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Show Woodworth/5 When the children are gone, she feels old again, unattached. The summer stretches ahead of her, an endless shuffle of waiting days. Even her new job doesn't seem to make her feel good. It's only part-time, so it will take her until Fall to make enough money to afford a place of her own. And, until then, it will be living at home again, just like before she went away to college. Living at home, only without Jake and, now that Megan has her own apartment in New York, without the relief of Megan either. She keeps Grapes of Wrath, and randomly grabs another book by an author who is unfamiliar, and checks them both out. The air is still cool, still feels like the beginning of summer vacation. She remembers summer vacations in the past. The day after school ended, sleeping late. Then the predictable mounds of charts, foul weather gear, life jackets, growing in the dining room. Her mother would tell the children that it was time to pack. Only Marty packed three days before anyone told her. So she would lie on Jake's bed, and watch him. "Do you think I need two heavy sweaters?" he would ask her. She would tell him that he needed at least that many since he always left one behind at a beach party, or in the boat. They would wonder about who was coming to the island this summer. About whether Susan Lowell had got her braces off, and if the man in the liquor store would pretend he didn't know how old they were again this summer- Marty walks slowly, holding the books against her chest. Past the post office, always newly white, the flag always undulating. Past the dry cleaners, and Peter's drug store, with the potted geraniums lines up on the sidewalk. It all looks familiar. It |