The Summoning by Mark Lukens Page A

rearview mirror; Gary was just staring at his car as he drove away, his face red, his fleshy chest heaving from the short run.
    They drove in silence for a few blocks. Ryan wanted some answers, but he wanted to let her calm down first. He saw that she was crying, wiping away at her tears and turning away so Ryan wouldn’t see her. “I’m sorry about all that,” she said.
    “Who is he?” Ryan asked.
    Amber looked out the windshield as she spoke. “He’s Gary, my brother. He’s crazy. Probably taken too many drugs over the years. When my mother died, she left him everything. Which wasn’t much, believe me. She always babied him. Of course she didn’t know about his drug habit and I never told on him. I didn’t want it to hurt her in her last days.”
    “If he’s so crazy, then why do you live with him?”
    “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m saving my money, and as soon as I get enough I’m out of here.” She paused for a second like she was considering whether she should say the rest. “Of course, it’s kind of hard to save money when Gary demands so much of my money to pay for the mortgage and utilities. I can’t seem to get enough saved.”
    “There’s no one else you can stay with? Friends? Other family?”
    Amber gave Ryan a pleading smile. “Can we change the subject please?”
    Ryan nodded, but didn’t say anything, he just continued driving.
    They drove in silence for a few more blocks through the neighborhood.
    “So, where did you want to go?” Amber asked. “Did you have something in mind?”
    Ryan could already hear the change in her mood, like these fights with her brother happened often enough that she got over them quickly.
    Ryan tried to hide a smile. He felt better just being with Amber and he knew he’d made the right decision by coming to her house to see her. Like the labor work at the constructions site, being with Amber was a distraction from his nightmares and the mysteries of his past.
    “Look in the backseat,” he told her.
    Amber, much more energetic now, nearly hopped on through between the passenger and driver’s seat to the back.
    And she saw the picnic basket.
    She grabbed the basket and got back into the passenger seat; she didn’t bother to refasten her seatbelt. She looked at Ryan with an excitement in her eyes that nearly choked Ryan up – it was like this was the biggest surprise she’d ever seen, like nobody in her life had ever shown her any kindness.
    “You like picnics?” Ryan asked.
    Amber shrugged. “Yeah. I’m sure I do. I’ve never been on one.” She couldn’t wait – she opened the basket and rifled through the contents. She pulled out a few of the small cheeses wrapped in plastic. “These must’ve cost a fortune.”
    “The guy at the deli counter called them cheeses from around the world. There’s one from the Netherlands. One from Sweden. One from France. And … and some other ones. Some cold cuts. Crackers. A bottle of wine.”
    Amber pulled out the knife from Carol’s kitchen, she held it up and stared at it with wide eyes, and then she turned to Ryan and giggled. “Big knife.”
    Ryan nodded. “I stole it from Carol’s kitchen. I hope she doesn’t mind.”
    Amber put everything back in the basket and closed it. She held onto the basket, like she could barely contain her excitement. “Where are we picnicking?” Then she thought for a split second. “Picnicking? Is that how you say it?”
    “I guess.”
    “Picnicking. It sounds like something rich people say. Like on Downton Abbey.”
    Ryan couldn’t help laughing – he didn’t know what Downton Abbey was, but it was obviously Amber’s idea of rich. It felt good to laugh; it seemed like something he hadn’t done in a long time. “Uh, I don’t know where to go … picnicking. I hadn’t really planned that far ahead.”
    Amber’s eyes lit up. “I know a place we could go. It’s outside of town.”
    “Off Winter Road?”
    She gave Ryan a strange look. “Yeah,