The Summer Girls by Mary Alice Monroe Page A

that poor child sleep in the library if it means that much to him. I’ll figure something else out for Harper. I simply cannot listen to that boy scream any longer! My birthday party will end up being my funeral!”

    Dora ran across the hall into the library to find Lucille holding a squirming Nate tight and speaking to him in a low voice. Nate was inconsolable, flailing his arms wildly. Before Dora could reach them, Nate’s hand belted Lucille in the nose. She fell back, hands against her shocked face. Nate’s face registered not even a flash of acknowledgment that he’d hurt Lucille. Instead he spied his mother, pointed at her, and shouted, “You said to sleep here. I always sleep here at the beach!”
    Dora looked at Nate’s wide blue eyes, more terror-struck than angry. She walked slowly up to Nate and spoke in a low, soothing voice. She reassured him with instructions.“Yes, Nate, you’re sleeping at the beach house. But tonight you’re sleeping in Mama’s room, okay? We will bring your Nintendo to Mama’s room. All right?”
    “No!” Nate shouted at the top of his lungs.
    From over her shoulder Dora saw Carson standing beside Lucille, her eyes wide with shock and incomprehension. Dora turned back to Nate, relieved that he allowed her to put her arms around him as she continued the soothing litany, knowing he would respond more to her tone than the words. Dora didn’t have time or even the desire to explain autism to Carson. It was like when Nate had a meltdown in the grocery store. People would rudely stop and stare at his head banging or whining, looking at her with critical eyes as though she were a bad parent, as though it were within her power to rein him in.
    Amid the chaos, no one noticed a small, redheaded woman standing hesitatingly at the door. Her large eyes were wide with shock.
    “Hello?” Harper called out.
    It was not the entrance she’d hoped for.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    D inner that evening was as long as a month of Sundays. Not that the meal wasn’t delicious—Lucille had put her back into preparing a spicy gumbo, crisp hush puppies, and Carson’s favorite banana pudding for dessert. It was the tension at the table that Carson couldn’t stomach.
    It should have been a happy homecoming. A time of laughter and catching up. Instead, Carson could feel a headache blossoming from holding in the dozens of pithy comments pressing against her tight lips.
    To be fair, the evening started off badly. Dinner was late and everyone was still on tenterhooks after Nate’s hissy fit. Dora had prepared a special plate for him and brought it on a tray to his room for him to eat while he watched his favorite programs on television. Then Harper caused brows to rise when she refused the white rice. And they couldn’t help but stare when she began daintily picking out the porksausage from her gumbo with her fork. Lucille harrumphed loudly but everyone held their tongue politely.
    Except Dora.
    “Are you a vegetarian now?” she asked in a censorial tone.
    “No,” Harper replied blithely. “I just don’t prefer red meat.”
    “Pork is a white meat,” Dora said, correcting her.
    Harper looked squarely at her sister and smiled. “Then, meat,” she clarified.
    When the hush puppies were passed, Harper refused those as well.
    “You don’t like hush puppies anymore, either?” Dora asked, clearly annoyed. “There’s no meat in those.”
    Carson gave Dora the look, the one that told her to stop badgering Harper about her food, but Dora ignored her. Carson remembered Harper being quiet and subdued as a child. That, and her petite size, earned her the nickname “the little mouse.” Dora could never boss Carson around the way she did Harper. In fact, sticking up for Harper was one old habit that Carson could settle back into quite seamlessly.
    “It’s not that I don’t like them,” Harper replied pointedly. “I don’t eat fried foods. Or anything white, for that matter.”
    “What’s that supposed