The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson

We're a sight. Three pickup trucks traveling down the highway, each with one of the Creamery's picnic tables hanging over the tailgate. And me, in the lead, in my old bronze F-150, my best friend, Florence, laughing from her shotgun seat. Summer arrives to the prairies slow and stays for such a short time. But Florence and me, we're tough enough. We've wound down the windows all the way, because it's tradition.

Last year this time, we were so giddy for summer, for freedom. Florence is trying to bring us back to that place. Her red hair whips around the cab like a storm. It tickles my arm, my cheek. We're singing along to the radio bad country music because, again, it's tradition. If doing something two years running makes for tradition.

But it's not the trucks and Florence's wild hair causing us tostand out on Highway 16. It's one of the cattle dogs, with his orange-and-white coat, riding atop the picnic table I'm hauling like he's surfing. Homer's a character an old man with the heart of a young pup. He's the star of cleanup day.

It's not the best day of the season. It's not the worst. But it's certainly a show.

When we approach the turn into the shack's lot, I slow down carefully, watching Homer's dog-smile out the rearview to be sure he's ready for this. It's a balance, and keeping the balance is my job. Homer trusts me. We pull into the clearing, where the shack has sat all winter, and before I can park, an orange-and-white blur jumps off the truck, kissing the land with a little thud. He settles in for the day, in the shade against a stand of trees, where he'll watch us, like he watches the cows. Coyotes, bears, and other predators don't get too close, not with Homer standing guard.

As we wait for my uncle Dom and my mom to arrive, Florence examines her freshly painted nails, all red like blood. She's decked head to toe in black. Her skinny jeans are artfully ripped at the knees and across one thigh. We're giggling over the song lyrics pouring out of my speakers trucks, girls, and ice-cold beers, like that's all there is to life when Dom raps on the side of the truck and says, "Let's get started!"

"Loading the picnic tables and the paint and all these supplies wasn't part of the job?" I ask, climbing down.

Throwing his head back so his gorgeous brown hair flutters, Dom grins.

Once we unload the picnic tables, my mom lugs her massivebeading kit from her truck. She's brought the portable stadium seat alongthe one she drags to the pool when she watches me swim. She's here to keep us company, not to work. Last week, she quit her hellish job at the 911 dispatch to dedicate herself to art. She spent the first fall we lived here learning the craft. Her fingers bled first, then callused over. Now, she beads while she watches TV, beads while she eats.

If she could, she'd do it in her sleep.

She's leaving me, leaving us for the summer. But she's here today. Teasing and cackling at me, or her brother, with entire lungfuls of air.

Excerpted fromThe Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson. Copyright 2022Jen Ferguson. Published by Heartdrum, a division of HarperCollinsCanada.