It's Not Summer without You Read Online Free Page B

around in her room, heard the shower running.
    When she didn’t come, I went to her room. She was packing, her hair still wet. She looked over at me, her eyes tired and empty. “Beck’s gone,” she said. And that was it.
    I could feel my insides sink. My knees too. So I sat on the ground, against the wall, letting it support me. I thought I knew what heartbreak felt like. I thought heartbreak was me, standing alone at the prom. That was nothing. This, this was heartbreak. The pain in your chest, the ache behind your eyes. The knowing that things will never be the same again. It’s all relative, I suppose. You think you know love, you think you know real pain, but you don’t. You don’t know anything.
    I’m not sure when I started crying. When I got started, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe.
    My mother crossed the room and knelt down on the floor with me, hugging me, rocking me back and forth. But she didn’t cry. She wasn’t even there. She was an upright reed, an empty harbor.
    My mother drove up to Boston that same day. The only reason she’d even been at home that day had been to check on me and get a change of clothes. She’d thought there’d be more time. She should’ve been there, when Susannah died. If only for the boys. I was sure she was thinking the same thoughts.
    In her best professor voice, she told Steven and me that we would drive ourselves up in two days, the day of the funeral. She didn’t want us in the way of funeral preparations; there was a lot of work to be done. Ends in need of tying up.
    My mother had been named executor of the will, and of course Susannah had known exactly what she was doing when she’d picked her. It was true that there was no one better for the job, that they’d been going over things even before Susannah died. But even more than that, my mother was at her best when she was busy, doing things. She did not fall apart, not when she was needed. No, my mother rose to the occasion. I wished that was a gene I’d inherited. Because I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
    I thought about calling Conrad. I even dialed his number a few times. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid of saying the wrong things, of making things worse. And then I thought about calling Jeremiah. But it was the fear that kept me back. I knew that the moment I called, the moment I said it out loud, it would be true. She would really be gone.
    On the drive up, we were mostly quiet. Steven’s only suit, the one he’d just worn to prom, was wrapped in plastic and hung in the backseat. I hadn’t bothered to hang up my dress. “What will we say to them?” I asked at last.
    “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The only funeral I’ve ever been to is Aunt Shirle’s, and she was really old.” I was too young to remember that funeral.
    “Where will we stay tonight? Susannah’s house?”
    “No idea.”
    “How do you suppose Mr. Fisher’s handling it?” I couldn’t bring myself to picture Conrad or Jeremiah, not yet.
    “Whiskey,” was Steven’s answer.
    After that I stopped asking questions.
    We changed into our clothes at a gas station thirty miles from the funeral home. As soon as I saw how neat and pressed Steven’s suit was, I regretted not hanging up my dress. Back in the car, I kept smoothing down the skirt with my palms, but it didn’t help. My mother had told me that rayon was pointless; I should have listened. I also should have tried it on before I packed it. The last time I wore it was to a reception at my mother’s university three years ago, and now it was too small.
    We got there early, early enough to find my mother bustling around, arranging flowers and talking to Mr. Browne, the funeral director. As soon as she saw me, she frowned. “You should have ironed that dress, Belly,” she said.
    I bit my bottom lip to keep from saying something I knew I would regret. “There wasn’t any time,” I said, even though there had