The Names They Gave Us

We settle on the couch, and Keely looks around the room. I wonder what she sees. She’s always taking people in, getting a read on them. How does the cabin, this living room, my family add to her impression of me? I have no idea.

Keely’s gaze goes past me, toward a family picture on the side table. “You look like her.”

“Yeah.” Less and less, as her face thins out. But I can’t think about that—not now. “So, how’d you guess Tara would be in the chapel?”

She shrugs, brushing her hair back. “I walked there once, when I couldn’t sleep.”

“When you were little?”

“Yeah. My second year at Daybreak.” The snort she gives is self-effacing, the admission of an embarrassing moment. “Back when I thought you could ask for things like God was a genie.”

I don’t let myself ask what she wished for.

Keely is still looking at our family pictures. She leans toward a picture of my mom and Aunt Rachel, arms over each other’s shoulders. “How does your mom know Rachel?”

My head jerks back. “How do you know Rachel?”

“She helped us paint the mural on the side of the gym one summer.”

“At Daybreak?”

“Yeah.” Keely looks confused by my disbelief. “She knows Bryan. They were at camp together as kids.”

“No, they weren’t. Rachel—” I begin, but I cut myself off. Rachel went to camp with my mom. That’s where they met. “She went to a camp called . . .”

“Donoma?”

My mouth goes slack. How could Keely know that?

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Yeah, Daybreak had a different name the first few years after Rhea started it. Camp Donoma.” Keely’s looking at me like I’m the one who’s crazy. “The people who owned the property before Rhea called it that. She changed it once she learned the name might have been appropriated from a Native American language.”

My mom went to Daybreak in its early years? Not possible. She’d have told me that ages ago—or at least early this summer, when she first tried to sell me on being a counselor. But if—if—it were true, no wonder Rhea helped my parents buy the Holyoke property. It makes so much sense if she knew my mom as a teenager. Did Rhea assume I knew that?

“Lucy?” Keely asks, quiet.

“All right!” My dad’s too-chipper voice blares in the silence. “Two cups of pomegranate green tea. That okay with you, Keely? It’s Lucy’s favorite.”

“Perfect,” she says, and takes a cookie to be polite.

“Luce?” my dad prompts.

I hold my hands out to accept the mug. My mind can’t form rational thoughts, so I stare down into the tea as if it will spell out the answers. I don’t want to say anything in front of Keely. It feels wrong to interrogate my parents, given the circumstances. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t fully believe it.

We sip our tea, and my dad valiantly makes small talk. I swear, there must be classes on this in seminary.

I nibble four cookies like a nervous squirrel, barely making eye contact as I wait for my mom and Tara to emerge.

When they do, Tara has my mom’s Sherpa blanket over her shoulders like a poncho, her stomach jutting out almost comically.

“Braxton Hicks contractions,” my mom reports. “At least, I think. Nothing to suggest she’s in active labor, though we’ll want to get her to a doctor just in case.”

“You need anything before I drive you back?” my dad asks Tara. “Something to eat?”

“No, thank you,” she says. “I just really want to go to bed.”

“Well, then, let’s get you back.”

My dad ushers Tara out, offering his arm to steady her. He’s being so solicitous to this very young, very unwed pregnant girl. But then, of course he is. Why did I ever think my parents would turn someone away for having premarital sex? It’s such a trivial concern in the face of cancer, abuse, drugs—all the things Daybreak sees every summer.

If my mom was at Daybreak in its first years, why? I know she was in foster care, but did something happen?

“She’s gonna be just fine, baby,” my mom says, thinking that my stunned expression is about Tara.

“Thanks, Mom,” I manage, in a whisper.

When she leans in to hug me, I almost flinch, wondering what else she’s kept hidden from me. She no longer smells like her shampoo because, of course, she no longer has hair to wash. “I have loved you since before you were even born, Lucy Esther.”

I pull away to look at her, confused.

“Seeing Tara . . . it just takes me back, that’s all. You are the gift of my life. Okay?”

“Okay.” My voice cracks, tears spilling over. She’s crying too, and it doesn’t even feel weird anymore.

With a ruffle of my hair, she puts on her brave smile. “See you Sunday, little bird.”

Back at camp, I watch as my dad drives away from Daybreak. June, when he did this the first time, feels like a lifetime ago.

“Will you walk me to Rhea’s cabin?” Tara asks. She’s looking at me.

“Of course.” When I offer my arm for support, she shakes her head—steady for now.

Keely squeezes Tara’s arm. “Hang in there.”

“I’m really sorry for all the trouble,” Tara replies.

“I’m not.”

I amble down the dark path, hand ready to brace Tara at even the suggestion of a stumble. When Keely’s footfalls are out of range, Tara says, “Your parents are nice.”

“Yeah.” My eyes itch, threatening to flood. “They are.”

“Your mom told me about giving birth and everything.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Her voice is reverent, almost awed, as she touches the swell of her belly. “She seems like a really brave person.”

My mom’s body is riddled with mutating cells and the toxins meant to kill them, and yet she still cares for others—gently, nimbly, with such great love. “Yes. She is.”

“She said that this will always be part of who I am, but that I can move on too.”

Of course she did. Of course my mom could empathize with someone so different from her—enough to say the perfect thing. “She’s right.”

When I glance over, Tara is wiping her cheek. “She prayed for the baby. And for me. She asked if she could, and I said yes. It felt real.”

“Oh, Tara,” I whisper. I stop walking and open my arms. She rests her chin on my shoulder as her stomach presses into mine. I almost ask what she meant—that it felt real. But I know what she means. Prayer used to always feel, for me, as real as sending a letter.

“I thought I’d want to keep the baby. My mom said we don’t give babies away. But I still don’t feel anything. I thought I would by now.”

“That’s okay,” I say stupidly. How the hell would I know? “Oh, Tara, don’t cry. It’s all going to work out.”

“I’m only crying because your mom made me feel better. I want the baby to be adopted. She said my gut feeling counts, and I’m just . . . I don’t know. Relieved.”

We stand there, near Rhea’s cabin, hanging on under the moonlight. I’m not sure how long Tara sniffles on my shoulder before I hear Rhea approaching.

“Hi, sweet girl,” Rhea says. Without a word, Tara transfers to Rhea’s arms. “It’s okay, honey. It’s all okay.”

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