Under a Dark Summer Sky by Vanessa Lafaye Read Free Book Online

she’d rather just stay home in a shapeless shift and sit on the porch until the mosquitoes became unbearable. Just rock and watch night fall on the sea and wait for Nelson to come home from the country club, as she did most evenings. He seldom chose to be seen in public with her anymore, which she could well understand, but the whole town would be out tonight. She forced her dimpled feet into a pair of delicate gold sandals. Maybe we can come home early.
    When she had returned that afternoon, she had been surprised to find Selma in charge. There had been a strange, mysterious vibration in the air, but Selma had explained, with her strong, level gaze, that Missy had spilled juice on her uniform and gone home to clean up. It was entirely plausible, and yet… But Hilda knew better than to probe. Selma’s eyes invited no discussion. Hilda never felt entirely comfortable in her presence; she moved so quietly for a big girl. Missy had brought her in to help one night with a big dinner party, back when the Kincaids still entertained, and ever since, Selma would just appear at odd times.
    Missy’s Mama had put Nathan down for the night. There was no reason to tarry, yet Hilda cast around for something to detain her, to put off a little longer that awful moment when she would arrive at the beach and face the stares and barely disguised snickers. She consulted the cheval mirror in the corner. The only way she could view the reflection without tears was to pretend it belonged to someone else. Some fat, frumpy old thing, with disappointed eyes.
    She missed so many things. She missed her prebaby body. She missed Daddy, the comfort of his arms, the peppery smell of his pipe tobacco. He always made everything all right. Her one small consolation was that he was not around to see what his princess had become. She missed the seasons, the early years in New Hampshire, before Daddy’s emphysema forced the family south in search of a kinder climate. Those years remained in her mind, perfectly preserved, like the leaf she had once found encased in ice. There she had felt safe and oh, so treasured.
    Everyone had told her she would get used to the monotonous, wet heat of Florida. She had not. Even after all these years, she longed for the crisp catch of the fall bonfire smoke in her throat, the crystal stillness of snow-covered pines, the raucous choruses of migrating geese.
    She stared in despair at the figure in the mirror, the gaping buttons, the bulges at her hips. She pulled harder on the fabric. All her pretty dresses had gone. She could not bear to look at them once the baby weight had set like concrete on her stomach, her thighs. Soon, Nettie would have some new dresses for her, shapeless tents in which she could hide her ravaged figure away. They represented defeat. She only wanted to stay home, away from the scornful glances of the other women who met for coffee and tennis at the country club. Their baby weight seemed to melt away within weeks, like the snow she missed so much. At one time, not so long ago, those same women had wanted to be her friend, when she was the slim, stunning beauty queen, with a future as bright and sparkling as the sea. After all, she had been crowned Miss Palmetto, two years running. Hilda Humbert as she was then, saddled with an ugly stump of a name but blessed with a fragile beauty that could make grown men weep.
    All through her early teens, Daddy had seen off any boy brave or stupid enough to attempt to get near her. She was special, a sacred treasure, a fruit of perfect ripeness to be presented to the best of society at the cotillion ball on her nineteenth birthday. It seemed as if the very stars had aligned to shine for her. Her life, Daddy always said, was charmed. Only the best for her, always the best.
    And then, not long after she turned eighteen, Nelson Kincaid had arrived, at the wheel of a cream-colored Cadillac roadster with burgundy interior. She knew very well not to talk to