Chapter Eleven #2
“Absolutely,” I reassure him, and he smiles. “I doubt Kai would have a problem with that.”
“Then fuck my dad. I wanna go.”
“I didn’t say fuck your dad,” I remind him with a chuckle.
“I said that it’s okay to respectfully spread your wings a little.
Maybe that’ll be the homework I send you out of here with today.
Talk to him. Have that conversation about what your plans look like.
Maybe he just needs to see you’re taking initiative.
He might surprise you and be more accepting than you think. ”
“Thanks, Mr. G,” Colton says, standing up and grabbing his notebook.
“I’ll try. You know, he did thank me for going out and getting the mattress for him the other day, and—get this—he apologized to me for thinking it was me at first.” The look on my face leaves him chuckling. “I know, right? I was just as shocked.”
“Your dad certainly is full of surprises,” I tell him. “Wanna meet up again in a few more days, and we can see how the college talk goes?”
“Sounds dope,” he replies.
“Super dope, bruh,” I tease back.
He scrunches his nose up. “Alright, that just sounds suss coming from you.”
“Oh yeah, super sussy,” I huff, chuckling. “You forget I live with Morgan. She speaks to me in the language of the skibidi toilet, so I’ve got rizz.”
He shakes his head with a laugh, as the door snicks shut behind him.
I never get this. This seems so surreal.
I have the house to myself; Kai took off for the weekend to go back and attend Portland Pride.
It rained most of the morning, so the campers were all occupied in the rec hall, having a board game day.
I got through my work, having had many really good sessions with some of the kids who have struggled the most. As soon as the sun popped out, they were all antsy to go on a kayaking adventure.
That left me, finally, with some time to catch up on housework.
The soup in the crock pot isn’t quite done yet. The laundry is going. Snarf’s furry tumbleweeds aren’t bad enough to sweep up yet. There isn’t something pressing that I need to take care of around the camp, since Evan’s been busy tackling all those.
What the heck am I even supposed to do right now?
I have hobbies, I swear. Well, had. I haven’t really had a chance to tackle them lately. Mom instilled a love of photography in me. I suppose I could download a few of them off my camera and spend some time editing them.
I rummage around my closet for my camera bag, and sit down at my desk in the living room. I pull the SD card from the side, and plug it into my laptop. I scroll through the images in the memory—trying to think back to when I even had a chance to get out and shoot these pictures.
Two years. Two years ago was the last time I was even able to go out and hike to the meadowland at the base of Steepled Mountain. It’s not even like the trailhead is that far from my front door, half-hour tops, it’s that I’ve just been too busy.
Parts of me that I’ve let go of, just taking care of my responsibilities.
Virtually, I take myself back to that trip there.
The sun was out that day. I remember it being hot but not too hot.
There was just enough of a breeze to watch it make the tall grass ripple like waves at the beach.
Wildflowers danced and swayed everywhere—black-eyed Susans, wild perennial lupines, coreopsis, and wild cosmos.
Monarchs bobbed and flitted, all dancing to the hum of bumblebees buzzing their way from flower to flower.
I saved a few flower clippings with the express purpose of letting them dry out to press them, but before I could get to doing so, I caught Sir Snarflington—Morgs named him, not me—in here gnawing on all the crunchy stems. He’s lucky he’s cute.
I promised myself I would go back for more, but apparently that hasn’t been in the cards for me.
A couple of hours later, satisfied with my editing of four pictures, I email them to my mother.
I’m sure I will get a reply back soon, telling me how impressed she is that I took some time for myself, for once.
They’ll wind up as postcards in a few weeks, and she’ll sell them in her gallery—purchased by tourists who chose to come to the Western Hills region for the summer, instead of Maine’s iconic coastline.
I let her keep all the money she makes from selling my photography.
I know the art gallery needs income to stay afloat in the winter months, though she’d never admit that to me.
I also know that Ma should be fully retired by now, but is only partially so, affording them exotic trips around the globe.
Over the distant rumble of incoming thunder, I hear the ping from my phone, half expecting that reply, but it’s not.
Sully
SOS, el capitan. All the ships are loose on the ocean.
Sully’s been a longtime fixture of CHW, and, in my humble opinion, makes the best chicken-corn casserole ever. The campers all seem to agree. He likes to call this place a ship, and touts me as the captain and Morgan the skipper.
Unsure about what this vague text means, though, I look out the window down towards the mess hall, where it looks as though the campers are all gathering for supper. Beyond that is the lake, and suddenly, I see what he means.
“Oh no… no, no, no! This can’t be happening!” I mutter to myself
Heat lightning briefly lightens the sky enough for me to spot nearly all the twelve kayaks we own adrift and getting carried away by the chop that’s formed by the incoming storm.
I should have known that a relaxing night in wasn’t in the cards for me.
I quickly strip out of my clothing, find the closest pair of swim trunks, and haul them up.
Someone must not have tied the boats up well in their haste to get the campers off the water and out of the looming storm’s path.
Those kayaks are all Old Town kayaks, the best of the best. I cannot lose a single one of those. That kind of financial strain, not even a full month into our season, would hurt us critically. Not giving a rat's patoot about the impending storm, I sprint down the hill towards the lake.