* * *
Trip and I graduated at the end of May, and in many ways it was the same as the first time. Our families were there and we posed for pictures. The speeches were definitely the same—do great things!—and the atmosphere was festive. Laszlo and his wife were there as well, and he was as proud as I’d ever seen him.
But it was a very different experience in other ways. I had a wife and children this time. I already had my license, plus several years of experience. I didn’t need to look for a job. Instead, I had plans to go into business for myself.
Part of me was excited about the future. But another part was sad to leave friends and professors, people I’d grown close to. I also felt a sense of loss for my female friend. We still had feelings for each other, even though our friendship had never recovered.
I searched the milling crowd and spotted her nearby. She was standing with her parents and grandparents, and her teenage brothers were horsing around in the background.
Our eyes met and she ventured a smile, but it was sad. Her expression hardened as Christy moved in front of me. Her mother noticed and asked her a question. My friend gave me a searching look before she turned away.
“Here, will you take her?”
I blinked and realized that Christy had spoken. “What?”
“Take her.” She handed me Susie, and my other daughters crowded around. “I want to take pictures for my parents,” Christy said. “Nana, you too. Move closer.”
We posed for several pictures. Christy checked the little screen on the back of the camera. It was new and digital, and she already knew how to use it better than I did.
“Who wants to see?” she asked Laurie and Emily with bright-eyed enthusiasm. She knelt, and the girls ran to her.
I looked for my friend, but she was gone forever, without even a proper goodbye.
“Who was she?” Nana C. asked quietly.
“What? Who?”
“That young woman.”
“Just a friend,” I said vaguely. “From the master’s program.”
“Ah.” She managed to convey a lifetime of experience in a single syllable.
I looked at her sideways, but she merely smiled back at me. Then her expression sobered, although she tilted her head in a gesture I was very familiar with.
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” she said.
“In other words,” I said after a moment, “you understand.”
“Of course.” She sighed and patted my arm, more in compassion than disapproval. Then she looked at Christy and the older girls, and her message was clear: You made the right choice.
“I think so too,” I said aloud.
“Mmm.”
Part 4: Jul 1996
Our little two-car caravan arrived at the Pines in July 1996 with four tired adults and five very cranky kids. We’d been up since the crack of dawn, when we’d left Boston and flown commercial to Atlanta. We planned to return and do some house-hunting after a week at camp, so we’d rented two minivans and had driven from there.
I wasn’t quite ready to walk into the woods and keep going, but it was tempting. My parents had never had to deal with dead batteries in Game Boys, leaky juice boxes, or stinky diapers. Then again, Erin and I had been older when we’d started coming to camp, so we’d probably driven them crazy in different ways. I loved my little girls, but I had a newfound respect for my mother’s patience.
I handed backpacks to Laurie and Emily, and Christy shepherded them into the bungalow. Then I unbuckled Susie from her car seat. She gave me one of her dubious looks. She didn’t like the heat, the humidity, or the sounds of nature. She did, however, recognize the swimming pool.
She pointed. “Poo?”
“Uh-huh. That’s the pool.”
“Poo? Sim?”
“Sure, we can go swimming. But we need to unload the car first.”
She glowered. “Sim?”
“After we unload. We need to—” I had an idea, so I grabbed the duffel bag with all our swim gear.
Some part of me wondered if my own parents had had to deal with so much stuff when we’d come to camp. I only remembered a single laundry basket of food and another with sheets, towels, and flip-flops. I was probably forgetting a lot, but we hadn’t brought bags full of things, and certainly not loaded suitcases. Granted, the suitcases were for when we returned to Atlanta, but they still reminded me that we didn’t travel light, especially when Christy did the packing.
“Come on,” I said to Susie, “let’s go find Mommy. You all can go for a swim while I unload the car. What do you think about that?”
“Sim?” Susie said hopefully.
“Yes, swim.”
“Sim! Sim!”
* * *
We hadn’t been there long when a group returned from the main camp. Leah, Mark, and McKenna had arrived a day earlier, along with Kara, Victor, and their ten-year-old twins, Jana and Kyra.
The adults waved when they saw me. Then the twins picked up McKenna between them. The little girl shrieked in delight as they swung her and ran toward the pool, where Christy and Wren were playing with our own girls.
“Hey, welcome,” Mark said to me when they drew near.
“Thanks.” We exchanged pleasantries, and he asked about our trip. “It was okay,” I said. “It’s been a long day, but we survived.”
“Well, now you can relax,” he said. “We’ll get you something to drink, and—” He frowned and nodded toward the pool. “Hold on, where’re Trip and Davis?”
“Oh, they’re in the clubhouse, watching a ballgame. The Braves’re playing the Cowboys.”
Victor looked puzzled, but Mark knew my running joke.
“At Madison Square Garden?”
“Exactly,” I chuckled.
He turned to Victor and explained, “Paul isn’t a fan of sportsball.”
That only made things worse, but at least Victor understood Mark’s sense of humor. I decided to change the subject anyway.
“Where are the others?”
“It’s just us chickens for now,” Mark said.
“Hold on, I thought…?”
Kara spoke up, “I talked to Stacy. She and Jason’ll be here tomorrow. They decided to take their kids to stay with his parents. The same with Sydney and Woody.”
“Ah, okay. Cool.”
“Doug and Olivia are here,” Mark added, “but they’re staying with Susan tonight. Gina and John arrived yesterday too. You can meet him tomorrow. You’ll like him.” He glanced at Leah, and something passed between them. “And… um… we talked to Brooke.”
My eyebrows rose with a dozen questions, but he answered the obvious one.
“They had to change their flight. Something about her work. But they’ll be here before Thursday.” He added a look that said he’d explain later, so I kept my questions to myself. Then I thought of another.
“So… where’s Erin?” I said. “She was supposed to be here yesterday.”
Mark cleared his throat, and Leah picked up the thread.
“They decided to drive instead of fly.”
“They?” I wondered aloud.
“She’s… um… bringing someone.”
My eyebrows flew up. “Here? This week? Is she serious?”
“Evidently,” Leah said.
What the…?
I’ll tell you later, she answered.
I nodded and sighed, pacified if not satisfied.
Kara spoke into the silence. “So… who’s left?”
“Carter and Kim,” Mark prompted.
“What? Oh, yeah, right,” I said. I shook off my questions about Erin and her mystery guest. “Carter was in court today,” I said. “They’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Okay… remind me who they are,” Victor said.
“Friends of ours from Charlotte.”
Leah sighed. “I told you, remember?”
“Maybe. But I’ve slept since then.”
“You’ll like them,” I said. “Carter’s an attorney, duh, and really smart. Handsome, too. Blond, blue eyes, about six feet.”