Some Year

BY THE END OF THE SUMMER, MANY THINGS HAD HAPPENED. Eunice had become engaged to be married and would be leaving home before Christmas. Bullet had become the best rabbit dog in the county, so Okey had started loaning him out to hunters—which meant Okey had more man-talk and was happier, and sober, more often. He was even thinking about buying a female beagle and raising some pups. Carolyn had met a boy named Bryan at the lake and was going with him. And Ellie was waiting for a birthday.

This birthday worried her more than any ever had. Birthdays had always worried her. In fact, there were two things she never liked: sitting up on New Year’s Eve waiting for midnight, and waiting for a birthday. Ellie figured she must be the weirdest girl she knew.

Her mother said she could have a party if she wanted. But she decided not to. Carolyn’s party had been the best time she had ever had, and she just didn’t want to chance it. She knew in her heart her own would never compare.

So she said no. And asked for a chocolate cake with white icing and for Carolyn to come for dinner with them.

On August 26 then, the pressure cooker was rattling away with a roast inside it, Martha and Wanda were decorating the cake and Okey was going to pick up Carolyn. Ellie couldn’t believe it when he offered to, but he did, and Ellie said thank you and meant it.

Maybe it was Okey’s brush with death that made this occasion seem important. Maybe it was Eunice’s news. Or the summer days that had been so full of time together.

But Ellie sensed that the whole family seemed really, truly happy about this birthday, her twelfth, whether because they loved her or because they had just been looking for an excuse to decorate a cake and eat it. Ellie’s mother started the cooking with no complaint, her sisters didn’t bicker, Okey cheerfully went off in the truck for Carolyn and Ellie sat outside with Bullet and wondered at it all.

“Me and you,” she whispered in his ear, “had some kind of year, huh, Bullet?”

She thought about poor Lester Wood and Harold’s kiss and Harvey’s fit.

“Some year,” she said, scratching the inside of Bullet’s ear.

It was scary to her to turn twelve. Not a teenager yet, but so close she trembled a little to think of it. To think of looking like her sisters in another year.

She kissed Bullet’s warm nose and went in to get her gun. She brought it out, set up some cans and started shooting. Okey would be back with Carolyn soon. Not much time left before she’d have to put down the rifle and go on inside. The family would all be waiting.