Summer Months !free! Now

June arrived like a held breath finally released. The days stretched, elastic and golden. She swam before breakfast, the water startling at first then forgiving. She learned the names of wildflowers—yarrow, oxeye daisy, vetch. She wrote postcards she never mailed.

One evening, a thunderstorm rolled in off the bay. She sat on the screened porch and watched the sky split and mend, split and mend. The power went out. She lit candles, made a sandwich by flashlight, and realized she hadn’t checked her phone in six hours. summer months

She had come for the summer months. But the summer months, she realized, had been waiting for her all along. June arrived like a held breath finally released

The last week of August, she packed her bags slowly. She washed the sheets and folded them into the linen closet. She left the rhubarb basket on Mrs. Pellegrino’s step, filled with the stones she’d collected. She turned off the water heater and emptied the fridge. She learned the names of wildflowers—yarrow, oxeye daisy,

August came heavy and sweet, the way fruit knows it’s about to fall. The goldenrod bloomed along the roadside, and the crickets sawed their legs together in a chorus that started at dusk and didn’t stop until dawn. She swam at midnight once, the water bioluminescent, each stroke leaving a trail of cold green sparks. She laughed alone in the dark, and the sound felt like something she’d forgotten she owned.