summer of us

1

I sat in the backseat with Phoebe, my younger sister, as my dad was driving. She wanted to watch a movie and my dad had immediately agreed. Anything to get her occupied as he finished the last of the drive. The movie had ended about two hours ago and she was fast asleep.

I could see the common markers of our drive into Cousins Beach. The road into town we always drove, the market that my mom and I went shopping at every Sunday morning, the ice cream shop we went to after our beach trips as kids.

It wasn't long before my dad pulled our car into the driveway of our beach house. It was neighboring the Fisher's and Conklins, it was attached by a greenhouse like hallway, it was really more of an extension of their house. We only had one bathroom, three bedrooms, and a TV room with a small kitchenette.

I took out my earbuds as my dad parks the car and turns back to me.

"We're here, Sweetheart." He tells me and I smile and nod as I grab my backpack from at my feet.

"Cousins Beach, home sweet home." I say to myself as I get out of the car and look up at our side of the house. I swing my backpack over my shoulder and make my way around the car to Phoebe's door.

"Come on, Bubba." I whisper as I unbuckle her from her seat and pull her up into my arms. Waking her up was like waking up a beast. As she still sleeps peacefully in my arms, I hold her on my hip, I meet my dad at the trunk of the car.

"I can take my duffel and suitcase. I can grab Phoebe's after I lay her down." I tell him and he nods.

"Sounds like a plan." He tells me and sets my suit case down and rests my duffel on top of it. "Hey, Iris, this is going to be a good summer." My dad promises me as he holds onto my upper arm.

"Yeah, a good summer." I tell him with a smile, but my mind couldn't fathom how any summer would be a good summer without my Mom here with us.

"Okay, let's say one thing we're looking forward most about this summer." My mother says from the backseat in the car as I drive, and my dad was in the passenger seat.

"The beach!" Phoebe says from her seat and I laugh.

"Probably spending some time with my family for the whole summer." My dad tells us and I smile over at him and then turn back to the road. My dad usually teaches classes very summer at Brown University. He was still teaching them this year but they were all completely online for him.

"I can't wait to see everyone." I say from my seat as we pass by a sign, welcoming us to Cousins.

"Me too, I can't wait to see everyone." My mom seconds and then reaches forwards to turn up the radio.

"Iris! Iris!" I hear someone call from downstairs and footsteps running upstairs and smile as I walk to my door to meet them. Immediately her arms are wrapped around my waist as I wrap mine over her shoulders.

"Belly, look at you. You're all grown up." I tell her as I pull back and hold her out at arms length. "My beautiful, Belly." I tell her and she smiles and I pull her back into a hug.

Belly Conklin is the daughter of my mother's best friend Laurel Park. She has an older brother Steven who is a year younger than me. Then there's Susannah Fisher, she was my mother's other best friend.

Susannah, Laurel and my mother all met each other when they were nine years old, they had called each other blood sisters. When they had all started families, they decided to come to Susannah's beach house together here in Cousins were we could run away for our summers. We belonged to this house.

Susannah has two sons, Conrad who's my age, and his younger brother Jeremiah who is closer to Belly's age. She's two years younger than me, about to be 16, but it never felt that way, I've always thought of her as my age, I guess. The boys not so much, they would constantly leave her out of our adventures, so I always flopped who I was with. It was usually Belly and our moms, or the boys. But sometimes when the boys felt gracious they would invite Belly along. I always felt closer to all of them personally.