Page 58 of Then Came the Fall
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They did a good job.”
“Are you sure I can’t take you out to lunch?”
“Thanks, but I promised Pat I’d be getting there by mid-afternoon. Plus, I don’t know what traffic’s going to be like getting down to the ferry.”
Aunt Lucy nodded. “Well, the least I can do is walk you to your car.”
“Au contraire,” I said. “I’ll be walkingyoutoyourcar. I don’t need you wandering the mean streets of Hartford all alone.”
She laughed. “I’m in the parking garage.”
“Well, that works, because so am I.”
We strolled to Aunt Lucy’s car, a boxy blue Volvo that she’d had for as long as I could remember. Standing behind it, we stopped and faced each other.
“I’m proud of you, Taylor,” she said.
I shuffled my feet, staring at my sandals. “Thanks,” I replied.
“You’re a good kid. You’ve really made the best out of a bad situation."
I nodded. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” Truer words had never been spoken. After my dad went to jail, Aunt Lucy and I packed up the apartment in Queens and moved me out to the posh hills of Boston, and even though it was only temporary as I had just one year standing in the way of going off to college, it was something of a home base, a place to not be alone at Christmas and Thanksgiving. And so, despite our differing personalities and opposing views on a variety of subjects (most notably, whether or not my father was worthy of forgiveness), I was genuinely grateful for my aunt’s love and support.
We shared a brief, rare hug, and Lucy dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I will miss our laundry Sundays,” she offered.
“Me too. But you’ll see me soon enough. Summer’s not that long. And hey, keep out of mischief, okay? I don’t want any reports from the neighbors of wild house parties once I’m gone.”
Lucy cracked a smile. “You too. Here.” She placed a small wad of twenty-dollar bills in my palm. “For gas and in case you get hungry.”
“Thanks.”
We hugged again, and I walked away. When the Volvo taillights turned a corner, I was officially free. I located my beat-up Taurus stuffed with garbage bags of clothing, my old footlocker, and a duffel bag of other personal items. I slid into the driver’s seat, lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply, savoring the sweet taste of tobacco on my tongue. The nicotine ran through my bloodstream, temporarily calming my nerves for the ride ahead.
The drive to camp took much longer than expected. Punctuated by a lengthy wait at the Bridgeport ferry terminal, a boat that moved like molasses across the Long Island Sound, and a five-mile stretch of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the New York side, I had to keep the music blasting loudly enough to drown out thoughts that maybe this was the universe standing in my way of going back there.
Mom used to say, “Sometimes the only way to move forward is to go backwards first.” I’d been using these words as a mantra of sorts, helping to propel me through the end of the school year. I first remembered the old saying back in February when I was writing my thesis on SSRIs and today’s youth and I came to the realization that it was time to wean off my own drugs once and for all. I skipped my first dose that morning and couldn’t fall asleep later that night because my mind was racing. I decided to busy myself on the Internet into the wee hours of the next day, looking up old friends on social media. One click led to another, and before I knew it, I was on Sound Hollow’s website, completing an application for the assistant camp director position.A shot in the dark, I figured.Really, what 24-year-old goes back to camp for the summer?
Yet, as I rounded the curve of the last exit of the Long Island Expressway, ogling the massive outlet mall and remembering how the only place to shop out here when I was a kid was a discount variety store called Cheap John’s, I took in my surroundings. The growing commercialism on the main road still faded to open fields of fresh grass with huge irrigation systems. Small groups of workers picked strawberries on a farm. A roadside stand sold fresh cut flowers. I rolled down the windows, breathing in the smell of freshly mowed grass. My heart skipped a beat as the scented air flooded my mind with my happiest childhood memories.
I turned my car through the main gate of the boys’ side of Sound Hollow Sleepaway Camp, passing the big old red barn and vegetable garden on the right, the faded blacktop basketball courts on the left, and the peach and apple trees near the farm cabin. Everything looked untouched, exactly as I had left it seven years earlier, only I knew that now the entire camp was confined to one side of the property.Low enrollment, I heard through the Facebook grapevine. I half-expected to see Willow, my favorite old barn cat, napping on the hood of the broken-down John Deere tractor hidden at the far corner of the small orchard, which was also surprisingly still there. But Willow wasn’t there. Seven years was a long time.She probably died.The notion made my throat go dry. Overwhelmed, I fought back the urge to cry, which caught me off guard. "Big girls don’t cry," the old song whined during the opening scene toDirty Dancing, which I remembered watching for the first time more than a dozen years ago on the floor of the Lodge.Pull it together.
I parked on the grass by the main office at the end of the road. Opening the car door, I planted my feet on the ground, inhalingthe fragrant cedar chips, feeling my shoulders naturally fall, the stress slowly melting away. The sun shone through the treetops, radiating streaky rays of light on my face. A mosquito landed on my forearm and began to bite me. With swift precision, I smacked it, leaving a tiny splotch of blood, the remnants of an unfinished meal beside the bug’s corpse. I wiped it away. One more deep breath.You can do this.
I opened the door to the camp office, hearing the spring on the wood-framed screen squeak as it stretched. Instinctively, I cocked out my hip to stop the door from slamming.Old habits die hard, I laughed to myself, amazed that I would remember such a little detail after all this time.
“Taylor Roberts?” the redhead at the desk squealed. “Oh my God! You haven’t changed a bit!”
“Callie? Holy crap! Long time no see! Howareyou?” I opened my arms and folded the girl—woman, really—into a firm hug. Callie was different but the same, having traded a lifeguard-red one piece for the maternal softness of a pair of khaki shorts and a baggy green staff shirt.
“I’m good! Everyone’s good. The girls are getting big—three years old already.” She pointed at a framed photo of her twin girls resting on the rusty metal desk, their curly fire-colored hair and big smiles mirroring Callie’s features.
“They’re adorable! I love all the pictures you post.”
“Thanks. And look at you! You haven’t aged a day.”
“Stop,” I replied. “You look great. Motherhood definitely agrees with you.”
“You’re sweet. I’ll say this: enjoy your youth while you can. I’ve aged more in the last three years than in my entire life.”
