The Summer I Turned Pretty

Just like that, July turned into August. I guessed summer went by a lot faster when you had someone to spend it with. For me, that someone was Cam. Cam Cameron.

Mr. Fisher always came the first week of August. He’d bring Susannah’s favorites from the city, almond croissants and lavender chocolates. And flowers, he always brought flowers. Susannah loved flowers. She said she needed them like air, to breathe. She had more vases than I could count, tall ones and fat ones and glass ones. They were all over the house, flowers in vases in every room. Her favorites were peonies. She kept them on her nightstand in her bedroom, so they were the first thing she saw in the morning.

Shells, too. She loved shells. She kept them in hurricane glasses. When she’d come back from a walk on the beach, she’d always come back with a handful of shells. She’d arrange them on the kitchen table, admire them first, say things like, “Doesn’t this one look just like an ear?” Or, “Isn’t this one the perfect shade of pink?” Then she’d put them in order from biggest to smallest. It was one of her rituals, something I loved to watch her do.

That week, right around when Mr. Fisher usually came, Susannah mentioned that he couldn’t get away from work. There had been some sort of emergency at the bank. It would just be the five of us finishing out the summer. It would be the first year without Mr. Fisher and my brother.

After she went to bed, early, Conrad said to me, conversationally, “They’re getting a divorce.”

“Who?” I said.

“My parents. It’s about time.”

Jeremiah glared at him. “Shut up, Conrad.”

Conrad shrugged. “Why? You know it’s true. Belly’s not surprised, are you, Belly?”

I was. I was really surprised. I said, to both of them, “I thought they seemed like they were really in love.”

Whatever love was, I was sure they had it. I thought they had it a million times over. The way they gazed at each other at the dinner table, how excited Susannah got when he came to the summer house. I didn’t think people like that got divorced. People like my parents got divorced. Not Susannah and Mr. Fisher.

“They were in love,” Jeremiah told me. “I don’t really know what happened.”

“Dad’s a dick. That’s what happened,” Conrad said, getting up. He sounded so blasé and matter-of-fact, but that didn’t seem right. Not when I knew he adored his dad. I wondered if Mr. Fisher had a new girlfriend the way my father did. I wondered if he’d cheated on Susannah. But who would ever cheat on Susannah? It was impossible.

“Don’t tell your mom you know,” Jeremiah said suddenly. “Mom doesn’t know we know.”

“I won’t,” I said. I wondered how they’d found out. My parents had sat Steven and me down and told us everything, explained it all in detail.

As Conrad left, Jeremiah said to me, “Before we left, our dad had been sleeping in the guest room for weeks. He’s already moved out most of his clothes. Did they seriously think we wouldn’t notice?” His voice cracked at the last part.

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. He was really hurting. I guessed maybe Conrad was too, even if he didn’t show it. It all made sense, when I thought about it. The way Conrad had been acting, so different, so lost. So un-Conrad-like. He was suffering. And then there was Susannah. The way she’d been spending so much time in bed, the way she seemed so sad. She was hurting too.