The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie Page A

that
mean?”
    Ava felt a rush of heat move up her neck and along her
scalp. A picture flashed in her mind, of her brother and Kenny Goode, lying
dead on a hot sidewalk, on a smoldering Saturday morning. The image cut through
her like lightning through the hazy sky. She felt dizzy and she held on to the
counter to keep her balance.
    “Now, look,” George said, “ this is family business. Any stranger that come by here
don’t need to know about it.”
    “Hold on, Pop,” Paul said. “It aint no cause to be
rude.”
    “And she aint a stranger,” Sarah said. “I mean , she’s Paul’s sister. She’s family.”
    “We don’t know this woman from Eve! And
since when y’all so eager to talk about all this? Aint nobody in this
house had a word to say about it in years.”
    “Who we supposed to tell?” Regina asked. “Each other?”
    “I didn’t mean to pry,” Helena said.
    George stood up and moved towards the door. “I’m going
out for a while.”
    “In this weather?” Sarah asked him.
    “I got an umbrella,” he said.
    When he had gone, Regina looked at Helena. “You gone
have to excuse my husband. He don’t hate nothing much
as he hate the truth.”
    Helena didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Ava
was sure she was still wondering how the two boys had died together, but she
didn’t ask again. “These people have been harassing you for…how long?”
    “Seventeen years,” Regina said.
    “Why do you stay?”
    “This our house. Houses don’t come easy, you know.
Aint nobody gave this one to us, we had to work every day of our lives to get
it and to keep it after it was got. Besides, we aint done
nothing that we ought to leave for. Pastor Goode might think he God, but
last time I looked he was just a man.”
    “But bricks through your window?” Helena asked. “Is it
really worth it?”
    “It don’t happen all the time,” Sarah said. “Nothing’s
happened in the last couple of years.”
    “The thought of us having company, being connected to
the world, like normal folks, musta got them all
riled up again,” Regina said.
    “If my being here is causing trouble for you, I can
just go on up to New York like I planned.”
    “Oh, don’t do that,” Sarah said. “I mean, it aint no
reason for you to go.”
    “Sarah’s right,” said Ava, whose head had begun to
clear again.
    Regina nodded in agreement. “We been dealing with that
preacher and all the rest of these fools for all these years. A few days aint gone bother me none. But I can understand if
you don’t want to have to deal with it.”
    Helena looked like she was thinking about it. After a
few moments, she said, “I can deal with a little scandal, I guess. It won’t be
the first time.”
    “These lights ever gone come back on?” Regina asked.
    “They out on the whole block,” Paul said.
    “Well, that’s good. ’Cause if it was just our house, I’d start to think the devil was in
here.”
    They laughed, small, uneasy laughs, all except Ava,
who laughed a real laugh, a laugh that went on after everyone else’s had
finished. Her laugh grew louder, and it had the unbound sound of a child’s,
giggly around the edges and saturated with a kind of silliness that did not
really fit the moment. It grew eager and full and caused her shoulders to shake
and her body to bend slightly at the waist, under the weight of it. She felt
wetness around her eyes and the muscles of her stomach ached. She could not remember
ever laughing so hard. She was aware that they were all looking at her
strangely and she did not understand why they weren’t laughing, too. It was
hilarious, what her mother had said, although she wasn’t sure what about it had
struck her as being so especially funny. Probably the way Regina had said it,
with that half-crazy look of hers. That thought made her laugh even harder. Suddenly
she felt out of control of it, and with that out of control feeling there came
a weakness, both in her knees and in her bladder, and