Read Online The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie - Free Book Online Page A

chimney. You don’t mind it? I think I’d hate to
be with somebody who smoked if I didn’t.”
    “My parents
smoke,” Ava said. “My sister. I’m used to it.”
    “But you never
picked it up?”
    “I don’t get
addicted to things.”
    “Ever?”
    Ava shook her
head, no.
    Helena took
another long drag off her cigarette. “Then, you’re lucky.”
    There was the
ring of an ice cream truck bell in the distance and it almost reminded Ava of
something, only the memory, whatever it was, was distant and faint as the bell
and she couldn’t settle on it.
    “How did you meet Paul?” Helena asked her.
    “At the museum.
He used to work there, too.”
    She nodded. “That’s
right. You said that. Did he find you standing under a Caravaggio, or something
very romantic like that?”
    “He found me in
the cafeteria, serving macaroni and cheese.”
    “And how’d you
know he was the one?”
    “The one?” Ava
asked. “I didn’t.”
    Helena laughed.
“I’m being silly, I guess. I haven’t seen my brother in a long time. I just
want to know that he’s found love and that it’s all soft and romantic, and that
he’s happy and taken care of.”
    “I don’t know
how soft and romantic it is,” Ava said, “but we take care of each other.”
    “No children,
though? Do you mind if I ask why?”
    “I don’t mind. I
can’t have children. I stopped bleeding a long time ago.”
    “I’m sorry,”
Helena said.
    It had happened
when she was twenty, suddenly and for no reason her doctor could discern. It
had never been a source of great upset for her, because she had never thought
much about having children and she told Helena that. “I don’t think about
children anyway.”
    “What about Paul?”
    Ava’s first
thought was that Paul was fine about it. When she had told him, back before
they were married, he had said it didn’t matter that much to him and she had
taken his word for it. But sitting there now, thinking about it, she felt
unsure. “Now that I think about it, sometimes he seems disappointed.”
    “ Now that you think about it? You never
thought about it before now?”
    It was an absurd
question. Of course she had thought about it before. When she tried to recall
when she had thought about it, though, or just what she had thought, she could
not. And the fact that she could not remember ever once having considered her
husband’s feelings about having children, or not having them, made her feel
uneasy, and ashamed, which were two more things she couldn’t remember ever
feeling before, even though she knew she must have.
    Helena was
watching her, curiously, her head tilted slightly to one side the way Paul’s
did when he was trying to figure something out.
    “Of course I’ve
thought about it,” Ava lied.
    Sarah came out
of the house then, smiling and looking eager, holding an ice cream cone in each
hand. When she saw Ava, her smile melted a little around the edges like the ice
cream did around the sides.
    “I didn’t know
you was finished cleaning, Ava,” she said. “I only got two.”
    Ava didn’t care
and she said as much.
    Sarah handed
Helena one of the cones, and as Ava watched them both licking the cool treats, she
remembered sitting with her siblings on the front steps, eating ice cream,
which had been her favorite thing, a thing she had craved and begged her mother
for every time the ice cream truck came around. She remembered how she had
loved the sweetness, had held each bite in her mouth until it melted into
nothing on her tongue. She remembered how she had savored each and every lick.
    “It’s a nice day
out,” Sarah was saying.
    Ava noticed she
sounded happy, which was unusual. Unusual for Sarah to sound
happy and unusual for Ava to notice.
    “I don’t know
why it’s so hot inside the house,” Sarah continued.
    “Don’t you like
ice cream?” Helena asked Ava.
    Ava shook her
head. “No,” she said, and she recognized the strangeness of her words as she
said them. “It