The Long Summer

A bead of sweat trickles down my nose, drip, drip, dripping off the end to my chin. There it pools, stagnates. My hand forces its way through the thick air and pushes through the puddle, swiping my chin dry. 

My hand falls, bounces to rest on the yellowing grass. I keep my eyes closed, ignoring the demanding rays of the sun. Then: another droplet. 

This one falls from my forehead to my ear, tickling my lobe. I shake my head gently, but it refuses to dislodge. Before I can wipe it, my eyebrow is moist and sending rivulets down my left cheek. As the sun really gets going and beats down a vengeance, I am swiftly reminded just how much water lives in my body. And it is desperate to get out. 

Clammy crevices everywhere speak up, loudly complaining of their distress. I stretch my limbs out, ignoring the itch of the dying grass and feel streams running down the back of my legs, my forearms, as gravity takes hold. 

My face tightens, pleading for shade. I give in, and roll onto my front. There are a few desperate ants still scurrying around on the cracked earth easily visible through the frail wildgrass. Propping my head up on a forearm, I give my head a small shake. Droplets of sweat splash onto the parched ground, one so large it captures an entire ant as it lands. 

The ants see their friend enjoy his respite from the heat and dash into the tiny puddles themselves, soaking up the salt. I enjoy watching them, occasionally teasing them with a gentle poke of a blade of grass. In this heat my thoughts are sluggish, and this is all the entertainment I need to pleasantly pass by the afternoon. 

For a blessed second: achingly cool shade drops across my head. I look up, unable to make out details of the silhouette against the blinding sun. 

“Come inside,” the shadow says. “You’re ripening like a tomato out here.” 

Sighing, I leave the ants, and drowsily follow the shade back to the house. The kitchen is shrouded in gloom, blinds yanked down against the summer. 

“Sit,” my mother says. “And squeeze.”

Lemons fill the far end of the room, spilling out of bags onto work surfaces and rolling across the tiled floor. My overheated heart sinks. 

“There’ll be no sun left by the time I’ve finished all of these,” I protest.

“You’ve been out there everyday this week,” my mother replies. “And the sun will still be there tomorrow.” I reach for a lemon, and a leathered hand appears out of nowhere to slap my wrist. “Look at your fingers,” she cries. “Don’t you dare touch anything until those are scrubbed clean.” 

Dirt mixes with sweat on my hardened fingers, seeping into the cracks that the sun has worn into me. Dutifully I slather my hands in soap and scour my skin, but the layer formed by the elements is burnished deep. Flexing my fingers in the dim light, it is clear that my knuckles are going to need many more rinses. 

Muttering under her breath, my mother grabs a hand and begins to scrape with the washcloth. My cries of pain as she rubs away my skin only spur her on, gradually revealing a cleaner layer underneath. Satisfied, she lets go and begins with the other hand. 

“I told you,” she says vehemently. “Everyday you sit out and boil yourself, everyday you come in too tired to help with the housework, everyday you avoid your bath. And now, look at yourself.”

“It’s summer,” I protest. “Soon the heat will be gone for another year.” 

She tuts at me. “And you will be no more help to me in the winter.” 

Finally appeased, she frees me. “There are more lemons in the back,” she warns. 

“Can I at least get a cut of the profits this time?” I ask. “As this will take me the entire rest of the day?” 

She slaps me round the head in a resounding no. 

In the next room the whirr of a fan sputters into life, signalling that my Grandpa has finally awoken. 

“Get started,” my mother says. “I’m going to check on your Grandpa.” 

“With the lemonade money can we buy another fan?” I ask hopefully. “Or maybe I can squeeze the lemons in the next room with the two of you?” 

There is a dull thud on the wall. “Don’t you let her come in ‘ere making a mess,” Grandpa bellows. “The kitchen is for that kind of work, and nowhere else.” 

Mother gives a smug smirk in reply. “If you'd spent your summer working, rather than sunbathing, then maybe you could buy your own fan.” 

I want to throw a lemon at her head as she leaves, but the soupy kitchen air is too warm for that kind of exertion. Gloomily I begin squeezing. 

Soon there are piles of juiced halves all around me, and yet the heap at the other end of the kitchen never seems to get any smaller. Acid spikes my cracked hands with jolts of pain, and even my hair drips with stickiness, and still there are more lemons to come. As I slice into the waxy skin, the smell changes from refreshing to cloying, turning my stomach over and over with each new fruit. 

And then finally. After my vision has tunneled down to the specific lemon in my hand, unaware of time or others moving around me, I reach out for another. And there are no more. 

My body is too tired to let the cheer topple over the edge of my tongue. I push away the jug of lemon juice to join the others, the kitchen table overflowing with containers of all shapes and sizes. Slowly, slowly, slowly I scoop the lemon halves into bags, towing them to the back door where eventually Grandpa will add them to his compost. 

I step out onto the veranda, perching on the edge of the warm pine and swinging my legs over the side. The porch door creaks open behind me, and then there is a frosty glass in my hand. Mother clambers down to sit beside me, her aching joints protesting audibly. We share a tired grin, bumping shoulders together to remind each other of our love. Before us the sun is sliding over the distant horizon, kissing the land with final rays of warmth and shattering the oncoming darkness with beams of crimson. 

“What do you have planned for tomorrow?” My mother asks. 

I take a sip of chilled lemonade, teeth clinking against the glass as I laugh. 

“What do you think.” I reply, as the light vanishes, and stars pinprick across the sky. Even though night has fallen, sweat still drips down our noses, tumbling to the ground. In the long summer, the heat never really leaves.