Summer People by Brian Groh Page A

mean in a cosmic sense?”
    Leah smiled and said, “Yes.”
    â€œWell, I mean, I don’t know you that well, but you seem like a young woman probably gifted with certain abilities, and maybe, you know, maybe your purpose is just to share those—”
    â€œAll right, stop.” Leah clamped her mouth shut in an apparent effort to stop smiling. “I’m asking why Eldwin would drag me and his kids along with him tonight when it would have been so much easier for us just to stay home.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Nathan answered.
    Eliot knocked his ball into a row of tall grass and flowers between the trees, and after guiding him in another direction, Leah returned to stand beside Nathan. “Did he know you were coming?”
    â€œEldwin? I don’t think so. I told him Ellen might come, but that if she did, I was probably just going to drop her off.”
    â€œHmmm,” Leah said.
    Nathan said, “Maybe he wanted to hook you up with one of these old dudes.”
    â€œMaybe,” Leah said, lengthening the last vowel while her eyebrows rose with mock interest.
    â€œThere was a guy in there emptying out his catheter tube who I think might be single.”
    â€œYou’re gross,” Leah said, shaking her head. But she grinned and her eyes glinted warmly in a way that gave Nathan hope. Twilight was falling over them when Eldwin approached from the far side of the house. Eliot and Meghan grabbed their father’s hands, screeching passionate accounts of how the other sibling had cheated during the match.
    â€œI want to go home,” Meghan cried.
    â€œI’m with you,” Eldwin said, freeing his hands to light a cigarette.
    Nathan helped Eldwin and Leah pull out the stakes and wickets, then carry them, along with the rest of the equipment, to where thestation wagon was parked along the curb. Seeing Eldwin’s rusted white Ford Fairmont made Nathan feel relieved. He had been so nervous around Leah, and consequently said so many foolish things, that he was looking forward to seeing her humbled by climbing into this dilapidated car.
    Nathan turned to Eldwin. “Ellen holding up in there?”
    â€œYeah, pretty well. What are you doing on Friday night?”
    Nathan glanced sidelong at Leah, but she was encouraging Eliot to hurry up and follow them. “I’m not sure, why?”
    â€œWe should go kayaking.”
    â€œYeah.” Nathan had enjoyed his conversations with Eldwin, but on Friday night, he was hoping to do something with Leah. “That sounds great. The only problem is, I’ve just got an hour or so free during the day and Ellen doesn’t really go to bed until nine o’clock.”
    â€œThat’s not a problem. I was thinking that we’d get started around nine, anyway, after Meghan and Eliot go to bed.”
    Nathan said, “I’ve never done it before, though, so I should probably learn how to do it in daylight first, don’t you think?”
    Eldwin exhaled smoke through his nostrils. “Not necessarily. We’ll be on the bay, so there’s not much chance we’re going to roll. I’ll teach you a few things before we head out, but it’s a tandem kayak, so we’ll be together. And you can swim, right?”
    Not very well, Nathan thought. He might have admitted this if he had been walking with Eldwin alone, but with Leah and the children listening, Nathan answered, “Yeah, of course.”
    â€œThen we’ll be fine,” Eldwin said, opening the driver’s side of the station wagon. Leah smiled as she waved good-bye, and Nathan felt a moment of longing for a wife, children, and the comfortableness with oneself that driving a rusting station wagon implied. Stepping back from the street, he turned toward the house. Near the front steps, he glanced back to see the station wagon slow to a stop near the first bend in the road, the brake lights burning a brighter crimson