I take Eliot and Tom’s bags, slinging them on my shoulder.
Luna is laughing. “Why’d you go and do that?” She points at Tom’s forehead.
Tom sticks his hands in his coat pockets. “Because if they’re gonna call you a weirdo, then that means we’re weirdos.”
“Definitely,” Eliot agrees.
As we head home, I feel all the sentiments Lily told me earlier tonight. Our bad days have the ability to become better. It may be a horrible month. A horrible year. But there will be good days, good moments, great seconds.
I vow to never forget that.
2026
“You’re all incredibly boring.”
- Charlie Keating Cobalt, We Are Calloway (Season 8 Episode 12 – Hot-Tempered Triad & Older Kids Club)
< 48 >
June 2026
Camp Calloway
Pocono Mountains
DAISY MEADOWS
“Look at that land crab go! Such pretty pinchers and shell, she crawls and she crawls,” I narrate Winona’s adventure while I sift through papers on a desk. Inside the director’s office of Camp Calloway, my two-year-old hops from one colorful beanbag to the next. About seven spread out.
It’s very kid-friendly in here.
“Oops, she falls!” I say as Winona splats on a yellow beanbag.
Sullivan, eight-years-old, pretends to be sleeping in the middle of the beanbags, and then she suddenly uncurls and rises to her knees.
I gasp. “A wave is coming!”
Winona shrieks.
Sulli smiles wide and raises her arms like she’s about to consume her little sister. “Woosh woosh,” Sulli plays along.
“Waves sweep little land crabs away. Go! Go! Go, Winona, go!”
Winona shrieks again, laughter stuck beneath the squeal. She hops to the red beanbag. My face brightens. I have a hard time concentrating on the legal papers. The camp director needs my signature on about ten before I leave.
My lawyers drew them up, so it’s not a blind transaction.
Winona splats on the blue beanbag, her brown hair much lighter than her older sister’s. Set free and loose. As wild as Sulli’s. I’d record this event, but Ryke has the video camera. He’s somewhere outside. About an hour ago, he videotaped Sulli climbing out of the car.
It’s her very first time at camp.
…and soon we’ll drive away without her. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. I built this camp. I know she’s safe here, but I’ve never been away from Sulli for longer than four days.
While Sulli descends upon her sister, Winona shouts something that sounds like I’m just a land crab! She dubbed herself the Mightiest Land Crab in All the Land this morning. She bit Ryke’s arm when he picked her up, and then she pinched his cheek. “My crab claws!” she told him.
I couldn’t stop laughing, so he smacked the rim of my baseball cap over my eyes. Which only made me laugh more. Then I spun the green cap backwards.
I still wear it now.
Ryke and I mostly watch Nat Geo and Discovery Channel, so Winona’s knowledge skews towards animals and nature. Last week she told us she was a panther, and she hid behind the living room furniture and spent a whole hour stalking Ryke.
Who was sitting in the same place as he ate granola cereal.
I call out, “There goes the wave!”
Sulli lifts up Winona’s white shirt and blows a raspberry on her belly.
Winona laughs, “Sulli!”
Sulli tickles her sister’s sides. “Gotcha, squirt.”
I uncap a pen with my teeth and sign the top paper, rocking on my feet. Winona’s laughter fades, and I hear Sulli tell her that she’ll be right back. So I look up.
My daughter unzips her turquoise duffel, a matching sleeping bag rolled up nearby. Sulli wears this deep contemplative look. One that surfaces nearly every day. She re-zips her duffel and then scratches at her head, then near her hairline. That right there—the head-scratch—tells me that she’s nervous. She scratches just below her swim cap during “the most important” meets.
I haven’t signed another paper yet. However I feel about leaving Sulli here for a whole month might not even compare to how she feels.
I spit my pen cap out. “Guess what, Sulli?”
Sulli faces me and then walks closer. “What?”
“I have your cabin assignment.” I sift through the papers for her camp welcome letter. I meant to give it to her when we exit the office, but maybe this’ll take her mind off potential homesickness. Bam! I find the letter. I wave it at her and she snatches the envelope.
She unfurls the letter and reads quickly.
Winona is busy rolling on every beanbag.
Sulli’s shoulders sag, just slightly. “I thought I was going to be in the Yellow Daisy cabin?”
“Yellow Daisy is for ten-year-olds. You’ll be there in a couple years. Right now, you’re starting out in the Red Poppy cabin.”
Sullivan refolds the letter.
I scoot around the desk and then nudge her elbow with mine. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know…” She glances out the window and tugs at her loose-fitted tank top. Campers move into their wooden cabins and hug their parents goodbye. Some are weepy first-timers. Others are jubilant camp veterans. The excited ones race off towards the mess hall where the Welcome Bash will begin.
I always thought that’d be Sulli, and I think she thought it’d be her too. For years, she’s talked about being old enough to finally attend Camp Calloway.
Her long brown hair hangs in tangled waves. “Are you sure you can’t stay?” she asks. “Can’t you be a counselor this year?” She hops up on the desk.
I sit beside her, our legs swinging. She knows I’m the owner, not a counselor or director. “The counselors here are totally amazing, so hey, you’ll hardly know I’m not here.”
Sulli lifts her feet to the desk, her long, long legs tucked towards her chest. She touches her colorful ankle bracelets, as though ensuring they’re still there. We made tons this year already.
Sulli sets her chin on her knee and tilts her head towards me. “I already miss you and Nona and Dad, and you’re right here.”
Tears brim in both our eyes. We brush noses, and I whisper, “I’ll be back for Spirit Days. I know it’s far away, but there’s so much about camp that you’ll love.”
“Like what?” she says just as quietly.
“Horseback riding. You’ve never been horseback riding, and you feel free, Sulli. You’ll play huge games of capture the flag that’ll have your heart racing. Zip-lining, the beautiful lake, rock climbing. And then you’ll grow close to the girls in your cabin. You’ll stay up late at night telling stories. You might even go prank the boys’ cabins, just because you can.”
She laughs softly into a smile.
“You’ll probably hate the showers, but so will the other girls. You’ll laugh and bond and realize that you’re all equally homesick but at least you’re homesick together.”
Camp Calloway is as old as Sullivan Minnie Meadows. I never attended camp when I was her age, but throughout eight years, I’ve seen enough campers and their experiences to empathize and feel everything I say.
Sullivan drops her legs and swings them, a little more cheerful. “I wish Jane was here.”
I rub her back.
Jane was sick at the last minute. She tried very hard to come anyway. According to Rose, Jane packed her bag and sat in the car, waiting to go. They would’ve brought her too, but she had a hundred-and-one degree fever.
“Moffy is here,” I remind Sulli, though I know it’s not the same in her mind. Cabins are segregated between boys and girls. Some activities are too. So she won’t see Moffy all the time.
Sullivan takes a deep, hearty breath and glances at the window again. “We’re allowed to swim in the lake, right?” This is the tenth time she’s asked, worried the answer may change.
I reaffirm that there’s definitely swimming, and then I say, “So I have this theory.”
Sulli immediately smiles. “Can I guess?”
Theatrical, I wave her on. “My peanut butter cupcake.”