As he turns to go, he straightens the portrait of Jesus beside the piano.
I walk past the painting every day, but I haven’t looked at it in ages. I picked it out with my mom when I was eight. So many renderings of Jesus make him look stern or so pious that He’s not even human. But the one on this wall? He looks like someone who’d help a mom get a stroller up the stairs—like someone you’d ask for directions, knowing he’d find a way to help you even if he wasn’t sure. “He has laughter in His eyes,” my mom noted approvingly as she purchased it for me. And He does.
As I set my hands on the keys again, I can feel Him looking back at me, His eyes glinting with mirth.
“This isn’t funny at all,” I whisper. “Don’t even look at me.”
He keeps grinning like He knows something I don’t.
CHAPTER FIVE
From my view inside the car, Daybreak looks a lot like Holyoke—cabins set among the trees, a fire pit in the distance, and canoes racked up by the lake, in the same aged forest green and battered camp red. The pier is thin, splitting out into a T-shape. Down a little way, I can see campers in silhouette near the shoreline.
The lodge spans my entire view out our car’s front window. It’s wider than Holyoke’s, with golden-wood siding and a porch. The sign above features a painted sun—half-risen and egg-yolk yellow—with “Daybreak” spelled in cornflower blue.
“Here we are!” my mom announces cheerfully. “Stay here for a minute, okay?”
In the backseat, I hug my knees to my chest, breath fogging up the window. God, what am I doing here? Is this right? Am I really doing this? No answer fills my soul. But as the doubt moves through me like a shudder, I think of Lukas, who didn’t even text me to say Have a good summer! or Good luck at camp! But why would he? We’re paused. In fact, I’m consumed with the urge to find some cute counselor here—maybe one with long hair or those big plugs in his ears, what do I care?—and lay one on him, just out of spite.
At least the camp is quiet right now, and, without strangers’ faces nearby, it almost feels familiar. The lake glinting beyond us is mine, after all. I imagine dipping my head underwater, losing hours to the still water and the scent of the pines.
“Ready?” my dad asks, opening his door. My mom’s exiting the lodge with a woman about her height, in shorts and a flannel shirt. It’s been years, but I do remember Rhea—dark skin and gray hair in tight twists. She’s old enough to be my grandmother, but she’s not wrinkled like a tablecloth, like a fussy, too-precious thing. She’s weathered, like thinly ridged tree bark.
When I emerge from the car, my mom looks at me the way she did when I won a breaststroke heat for the first time. I don’t know what I did today besides agree to come here. “Rhea, you remember my daughter, Lucy.”
“It’s been a long, long while.” She has one of those inward-glow smiles, calm but undeniably warm. The type that makes you feel like you’re in safe hands. “Since you were a little thing. You probably don’t remember.”
“I do.” I return a hesitant smile of my own. “And my mom has always told me about how you convinced the landowner to let us buy Holyoke.”
“Ah, well. I can always recognize good caretakers. It’s my spiritual gift. Holyoke was meant to be in your parents’ hands.”
I drop my polite smile, surprised at that word choice—“spiritual gift.” Maybe Rhea’s a Christian too. I didn’t even consider that.
My mom puts an arm around my waist. “Rhea’s fine with you coming over Sunday mornings. You’ll have to get up early for sunrise chapel, of course, but you’d be doing that every week at Holyoke anyway.”
“And we do have a piano in our rec room,” Rhea says. “Do you still play?”
“A little. Just not competitively anymore.”
“Well, you’re welcome to it after lights-out for your campers, between eight and nine. One counselor always stays in the cabin, but one of your co-counselors is an early-to-bed type. So you’ll have most evenings free.”
“Great!” My voice is too bright, a false sheen.
I wait for my mom to look tortured, hearing the deceit in my voice, but she looks so . . . happy. “Well. You’re going to have so much fun. I can’t wait to hear about it.”
I’ve never been away from her for more than a weekend trip to my aunt Rachel’s house. That’s all I get? I search her eyes for some other clue. “That’s it? Not even a ‘make good choices’?”
“That’s it.” She places her rose-petal palms on my cheeks. “Because I trust you. I trust the way we raised you, and I trust the young woman you’ve become.”
This is because she doesn’t know about me picking a fight with Shruggy Jesus or rolling around topless with Lukas. My soul has already put on a blinker for the Hell exit, and now I live at hippie camp. That’s like sending me into the express lane.
“I’ll see you in a few days!” My mom hugs me, gripping and fierce.
My dad kisses my cheek and whispers, “I’m proud of you, Bird. See you Sunday. We’re a mile away if you need anything.”
I bob my head, but it’s not exactly a nod of agreement—more a reflex, self-soothing as I start to feel like I’m not fully inhabiting my body. Part of me believed my dad would back out last minute. But they’re really leaving me here for the whole summer.
My mom turns to me again. “Don’t forget your vitamins. And keep your inhaler in your shorts pocket, just in case, okay? And drink plenty of water, Luce, okay? I mean it.”
There it is. Nurse Mom. “I will. Promise.”
Rhea walks with her in those few steps toward the car. They hug when they reach the passenger’s-side door. I don’t hear Rhea say anything, but she must have because my mom is nodding against her shoulder.
My dad climbs into the driver’s seat as Rhea returns to my side. And as our Subaru pulls away, my mom blows me a kiss. I pretend to catch it, a holdover from my kindergarten days. As I do, my mom covers her mouth like she’s about to cry. I feel wickedly vindicated. Good. Be sad.
“Well, welcome, Lucy. I’m so happy to have you. First things first: your color-team band and your binder. It has the basic info,” Rhea says. She hands me a blue rubber wristband and a navy binder with a “Hello, My Name Is” sticker slapped across the front. “Hansson” is written in all-capital letters. “The counselors go by last names here. We find it adds a little to your authority with the younger campers. Hope that’s okay.”
“No problem. I’m used to it from swim team.” I crane my neck back as we start walking, but the car is out of sight. They really left me here.
“Oh, that’s right! Your mom mentioned you’re a swimmer.”
“Yep. She was too, in high school and college.”
Rhea rolls my suitcase down the path, and I pick up my duffel. With just a tote on my other shoulder, I can still examine the binder. The front has a schedule: 7:30 a.m.: sunrise yoga (optional).