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“Damien.” I reach for his hand and squeeze, surprised and almost moved to tears when he doesn’t immediately release me but grips me tight. “It’s complicated—Lucas and me.”
“I like him,” he says, low and with a thread of defiance. “He’s nice, and cool, and pretty funny for an old guy. I don’t get why you don’t want to see if…” He sighs, releasing my hand. “Forget it. It’s your life.”
“Oh, honey.”
I’m too late. The hormonal tides have turned against me, and he rockets off the couch and stalks to his bedroom. At least his door doesn’t slam, but a minute later, I hear aggressive metal music turn on.
My head flops back onto the couch.
“Fuck.”
I make it through the next day.
And the day after that.
Without actually agreeing to it, over the course of the week, Lucas and I fall into a habit of communicating solely via email and text. He’s bogged down with the business and construction side of things. Working out bugs in the website. More marketing. Training handbooks. Insurance. Permits. The list seems endless, and I’m very glad I’m not responsible for any of it.
I have my own laundry list of tasks to complete, including fine-tuning the different programs for different age groups—day camps for littles, overnights for grades eight and up. I also mock up daily and weekly schedules for each camp and spend hours making inventory spreadsheets, researching, and ordering supplies: everything from mattresses for the bunks to tools, art supplies, kilns, and forks and knives for the kitchen.
We have just over a month until our dozen newly hired and rehired staff arrive for orientations, six weeks until final inspections, and eight weeks until the first trial-run camp.
My anxiety simmers like a pot of water on eternal verge of boiling.
But I’ve never felt more alive.
I somehow carve out time to plan Damien’s birthday party coming up on Saturday, and on Wednesday we celebrate his actual birthday with our tradition of a low-key dinner at my parents.
I smile. I rejoice.
I tear up when he blows out the candles on his cake.
Thirteen.
After dinner and opening of presents—I got him a new skateboard he’s had his eye on, and his grandparents got him a new helmet and a video game he’s been wanting—I join my dad in the kitchen.
I try not to think about time moving, slipping darkly through an hourglass. How many more times will I find him making his decaf coffee before they leave for their new adventures?
“Hey, Dad.”
There must be something in my voice because he wipes his hands on a dishtowel and opens his arms. “Come here.”
I walk into his hug. He squeezes me tight, then kisses me on the head. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to give you, and I think it’s time.”
Chuckling weakly, I step back. “Not my birthday, Dad.”
He chucks me under the chin. “Come on. It’s upstairs.”
I follow him down the hallway lined with pictures, pointedly not looking at the one where a young boy and girl grin on the shore of a lake.
I linger on the threshold of my parents’ bedroom as my dad rummages in the bottom drawer of his dresser.
“Really, Dad, I don’t?—”
“Ah, here we are.” He stands and turns, proffering a short stack of envelopes wrapped in a thick red rubber band.
“What are those?”
I don’t like the sympathy in his eyes. Not one bit. It makes me take a step back.
