The weather is so beastly and unrelenting, it’s like a cruel joke. The ice cream is always runny, no matter how long it hibernates in the deep freeze. Our back field turns brown and crackly, littered with grasshopper husks and lost blueberries, as dry and hard as pebbles. The cicadas sound tired, their chirps thin and grating. Or maybe they’re just drowned out by the grind of the air-conditioning units, which blast constantly, or so it always seems. In August we all retreat indoors. We can’t even stand the screened porch, where the ceiling fans just waft hot air at you, which is about as refreshing as being under a hair dryer. My parents spend the month puttering (when they’re not at The Scoop). My dad does the taxes on the dining room table and my mom pulls out her to-do list. Then she grabs any kid within reach and assigns him or her random, awful tasks like scrubbing the bathroom grout with an electric toothbrush or spray painting all the chipped air-conditioning vents.
