Read Online Summer's End by Kathleen Gilles Seidel - Free Book Online

clothes.
    â€œThat’s not necessary.” Phoebe struggled to sound more pleasant. “They can wear their Sunday school clothes. The girls’ dresses aren’t black, but—”
    â€œOh, let’s go for it,” Giles interrupted. “At least for the girls. It’s going to be a horrible day. Maybe everyone will feel a little better in new clothes.”
    Giles was not the sort of man who had an opinion on every little thing. He spoke about something only when he truly cared about it. So Phoebe nodded and said that the girls would probably like new dresses. “But not Alex.” He was six. “He would throw himself in the river before he would wear new clothes.”
    Fifteen minutes later, she heard Amy making the same offer to Ian.
    â€œYou’re getting clothes sent from New York?” Ian asked. “Isn’t that a little extravagant?”
    There was an instant of silence. “It probably does seem that way,” Amy answered.
    â€œWell”—Ian’s voice was brisk—“I’ll certainly speak to Joyce about it, but I imagine they brought whatever they will need.”
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    As Phoebe could have predicted, Joyce spurned Amy’s offer. She was a social worker, working through the California schools with the Native American Indian population. She posed as quite the earth mother, making wonderful breads and rich, fragrant soups. She wore fading turtlenecks and long peasant skirts with her hair in a single braid down her back.
    â€œI’m fine. You know me, I never worry about what other people think.” Joyce always made a big point of that, how she was such a free spirit. “And we never pick out Maggie’s clothes for her.” Maggie was Joyce and Ian’s teenager. “We respect her right to have her own taste.”
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    The clothes came late Wednesday afternoon, and Phoebe had to admit that hers and Ellie’s were perfect. Hers was a downy black cashmere finished with a satin collar and cuffs. It wasn’t a maternity dress, but the bodice had row after row of little tucks that gradually released just below the waist. It fit beautifully and felt like heaven.
    â€œI have never looked this good in my whole life,” she said, as she looked at herself in the mirror.
    â€œThat kind of collar does work well on us,” Amy agreed. “I told Hank that we look alike, and he—”
    â€œWe don’t look alike,” Phoebe protested. Amy had always been the pretty one.
    â€œOf course we do. Our coloring is different, and I primp a whole lot more, but our bone structure is nearly the same.”
    Phoebe looked back at herself. With this collar caressing her jaw, yes, for the first time she could see that she looked a little like Amy.
    More important to her than her own dress was her daughter’s. Ellie was not finding thirteen an easy age, and she would have joined her brother in the river rather than wear a dress that called attention to herself. Phoebe had asked Amy to tell her friend that. Whoever he was, he had understood perfectly. Ellie’s dress was black challis with a dropped waist and a skirt of knife pleats. A double row of black buttons was the only trim. It was so quiet that even Ellie couldn’t imagine making a fool of herself in it.
    â€œWhat ’bout me, Mommy?” chirped four-year-old Claire. “What me?”
    They were all out in the wide upstairs hall, looking in the full-length mirror. Amy went back into her small bedroom at the front of the house to unpack Claire’s dress. She came out, gesturing to Phoebe. “Hank’s let us down,” she said softly. “I’m afraid Claire’s dress is over the top.”
    That was putting it mildly. The little dress was an ornate Victorian fantasy. The skirt alone had a black crinoline, a flounced underskirt, and a lightly ruched overskirt. The seams at the waistband, the cuffs, and the throat were corded. Why