“You’re going to break it, you idiot,” Keely says.
“Because I’m so heavy due to my well-developed muscles?” Mohan calls. Still, his energetic kicks get him going fast. “Bet I can swing the highest, even without backup.”
“Oh yeah?” Anna asks. Keely pushes her harder, purposefully, and I turn to glance at Henry, nodding.
“Whoa,” I whisper as a firm push sends me up, up, up. “Ahh! Oh my gosh.”
“And now for the dismount!” Mohan yells, leaping from the swing. He lands on his feet, then stands with his arms raised. “The judges give it a ten! Full marks! A huge day for Mohan Tambe’s career!”
Anna flies off from my other side, landing just a hair farther than Mohan did. When she straightens up, she uses her best announcer voice. “Guess that means . . . it’s an eleven for Anna Miroslaw! Wow, folks. Truly a historic day in swing-jumping.”
“All right, Luce,” Henry says. At this point, he’s backed up so much that his hands are basically on my butt every time he pushes me. “Gonna take ’em down?”
I open my mouth to say: But you’re not supposed to jump off! That rule is, like, explicitly stated in elementary school. Only the bad kids do that.
Truth is, though, the line between the good kids and the bad kids is so blurry that I’m not even sure it exists anymore. I think maybe it never did.
“C’mon, Hansson,” Keely calls. “Show ’em up.”
“I don’t know . . . ,” I reply from so high up, whooshing back. But then, maybe it’s not the height or the drop that scares me. Maybe it’s the idea of letting go.
“Live a little!” Mohan demands.
My mother’s cells are dying halfway around a bend in our lake, so maybe the least I can do is keep trying to live a little.
“You’ve got this, Luce,” Anna calls.
And this time, I agree. With a salute, I yell to her, “Confidimus stellarum!”
I swing forward, tilting toward everything that is still to come. I am okay, and I am not okay.
I let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
For all my worrying this summer, I never really imagined what it would be like, the moment things got worse.
As it turns out, it’s like Bryan pulling you aside during afternoon kickball.
It’s like the world warping into slow motion. Like floating away from yourself.
It’s like picking up the landline in Bryan’s office, hands shaking.
“Dad?” I whisper into the phone.
“Hey, Bird. Listen. Everything’s okay, but I’m at the hospital with your mom.”
That could be anything. It could be for chemo; I don’t know her checkup schedule.
“Dad.” Tell me. Tell me.
“She’s got an infection. They need to keep her to monitor everything, but I’m sure it’ll be just fine.”
He’s not sure. He’s lying to me, or maybe to himself. “I need to be there.”
“I do think you should come, yeah.”
Tears slip down my cheeks. He promised he would tell me if it got really bad. If he’s telling me to come home, it’s gotten really bad. “Will you come get me or . . . ?”
Bryan points at himself, then mimes using a steering wheel.
“Never mind. Bryan says he can take me.”
“Put him on the phone, please. It’s going to be okay, Bird. Your mom’s a fighter.”
“I know.” I hand the phone over, the world a blur around me. My hands find the desk, steadying myself. Trying to touch something solid, immovable.
“Dave? Yeah, hi. I’ll bring her now, if that’s okay with you. Yeah. No problem. Can I bring you guys anything? Sure. Okay. See you soon.”
I wipe my face, uselessly. The tears are falling faster than I can clear them away.
“Hey.” Bryan reaches for a tissue and presses it into my hand. “Why don’t you go pack up a few essentials in case you stay overnight? I need to call my wife and then let Rhea know what’s going on, but I’ll meet you right back here in about ten minutes, yeah?”
I’m already hurrying off, wondering where Henry’s campers are at this hour. I don’t have time to go looking for him. “Bryan!”
He turns back.
“Can you ask Rhea to tell my friends that—”
“Yeah,” he calls. “Of course.”
I race back to Cabin 3A, and jam my toothbrush and a stack of my clean laundry into a tote bag. I don’t know or care which clothes I’ve grabbed. Nothing matters but getting to my mom.
Bryan isn’t back yet when I return to his office, panting. I can’t stand still, so I pace across the floorboards, end to end. There are built-in shelves on the left side of the room, and I spin a decorative globe with one finger. It gives me tactile proof that I’m in reality. This is happening. My mom’s in the hospital.
I skim a fingertip along a picture frame, along the plastic leaves of a fake plant, along a glass award with dust on its base. I run my hands across book spines.
Toward the end of the lowest shelf, my fingers find books with no jackets or titles. Except . . . they’re not books. They’re picture frames, three of them shelved in a row. The same picture frames used for the hallway display of every Daybreak class of campers. I slide one out, expecting a sliver of broken glass up the center—damage that caused them to be taken down.
How do I know? How do I know, in that moment, who I’ll see?
My mother’s young face, bright-eyed and full-cheeked. It’s like looking at myself in outdated clothes. Rachel, her same sneaky smile like she knows something you don’t. And Bryan, tall and thin-faced behind them.
But Bryan took these photos of my mother down. Why? Why was she so intent on hiding her history here?
In the third picture, my question is answered.
My sixteen-year-old mother is sandwiched between Bryan and Rachel, arms wrapped around their waists. Bryan is looking down at her with total affection.
And a pregnant belly strains her counselor shirt into a huge sphere.
A chill raises goose bumps to my arms. This is a cruel, bizarre use of Photoshop—why would someone do this? To teach me a lesson about judging pregnant teens?
Oh, dear Lord. My mom tried to teach me a lesson about judging pregnant teens. That first Sunday I walked from here to Holyoke. Sitting on our front porch, I used Tara as an example that Daybreak was a bad influence for me. And my mom scolded me—not because she was being magnanimous but because she was Tara all those years ago?
Her total obsession with abstinence or at least information about safe sex. What if it’s not just a Christian nurse’s perspective? What if it’s from her own experience?
Your mom told me, Tara said to me, about giving birth and everything.
It can’t be. This cannot be. If she had a baby as a teenager, I would obviously know. I know her better than anyone. Or do I just think that because she knows me better than anyone?
Do I know nothing?
There was a man she loved before my father; she told me that.