The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones

Chapter One

June, 1955

        The dust here didn't settle. When Ethan thrust his bag onto Aunt Cara's driveway, a lazy cloud of dirt meandered into the air and stayed there, lapping gently about his ankles. Like everything else in this town, it seemed half immersed in slumber.

        This was not at all like home.

        Ethan stood still with his thumb on his brow, squinting at the afternoon sun and the white paneled house below it. His muscles, tight and tired from a long drive spent sandwiched between his two younger siblings in the backseat of his dad's Mercury, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. His stomach, on the other hand, was filled with burning coals. He fought the urge to run.

        "Give me a hand with this, would you?" Ethan turned to see his dad, knees braced against the bumper, raindrops of sweat inching down his forehead as he struggled to haul a box of records from the truck.

        "Were these really necessary?" he asked, dropping the box onto the sleepy earth.

        Ethan winced at his dad's carelessness, but stepped over his suitcase and lifted the records with ease. "You're shipping me off to Nowheresville for practically three whole months," he reminded, an edge in his voice. "I need my vinyl or I'll go crazy."

        His dad exhaled loudly, but made no comment. Through the open car window, Ethan saw a look of disapproval slip across his mother's face. He ducked his head.

        "Anyway," he muttered, hefting his collection in his arms. "I'll go ahead and bring this inside, make sure they're home." No sooner had the words left his lips than the front door was flung open and a plump woman with pale hair and paler eyes stepped out onto the porch with a wave and a grin like an open wound. Her stomach protruded far over the band of her skirt, revealing the final months of a pregnancy. Of course, Ethan remembered. Her baby was due at the end of the summer.

        From behind him came a sudden chorus of "AUNT CARA!" and then Anthony and Sadie were leaping from the car, their tornado legs kicking up a storm of dust. The last time the twins had seen their aunt was nearly seven years before, when they were still in diapers, but they clung to her legs as if they had missed her all this time. Ethan, who had been nine at the time, had all but forgotten her face.

        "Hey, hey." Aunt Cara laughed. Her voice rolled out in that smooth Southern accent that her brother had lost after two decades in Washington. She pressed Sadie's mousy hair back from her forehead and detached herself from their grips. "Hey, Andy."

        "Cara." Ethan's father had made his way onto the porch and leaned over to pull his sister into an embrace. "Great to see you again."

        "Hi, Aunt Cara," Ethan murmured, but stayed where he was.

        His aunt's smile seemed to slip for a moment, and she cleared her throat, pausing too long with her fingers on her stomach before saying, "Come in, come in, and bring all that, Ethan."

        The kids immediately dove toward the house, but their father's warning tone reined them back. "Anthony, Sadie, back in the car," he said firmly, pointing to the blue sedan. "I told you we wouldn't be long." They peered up at him with rosy cheeks so like his own, their bottom lips already beginning to tremble. He silenced a chorus of protests with a pointed look, and the twins moped their way back to the driveway.

        "Trust me," Ethan muttered as they passed him, "I'd trade places with you in a second." Then he shook his head, repositioned the box, and forced himself to tackle the front porch.