m a scorpion, now I’m a snake?” I acted offended and tickled her side. “This snake is going to get you!”

She giggled again. Maybe I was good at this older cousin thing. I hoped it was moments like these she looked back on fondly to remember me by. When she was old like me, she could have her own nights with friends and call them her firefly-constellation nights. Thinking about them wouldn’t make her cry because I’d never leave her.

As if she was reading my mind, Hadley said softly, “I wish I could stay here all summer.”

My heart shattered all over again. I needed to stay strong for Hadley, ignore the parts of me that didn’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to spend the summer with their dad. She didn’t know a different world. She was only six. She just loved her older cousin.

I toyed with my sadness of her leaving and my jealousy of her having a dad who fought for her. I mustered up the energy to say, “I know, but you’re going to have a great time at your daddy’s house. He loves you very much.”

“Yeah.” She sighed and got more comfortable on the grass. I couldn’t feel my arm since Hadley’s head had sent it all the way to dreamland.

“Before you know it, we’ll see each other again at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ll tell each other more constellation stories.”

Hadley made a noise like she was too tired to form a full sentence. I shifted us both into the tent, surrounded us with stuffed animals, and threw the sheet over her.

“Goodnight, Hadley. I love you.”

But she was already asleep and I wouldn’t be far behind.

While we were lying under stars, lulled to sleep by our own book of constellations, I couldn’t help but hope that tomorrow, my horoscope would be good.

And that we’d make it the whole night out here without being overtaken by ants.

Age 14, June 27

The twilight brushed its deep purple on the world.

The palm trees in the Rivera-Sanchezes’ front yard were dark against the sky. The violet haze crept to the ground like a fog. It was a scene from a Photoshopped postcard at the pier shop, except this was real. I knew it was the sky’s way of welcoming them back to North Carolina.

---