“Okey dokey,” Robin says, once the wheelchairs and children have been maneuvered into a misshapen circle. “Who wants to kick things off?”
Kathleen’s arm shoots in the air as she shouts, “Eve was the best part of camp this year!” A bunch of other kids nod and clap. My heart flutters. Maybe I’ll be a teacher. I can almost picture it—reaching out to kids who are struggling, like Rory has to me. The thought freezes me: It’s the first time I’ve considered a future without my mom in it.
The circle moves clockwise from Kathleen. The other four delinquents pass on sharing to Robin’s visible relief. When it comes back around to me, I pause, thinking of all the things I wish I’d said to my mom when I had the chance. I don’t want to keep living a life where I pass.
“I came here hoping I could be of help,” I say, “but you all ended up helping me.”
“What a perfect reflection to end our two weeks together,” Robin says. “Time for a group hug.”
That first day I would’ve been distracted by the kids’ disabilities and assumed a group hug impossible, but now I link arms with Kathleen, and we fan out to the people on either side, me scooching down to Hanna’s wheelchair, careful not to catch the ventilator tubes, and Kathleen linking arms with a boy using a walking brace.
The energy in the circle is indescribable—there is power in the act of us all leaning on each other. I can feel it.
An impatient parent beeps the horn, ending the moment. I herd the kids where they need to be, amazed that I know every parent by name.
Once the campers are gone, Robin jogs to me in the parking lot with her huge smile and famous clipboard. “Any interest in signing up for next year?”
“Sure thing.” I write my name on the top line of an otherwise blank list.
“You surprised us all, Eve. The first day everyone was skeptical, but a voice in my head told me to stick it out, and you grew into it. Camp Ray needed help and you delivered.”
“I needed Camp Ray too,” I admit for a second time.
She puts her sacred clipboard on the ground and wraps an arm around my shoulder in a half hug. “I had a pretty crappy hand dealt to me too,” she says. “Nothing cures a chip on the shoulder like giving back goodness.”
I’ve wondered all summer if Robin knew my story; I guess that answers my question. We hug right there in the middle of the parking lot.
Brady
I can’t stop thinking about my mother. If she loved Phillip so much, why didn’t they marry? What happened to those kids? Why did she love them as her own when they weren’t? Why couldn’t she love me when I was? Her secrecy compels me to learn more about the story.
I let Eve in on it, forking over the journal entry about her grandmother’s mysterious life. Maddy used to say the key to earning respect is vulnerability. “It’s easier to admire people who put themselves out there,” she explained. I didn’t challenge her at the time, but in the business world you earn respect with killer execution. Now I see that while Maddy’s strategy wouldn’t work in an office setting, mine sure as hell doesn’t work on Eve. So I put myself out there, hoping Eve will take comfort in the idea that my mom had skeletons too.
Her eyes illuminate with intrigue. I’ve been unwittingly living with a CIA agent. I laugh as she dives in, scanning a copy of the journal entry, saying she’ll have “a lead” by the time I get back from my run. And she actually does, sort of. I return, dripping sweat, to a bombardment of questions.
“Where was Grandma born?”
“Virginia.”
“And she lived there her whole life?”
“Far as I know.” Which turns out isn’t much …
“What year did your parents marry?”
My jaw slackens. “Let’s see, Dad was twenty-eight, so that’d mean they were … married in … 1962.”
“That was kind of slow for a CFO,” she jokes.
“I’m not the one getting tutored in math.”
She crosses her arms. “You say it like I’m getting tutored ’cause I failed a class. I’m getting tutored to get a year ahead in one summer.”
“Touché,” I concede. “Now what, Detective?”
“Well, there’s a surprising number of Goldfarbs out there and we can’t assume they’re still in Virginia, but I found this site where you pay a fee to look up the U.S. Public Records Index. That’s all the information we would need. Should I do it?”
“How much does it cost?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
I whistle. “That’s steep.” Truthfully, I enjoy seeing her interested in something. As my running stamina improves, I have less and less time at the house, so we’ve barely spoken all week. “Do you think we should do it?”
“I do. I mean, Grandma was always so sad. I’d love to meet people who knew her differently.” It’s fascinating Eve remembers my mother as sad; Maddy and I always referred to her as cold. Kids are in a unique position to be perceptive—life hasn’t muddied their take yet.
Eve keeps on her sales pitch. “And who knows? Maybe we’ll connect with Marie and Paul. I mean, they’re not really family, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
I try not to be offended. “Who’s begging?”
“You know what I mean. Aside from Aunt Meg, Lucy, and Uncle Dan, it’s just us. I always used to daydream about having a big family.”
Her words punch me. “You did? Mom and I thought you’d hate sharing attention. It was one of the things that softened the blow of—” I hesitate to finish the sentence, but if I want a real relationship with Eve, I have to be real. She’s seventeen. “You know, I don’t think we ever told you this, but we couldn’t have more kids.”
The memory comes with a giant what if …
We wanted more. When Eve turned two, we started trying. When she was three, we went to a specialist—shot after shot, temperature-taking after testing after tears. It broke my heart each month when Maddy announced our failure, which she perceived as her failure. By the time we were ready to consider adoption, Eve was almost six and we were settled into our lifestyle. Maddy regretted that decision later. Shortsighted, she called it. I wonder how it would’ve changed things if we had an eleven-year-old right now. Would Maddy still be gone? Was there not enough keeping her here?
“Good thing it didn’t work out,” Eve says, answering my unspoken question. “Could you imagine if we were stuck raising a kid right now?” Talk about the devil’s advocate. Does that make Eve a pessimist or a realist?
“Let’s check into this thing, Dad. If nothing else, we’ll learn more about Grandma.”
“Okay.” She takes my credit card and I head to the shower.
When I return to the kitchen for dinner, Eve has a match. Not right away, but by searching under different variations, she found an Anna Marie Watson born January 3, 1952, at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C., to Sandra Watson and Phillip Goldfarb. Eve called information, but there was no one by that name in the greater D.C. area.