It was mid-September and strange to be back so soon after the summer had ended and to be there for a reason other than for camp itself. The weather hadn’t changed much, but there was a slight chill in the air, and when a fall-like breeze came through, it gave the campers and counselors shivers—not because it was particularly cold, but because it felt incongruous with the warmth they associated with the place.
There were over three hundred people there: campers and counselors but also members of the Larchmont community who had driven en masse to the Berkshires to pay their respects once again.
For the first time, Rachel did not want to return to camp. Not just for the obvious reasons—the way she had left and the reason she was returning—but because of the mismatched nature of it all. You didn’t leave camp in July. You didn’t go back to camp in September. And you didn’t return for something like this. The natural order of everything was thrown off. Camp used to be the one place where you could trust that the only thing to change every year would be you. Now it seemed that even camp couldn’t be trusted.
She had not gone to her father’s funeral, and neither had Denise. But Denise insisted they attend Helen’s memorial at camp—she told Rachel she would regret it if she didn’t go, and she was right—and so two weeks into her sophomore year, Rachel returned, flying from Michigan to New York for the weekend. They drove up to Lakeville in silence; there wasn’t a lot to say.
People were gathering quietly on the beach, all of them standing, arms crossed around themselves. Some adults were exchanging quiet words with one another. Rachel was surprised by the campers who had returned, though of course, when she thought about it, she shouldn’t have been. Sarah had taken her shoes off and was standing with her bare feet in the water. She looked so unnatural wearing black. Danny Sheppard and Mikey Bombowski were standing next to each other a few feet behind Sarah, awkward, not talking. They were supposed to be home, back in their real lives, missing camp and gearing up for a new school year in which they would hold their pure memories of the summer close, a sunny reserve of simplicity to turn to on colder days. Rachel remembered Mikey and Helen outside the athletic shed, how Helen had dropped his hand when she saw her.
Denise stood next to her as they looked around for any member of the Larkin family.
“Is that him?” Denise whispered, pointing to Jack. He was wearing a suit, and he was standing off to the side of the mourners. He had a piece of paper folded in his hand; he would probably deliver some sort of speech.
“Don’t,” Rachel said to her mother.
Rachel then spotted Sheera, wearing the same black dress she had worn the night of the dance. Rachel had been certain that she would never see the girl again. Sheera was standing next to her father, both of them erect, patiently waiting.
Rachel left her mother where she stood and approached them. “Hi, Sheera,” Rachel said.
Sheera started. “Hey, Rachel.”
“Thanks for coming,” Rachel said. She put an arm around the girl, and Sheera leaned into it.
“I had to pay my respects.”
This made Rachel tear up. “That’s very kind of you,” she said.
She removed her arm from around Sheera and shook her father’s hand. “Thank you for being here, Mr. Jones.” He nodded. Rachel had not seen him, either of them, after Sheera’s accident.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” she added, but as soon as she said it, it felt trivial. She felt trivial.
He shook his head. “Let’s not,” he said, and he put an arm around Sheera, taking her back.
When Fiona saw Rachel at the beach, the first tears came. She suddenly felt it all: the anger of Helen leaving her early, and of Rachel leaving her early too, as if she was realizing for the first time that the two things might somehow be related. As if it could, maybe, somehow, be Rachel’s fault. How easy that would be, to be able to blame Rachel, to believe that the two of them had conspired with each other to leave Fiona there all alone on the day that she needed Rachel the most.
Rachel too began to cry as she approached her friend. They embraced for a long time, their arms held tightly around each other while they heaved in and out.
When Fiona finally let go, the first thing she said to Rachel, face stained with tears, was “Why did you leave?” Fiona was so angry she almost couldn’t speak. She was spitting out her words like chants, as if she were possessed. “You should have been there,” she kept repeating. “You should have been there.”
“I wish I could have,” Rachel said, as gently as she could. She went in to stroke Fiona’s hair, but Fiona pushed Rachel’s hand away.
“It’s always about you, isn’t it? How did this still manage to be about you?”
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked cautiously.
“The hospital. You weren’t there.”
Rachel shook her head. “I wanted to be. So badly. Believe me.”
“You should know better than anyone,” Fiona said, so incensed, she knew she was about to say cruel things. “I was there for you when your dad died. I got it, before anything even happened to Helen. I got that it was so hard and complicated. But where have you been since this happened? Gone. You left camp without a word. I got one measly five-minute visit. You didn’t even bother to talk to me at the funeral.”
“You didn’t want me to,” Rachel said, her voice quiet, trying not to think of her dad anymore.
Fiona was right: Rachel’s relationship with her father had been complicated, but so had the one between Fiona and Helen. Rachel was the only person who knew the extent to which the sisters never got along. When they were younger, Fiona had told Rachel that she wished Helen had never been born—both of them remembered the sentiment clearly now. Rachel knew it couldn’t suddenly feel so uniformly tragic and simple, and Fiona hated being reminded of how much Rachel knew about her.
Fiona kept going, possessed. “Do you know how stupid I felt, pretending like I knew where you went but actually having no idea?”
Rachel took a deep breath. “Do you know why I left camp?” Oh, she thought, maybe this isn’t the time. She knew it wasn’t the time, but the bait had been too tempting.
“No, and I don’t even care anymore.”
And that was when they heard it: Denise’s harsh New York accent raised above the din of the three hundred mourners.
“You piece of shit. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
The girls looked toward the voice down the beach a few yards away. Denise, a full foot shorter than Jack, was pushing the man’s chest hard, like she wanted him to fight back. He kept taking small steps in retreat with his hands up. He seemed confused as to who she was.
“Ma’am, please, calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down.” She was craning her neck to look up at him, but she seemed unconcerned by the size difference. “You watched my daughter get raped.”