Under a Dark Summer Sky by Vanessa Lafaye Page A

extra money, repairing one of the hurricane shutters. A good-looking man, or he would be , she thought, if he got some decent food in him. An idea began to crystallize.

    Henry stooped to kiss his sister’s cheek. The atmosphere hummed with electric tension, like there was a great big generator buried in the sand beneath their feet. “Jesus, Selma, what’s been going on here?” he asked as he looked around.
    â€œA black jackass attacked a white jackass. Same as every year, but then you wouldn’t know about that, would you?” Before he could reply, she said, “Henry, your boys better not make no trouble. We had our fill for one night, I can tell you.”
    â€œDon’t you worry about my boys,” he said with a sideways glance at the men. Sonny twirled a petite, giggly woman to the music on the gramophone. Franklin was in conversation with a pretty girl too, showing her some of his driftwood carvings. Everyone was behaving like civilized people. So far. “They just here to have a good time. Any food left?” He patted his flat stomach. “I’m starvin’.”
    She regarded him through narrowed, tired eyes. “Henry Roberts, what the hell’s wrong with you?”
    â€œWhat you mean, Sister?”
    Selma gestured toward the figure of Missy, down by the surf. Her dress glowed against the dark blue of the water, which was streaked with the orange and red fragments of the sunset.
    She looked so pretty. Had he been anywhere else, had she been anyone else, he most certainly would have been intending some private time with her. He could feel her waiting but did not want to disturb the picture she made.
    â€œI don’t know, Selma,” he said, suddenly at a loss. Unused to polite company, after so long on the road, he had forgotten how to be with people. Everything felt temporary, like it could all be washed away by the next wave. His former friends and neighbors studied him with guarded smiles. Their curious stares tingled on his back. “I don’t think it’s a good—”
    Selma planted her feet, folded her arms, and leaned very close. Her breath, scented slightly with beer, was hot in his face. “You listen to me now. I put up with you comin’ back here after so long, with barely a word for me or your mama, the good Lord rest her soul. I put up with you livin’ out at the camp, showin’ you care more for those… men ”—she fairly spat the word—“than for your own people. But I will not”—she leaned even closer, her finger pushed into his chest—“I repeat, not put up with you breakin’ that girl’s heart for a second time.” Her voice went quiet. “You read me, Henry?”
    â€œNow, Sunny, you just—”
    â€œDon’t call me that. I ain’t in the mood.”
    â€œAll right, Selma.” He looked again at the figure in the yellow dress. “The whole truth is I ain’t the person she remembers.” He recalled that little girl, who believed him capable of anything, who trusted him completely. The way she used to look at him, like he was some kind of hero because he knew stuff and could read stories…it made him believe too. All that was gone, everything she knew of him, burned away at a shantytown in Washington. He had nothing to offer someone like her. “You don’t realize how I’ve changed—”
    â€œWe all changed, Henry!” Selma’s nostrils flared, her hands spread wide, taking in the whole beach, Missy included. “S’what eighteen years will do to a body. She been waitin’, all that time. For you. Now go on, say whatever you got to say. But be a man. It time you take responsibility for what you done.”

    When Dwayne returned to the beach, having settled Ike in his cell for the night, he was greeted by an unexpected scene. A group of veterans chatted amiably with the townspeople. Everyone had a beer