Sweet Summertime.

"I miss you, Max I mean, I know what you were doing, but... just, how could you leave us? Just up and gone and now I don't have my oldest brother anymore." Katie sat on her bed, looking at the framed picture of a proud Marine. She remembered the pride with which he'd tell his stories, how he seemed to carry himself so differently after he'd joined up, but... he was just gone now. Katie would never hear his laugh again, see that smile, or hear him call her Katie Jay aside from that one saved message on her phone.

She set the picture aside. He had died to protect her and her family, but she knew she could never look at summer again the way she used to. It used to be all fun, all laughter and smiles as they gathered around the stupid sinkhole out a mile back. They'd bring the neighborhood girls around, the ones who'd never been there before, and trick them into thinking that there were alligators in the water. Jake had fixed up a rope swing; the night they got the letter of his death, the branch to the tree had collapsed into the sinkhole, and the rope seemed like it was never there.

Mama had been broken after that. It had taken months for her to even smile or laugh again, and that had only been on her birthday when Katie and Anna had dressed up Harold the cow as a chicken.

(There's not an easy way to get a cow in a chicken suit, and both girls could account for that.)

Papa called from downstairs, asking her to come out and clean up the kitchen. Katie hesitated for just a moment before nodding to herself, "Coming!"

She glanced back at the picture of her brother, "I'll see you again someday, promise. I love you."