Читать книгу Secret Summers - Glynda Shaw - Страница 3

Yes, Ninian is a boy’s name, a man’s, and that was the name on Claire Halley’s letter. It wasn’t addressed to Mom or to the whole family. Just to me. Could I have glimpsed even one week beyond school’s letting out, I might well have ripped up the creamy sheet of handwritten stationery with its violet borders and faint hint of perfume. At least hidden the preposterous thing until it could no longer threaten my summer along with everything else reliable and familiar. Or maybe not. Thinking back, there often appeared to have been two of me and at times we disagreed.

“My dearest Ninian,” the letter began. I stared again at the signature. The handwriting did look familiar, but still I couldn’t place it.

Doubtless, it will seem strange to receive a letter addressed to you, my dearest nephew, from an aunt whom you’ve never met. This is not entirely correct because you have indeed met me, but you were but a baby and will doubtless not recall though I remember you.

Time and distance have conspired to keep us apart these ten years, but you’ve never been far from my thoughts. An aunt will be always mindful of her sister’s children because they are as close to her own flesh as may be. I hope you would not think I harbor any ill will toward your mother or she to me. As girls we were close as could be but as I’ve said before, things geographic (yes, and historic) have kept us parted since that joyous time of your own birthing.

Speaking now of geography as I have, I finally come to the real reason for my writing this letter; to propose a practical exercise in geography, yes, and history as well, from where you currently reside to this seaside locale, which I’ve been privileged to call my abode these many years. School is about to end and the summer looms ahead. Could I prevail upon you, please, to spend this summer with your Aunt Claire? Please? I have a wonderful old house in which I can only rattle about. There is much adventure here with woods and beach, waves and riverbank to delight the curious youth. As time passes, I think ever more of how I would love to share with you some of the excitement and fascination with which we here on the Oregon Coast are blessed.

“I am writing as well to your mother, My Dearest Sister, entreating her for the opportunity to borrow from her but for a season a portion of that joy that I know must be hers, yourself. Please take time to weigh carefully the advantages of a summer at the beach, in the woods, and on the waters. And having so weighed impartially and soberly, please say yes!

Your loving aunt,

Claire

The envelope had been waiting unopened in my place at the table when I came home from school. The last name on the return address, I’d been startled to find, was the same as ours. Reexamining now, I turned it over several times searching for any hint that it might be intended for someone else or even written as a joke. There was nothing about the letter or its envelope to suggest anything other than it claimed. I was being invited to some place in Oregon to spend my summer with someone whose existence I hadn’t even suspected until I arrived home Friday afternoon. Fifth grade’s finally over and something like this has to happen!

No, I guessed this really wasn’t something I could just put away and ignore. Anyhow, Mom must already have known what was in it. She had been kind of jumpy of late. After Vivian had left home in a huff to go live with Jill out in British Columbia, Mom had been more and more nervous and grabby about everything I did. Now with a twinge of guilt, I wondered if this was something I should have waited until she got home to open.

I was still sitting there with chin on hand when the front door’s banging open startled me out of my daydream, “Hello, Darling, home so soon?”

“Hi,” I called in response to Mom’s over cheerful greeting. I jumped up from the dining room table hurrying out to help in case she had packages. Friday was usually her early day, but this afternoon she’d gone shopping. Now, I knew this had been no coincidence. ”Look what came in the mail,” I offered, holding it out.

Mom had only one slim bag but took her time laying it on the couch before untying her rain bonnet and slipping off her sweater. It was muggy but wet this June. Finally, she accepted the plain white envelope. ”My name was on it,” I pointed out as she extracted Claire’s letter.

“Yes,” she said. ”I brought this in when I came home from work this afternoon. I guess you didn’t realize you had an aunt.”

“You never told me,” I said. ”Did you get mad at her or something?” My almost eleven-year-old mind was racing to encompass the enormity of the thing. Even surly Viv sent me notes and the odd little present even if she hardly spoke to Mom. How could you go for almost as long as I’d been alive and not talk to your own sister? Mom looked very far away, perhaps to some other life I thought.

“No,” she said, “not mad at her. It’s just that a great many things can happen in a life, two lives; sometimes taking the time to understand it all is just more than we’re ready to handle till it’s nearly too late.”

I was getting a little scared here. When mom started talking to me like a grown-up, it usually meant she was depressed, or I’d done something way beyond the Nin-what-are-you-up-to-now stage.

“You’ll go spend a few weeks with her,” she told me.

“What?!” I half shouted. ”How can I go spend my summer with somebody I’ve never even met?”

“You’ll be just fine,” she decided. ”Your aunt loves you so very much that I’m sure you’ll do just great together. It’ll be a wonderful opportunity for you.”

Yeah, I thought, wonderful opportunity. Like advanced Math and piano lessons! ”Jeeze!”

“Look,” Mom said, “I want you to just think about it, and if you really really don’t want to go, I guess we can tell your aunt no thank you, but I’d at least like you to talk to her on the phone first. Would you do that for me?”

Well, now that Mom was asking me instead of just telling, I figured I’d pretty much have to say yes, so I told her, “Okay. I guess so.”

“Fantastic,” she said, relief showing in every crease of her face. ”She’ll call for you tonight at seven.”