The Fourth Summer. Kathleen Gilles Seidel

supportive,’ that I’m being a spoiled brat.”

      Seth wasn’t sure what to say. “How old is she?”

      “Fifteen, two years older than me, and I get that it totally sucks for her. I get that. But I didn’t do anything wrong and yet everybody at school talks about me like I’m some kind of slut. I got invited to a rainbow party, and I don’t even wear lipstick, much less do that.”

      Seth was not about to admit that he didn’t know what a rainbow party was. That was the one bad thing about not going to school with the other kids. Sometimes you felt like a major stupid-ass dork. “Your folks...weren’t they mad at your sister?”

      “Who knows? My mom would go into their bedroom, she’d close the door and all, but I could hear her crying. And she kept asking my dad what they had done wrong. But they say that family problems stop at the front door. To the rest of the world we have to pretend that everything is okay, which is crazy because it’s not.”

      “Is she going to keep the baby?”

      “Yeah. My dad really thought that she ought to give it up, and this social worker came and talked to all of us. But Trina and my mom...so it’s going to live with us. They’re trying to figure out stuff like health insurance because the military will go on covering Trina, but not the baby. That’s all anyone talks about, Trina and the baby. So that’s why,” she finished, “I’m not going to let a guy do stuff to me.”

      “It’s okay. I get it.”

      “Good. Then we don’t have to talk about it again.”

      Seth went home and looked up rainbow parties...and then since the whole family used the same computer and his sisters knew how to check browser histories even if his parents didn’t, he instantly did some searches on rainbow photos and rainbow physics as if he were suddenly interested in meteorological phenomena, which actually were pretty cool when you learned about them.

      But the rainbow parties thing...why would a girl be willing to do that at all, much less on a bunch of guys and in public?

      One afternoon at the skate park he looked up and saw that his dad was watching him work with Caitlin. Usually in this part of town you could hear the factory whistle signaling the shift change; Seth must have missed it.

      For someone who couldn’t afford to come to any competitions, his dad was stoked about Seth’s career. Early on he had taken Seth’s cheapie boards and tinkered with them in his garage workshop, putting better edges on them and the like. Now he was making them from scratch, layering and laminating the wood.

      He also made the skateboards Seth used in the summer, and a week after coming to the park his dad gave him a skateboard he had made for Caitlin. “She’s small for her age. This is a better board for her.”

      And it was.

      She had to leave in the middle of August. She was taking the bus to Charlotte, and her parents were driving to meet her there. He rode his bike to the bus station to say goodbye. She was going to keep her skateboard on the bus with her, and her grandmother suggested that Seth carry it out of the terminal for her. Mrs. Thurmont turned away as if there were something on the station’s bulletin board that she just had to read. She was chill for an old lady—although it wasn’t like he was going to kiss Caitlin goodbye or something. He walked out to the bus anyway, handed her the board, and punched her lightly on her arm.

      “Next summer?” he said. Her eyes really were something. He had gotten used to them so he didn’t notice them all the time, but now, standing here...

      “You’d better believe it,” she said.

      CHAPTER TWO

      And now eleven years later, Caitlin still had those eyes.

      His family’s house at the lake was timber and stone with lots of windows and a big screen porch. Seth retrieved the key from the hiding place. He gave Caitlin a quick tour of the house, but she said that after a day of sitting around the courtroom, she wanted to be outside. Seth picked up a blanket in case they wanted to sit down by the shore.

      “I’m a city girl,” she said. “I’m going to need bug juice.”

      “Oh, of course.” There were at least seven cans of insect repellent by the door. His sisters used all-natural products on their kids; his mom liked the scented products; his dad didn’t. Seth let Caitlin pick one, and he grabbed another for himself.

      Then a memory hit him again. That night in the park we only had one can for the two of us.

      What kind of romance had bug repellent as one of its highlights?

      His and hers.

      The property was bordered by birches, maples, and white pine. A few scraggly rhododendrons blossomed where the shade was the lightest, and one big oak tree sat off by itself. Seth’s brothers-in-law took turns mowing so there was an open, sunlit stretch of grass leading down to the dock and the big rocks by the shoreline.

      “So where on the lake are we?” Caitlin asked when they got outside. “I’m a little turned around.”

      “The public beach is that way.” He pointed.

      “Okay.” She was looking around, getting oriented. “So the place that you and I used to sneak into is over there...and is this the tree we could see from that dock?” She gestured over her shoulder toward the oak. “The one that we thought must be so great for climbing?”

      “It is that tree, and it is great for climbing, although it’s gotten harder since Dad had to take off the bottom branch last year. How much of a city girl are you?”

      “If you are asking if I can still climb a tree, I assume so, but you’ll need to give me a stirrup.” She cupped her hands, showing what she meant.

      He did so. She put one foot in his hands and then sprang up, catching a limb with her hands.

      How light she was, like a plastic beer mug, the kind that you’re expecting to be glass so when you first pick it up, you almost throw it over your shoulder.

      He looked up. Her calf muscles were strong and defined, curving down to her ankles. She was testing a big knot in the tree to see if she could use it as a step. He caught a glimpse of red panties.

      “Did you pick your underwear to match the juror tag?”

      She looked down at him, blank for a second. “Oh, right, yes. I called ahead.”

      In a moment she was standing on one of the limbs, holding on to a branch overhead, inching her way out to make room for him. He took another good look up her skirt, then jumped, grasped the lower limb, and hoisted himself up.

      “This is really stupid,” she said.

      “Why?”

      “We could fall.”

      “But we won’t,” he said confidently. And if they did...well, he had face-planted from a lot higher up than this.

      He gave her a hand so that she could sit down. It could have been a tricky maneuver, but she did it gracefully. You can take the girl out of the ballet studio, but you can’t... Then he reached through the leaves, grabbed another limb, and swung across so that he could sit facing her.

      She was trying to wriggle her skirt down over her thighs. The big watch on her wrist made her hand look small. “I’m not wearing the right clothes for this.”

      “I think you are.”

      She stuck out her tongue at him.

      It was nice, sitting here in the tree, watching the water. Bulldozers had been brought in to carve out the little public beach across the lake; everywhere else trees, grasses, and wildflowers sloped down to the rocky shoreline, the gray and brown rocks etching an undulated border between the patches of sun and shadows on the green slopes and the flat blue water. In the distance above the tree line were the Blue Ridge Mountains, their slopes covered with fine North Carolina hardwoods.