this dove's nest

The air felt like it could have been cut with a butter knife on that mid August afternoon. A late summer thunderstorm hung in the sky 20 miles west, a normal occurrence this time of year, which made the air thick and heavy. The clouds hadn’t quite reached the Devereux home yet and so the sun was still visible high overhead. Gnats buzzed and flew around each other aimlessly on the 159 year old porch, as if they too wanted inside, away from the heat and humidity. Remnants of lunch were left strewn on the porch steps. Sweet tea and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the only thing the Devereux kids had eaten all summer. 

Annabelle and her little brother Bobby were now sitting at the weathered front bay window of their Nana Cecily’s house, watching intently down the long graveled, tree lined driveway. The conditions outside had just been too much for them to bear and they’d retreated indoors. Nana, of course didn’t have any air conditioning in her house, as the Devereux home hadn’t gone through a major renovation since the invention of such a luxury. All she had were a few old vintage looking fans in front of which she placed bowls full of block ice. The ice helped, but the children sat miserable, too drained to joke and play fight as they usually did at home in the city at this time of day.

“Why oh why do mom and dad stick me here?” 12 year old Annabelle thought to herself as she sat there with Bobby, still staring out the window. She was just too old now to be spending summers at her Nana’s house. In fact, at that very moment she would have rather been at camp with her two best friends Vivi and Darla, where she imagined them swinging on a rope into the lake, horseback riding, and eating s’mores around a big campfire with the rest of the campers. She sat bitterly still, silently daydreaming of dancing with the cutest boy in school at the end-of-camp dance, until the noise she and her brother had been waiting for all day made their ears prick up. 

The familiar song got them into action. They hopped up quickly and were out the door in a flash, jumping over the leftover lunch, and running down the same rough graveled driveway they had been staring down for the last hour. The driveway seemed to stretch on forever, but Annabelle and Bobby just kept running, not wanting to miss their daily, ice cold fix. Bobby pulled ahead, as Annabelle unconsciously slowed down. Just as the ice cream truck approached the end of the driveway, Bobby’s little legs reached it first in triumph, with Annabelle pulling up behind him, both almost running into the side of the truck out of sheer inertia. They had made it. 

Annabelle completely forgot about Vivi, Darla, s’mores and the end of camp dance, as she walked back up the driveway with Bobby, vanilla ice cream dripping down her chin.

-Carly Dove