I reckon it was the summertime already. I wasn't too particularly fond of summer. Summer meant long hours under a scorching sun. Worst of all it meant nasty little bugs that swarmed through the air thick as molasses leaving no room in your lungs for any oxygen. I was delighted to escape from my duties when I went away. Mama always said I was too gentle a soul, what with playing my fiddle and what not. Now with Pa gone, I had more responsibility than ever. I was sad to leave my equipment behind, but Tennessee wasn't a welcoming place for... science.
Ford was falling apart at the seams. His posture was so poor, I could recognize the arch in his spine anywhere. He looked like a turtle retreating into its shell. I'd been real worried about him, after our little vacation over winter break, he'd seemed despondent. I'm not saying he'd never been through nothing bad, but a fella like him wasn't used to things not going his way. He had more trophies than body weight, so I figured he wasn't used to setback. I reckon with him, anything that's not a win is a failure.
I pleaded with him to spend some time with me before we parted. Pulling Ford from his funk took some time, I was sick with worry that if I didn't pull him out of it before we went our separate ways he'd be like this for months, even worse, alone. He shook me off and disappeared down the hall, leaving me in the state I was so desperate to keep him from. Disappointment sewed its seeds in my soul and all summer, bushels of guilt and shame popped up, ready to be harvested in the fall upon my return. In the meantime I was off to work the farm, where real things grow.
The house was always worse than I left it. I reckon I was always too busy to mind. In the wake of my neglect, disaster had struck. The house was barely standing, cracks in the foundations grew like ivy up the walls, watered by our leaky faucets and dripping Air Conditioner. The large box in the window sputtered and groaned like a hog on a hot day, ready to meet its maker. Despite it all, there was my family, eager to greet me, ready for me to be home.
I found all the cracks that were growing in our walls had been puttied over and sloppily painted, but with some proper work it'd be just like it was when we were kids. I had to knock all the work that had been already done off of it. The foundations weren't set properly, it'd just chip and flake away in a few weeks if we left it like this. I felt a twinge of guilt as I scuffed the walls clean. I could tell my little brother had worked hard at trying to fix it. At first he just stood in the hall, silently cursing me but as the sizzling summer simmered on, I reckon he must have snapped. He charged me like I was the only thing between him and his life, like he was a prisoner of war in a conflict he'd never have to know in his young naive life. He beat my legs with his tiny fists, which were admittedly starting to hurt. Mama set off into hysterics, which lead to my sisters circling me like prey, snapping at my frightened fleshed. We were all out of sorts, with drywall on the floor and cracks still in the walls. When all the fussing was over my brother and I worked together to finish patching things over.
"How come you went away?" Fiddlerick asked.
"I reckon I didn't go nowhere, I'm right here buddy," I said ruffling his hair.
"I don't want you to go away again," he complained. I shrunk down to meet him at his level, holding right back onto him.
"I gotta go away for just a little bit, but I'm always coming back. I'll never leave you for good, I promise," I said.
"Pa didn't come back," he grumbled. The first time we had this conversation I didn't know what to say. Mama came up with a speech for me to say when the younger ones started asking questions I didn't have an answer for.
"Well, sometimes God has a plan, and we don't always understand it," but Fiddlerick didn't want to hear it.
"I hate God," he shouted,"I hate you!".
I spent my days in the heat, and my nights in the hall. Slow and steady the house was as good as new, or at least as pre owned. While we were fixing things my Mama was fixing to set me up. One particularly hot day, I came in drenched in sweat, with my hair sticking to my face, and burning red skin. Waiting for me was a familiar young woman. She was one of my sister's friends, I reckon her name slipped my mind more often than not, but she was a sweet.
"Sorry for the indecency Miss," I apologized, flustered to be a sweaty mess in front of company. I reckon I must have smelled like manure, I was eager to get out of there, clumsily knocking into the furniture.
"Emma May," She said through light laughter.
I was expecting her to be gone when I came back downstairs in better condition. She stayed right through dinner and desert too. She came again every Friday until I left. It was getting close to the end of summer, the heat was always the most intense right at the end. The end of July was filled with long drawn out days, when you didn't even look forward to going to sleep because you knew you'd just have to wake up and face it again the next day. Still I persisted, because August was coming. The closer I got to my departure date the more life that came back to me. I felt awfully guilty, but I was excited to get back to school.
The summer had gone well, the house looked right again, and Emma-May and I had a sweet friendship developing. She was clever, funny, and an excellent assistant in my experiments. Sometimes I'd tell a joke she didn't quite get, and in the awkward silence, or over fake laughs I could hear Ford cracking up, because he would've gotten it. I was awfully grateful for miss Emma-May, but I missed my home, and my partner.
