The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie Page B

she knew that if she
didn’t stop laughing she would wet herself, but still she could not stop. She
felt only slightly more control over her legs than her bladder, but she thought
she could make it to the bathroom if she ran fast. Still laughing, she pushed
herself hard off the counter and raced out of the kitchen. She ran through the
foyer, feeling her way in the darkness, and up the stairs, and barely made it
to the toilet. She was still giggling, her jaws sore from it, the urine coming
out of her in a staggered stream as her abdominal muscles continued to contract
with her laughter. She remembered, suddenly, laughing at her brother as he made
faces at her across the dinner table, laughing uncontrollably, a feeling of
bliss filling her up. The memory jolted her and she began to feel in control of
herself again and the strange laughter quieted, leaving her exhausted and out
of breath .

    ***
    Helena barely slept that night. Sarah knew this
because she was awake for hours herself, listening to
their guest moving around on the creaky floors of the bedroom Sarah had offered
her for the duration of her visit. Even after midnight, she could hear Helena
walking the length of the room, her feet making different sounds on the area
rug by the bed than on the places where the floor was bare. Sarah wondered what
she was doing in there. Probably thinking about what she had been told at
dinner, about Geo and the pastor’s boy, and the years-long feud. She had been
relieved when Helena said she would still stay, in spite of all of it, but now
she worried she might change her mind. Maybe tonight, while they were all asleep,
she would slip out, quietly, just the way she had come. How could Sarah blame
her if she did? Without a very good reason not to, anyone would stay away.
    Around one in
the morning, Sarah heard something being loudly unzipped, and she knew it must
be the large portfolio Helena had brought, which had been leaning against the
dresser when Sarah had gone in to say goodnight hours earlier. Sarah pictured
it lying open now, its contents—drawing paper and pencils, she guessed—strewn
about the bed, and Helena taking her time deciding what picture she might make.
Sarah wanted, more than anything, to slip out of the bed where her mother lay
snoring beside her and peek into the next room, or, better yet, to knock and be
invited in. She imagined herself sitting cross-legged at the top of the bed
while Helena sat at the foot with her drawing pad in her lap, talking more about
Baltimore, sharing morsels from her life, and Sarah tasting, devouring. She did
not want to disturb Helena, though, to interrupt, so instead she closed her
eyes and wished for morning.
    It came, warm
and smelling like mid-summer in the city, like scorched air and hot sidewalks.
Sarah’s first thought upon waking was of Helena, and she listened, trying to
hear her stirring in the early light, but there was no sound coming through the
wall now. She went downstairs and started the coffee and, through the back
window, saw Helena sitting alone on the back porch, smoking and staring off
into the tangled weeds that had been rosebushes and a vegetable garden long
years ago. When the coffee was ready, she took a cup out to Helena, smiling and
saying, “Good morning,” as she offered it to her.
    “Good morning,
Sarah,” Helena said, taking the coffee. “Thank you.” She looked tired and
pensive, and a little bit troubled. “I was just sitting here listening to the
music.”
    The music she
was referring to was the usual Sunday-morning sounds
coming from Blessed Chapel, the pre-service rehearsal of the choir, which, Sarah
knew, could be heard a block a way in all directions. It rose up in the air and
hung over Radnor Street like smoke.
    “They always did
have good music,” Sarah said, sitting down beside Helena on the steps. “We used
to sing in the children’s choir when we was kids.”
    “Do you miss the
church?”
    Sarah nodded. “I
always liked