Shawn Cassidy, was allowed to support her, even though it meant breaching the boy camper/girl camper line. Claire was crying and limping a little, and I noticed a small gold cross on a delicate gold chain against her throat. Scott held her tenderly, and back in the cabin all the other girls ministered to her and she was grateful. A Coke even appeared, as if Jesus himself had sent her a gift.
On the third day I asked to use the office telephone, explaining that my family was prone to emergency appendectomies (true) and I believed it was my time. Mom answered the phone and I said, “Well, now I’ve gone and gotten really sick and it’s time for my appendix to come out.”
“Is that right,” she said. I heard her turn the page of a book.
“Yes. I don’t believe I need to remind you that Danny’s
burst
on the
operating table
and had to be removed with a
spoon,
and if you’d waited too long you’d be sonless.”
“Tell me what your symptoms are,” Mom asked, without inflection. My mother could not abide a sick person in any form, not fevers, burns, protruding bones, heaving, headaches, diabetes, or amputations. She had once been a Christian Scientist and it had gotten in her like a virus and even though she had been a Quaker since long before I was born, she still believed the Seven Beautiful Daughters of the Seven Beautiful Kings were Perfectly Healthy Within Us.
“I’ve got an ache in my side.” That’s what I remembered from when Julie had it.
“Where in your side.” Again, this was not a question.
“Over, you know, between my ribs and the rest of me.”
“Which side?”
Blast the woman! Blast her eyeballs! I only had a 50–50 chance and those were not good odds as any daughter of Bob Jarvis would know. I did the only thing I could: I guessed. “The left.”
“I’ll see you at the end of the week, sweetheart,” she said, hanging up.
I would not sing Kum-Bye-Ya around the campfire. I would roast marshmallows but I would not sing. I would not play games of tag in the dark, where the boys and girls were allowed to hunt for one another, and find each other, in ways that made my veins run cold. The air was desperate, scented with blood. I snuck back into the mess hall and washed all the tables with bleach.
During the days we swam. Scott was a lifeguard and wore practically nothing, just trunks, sunglasses, and a whistle around his neck. He looked like he was preparing for a life as an anemic Erik Estrada. The T-shirt Claire wore over her string bikini somehow managed to be more revealing than the suit itself. Every day she would swim languidly out to the dock where Scott was sitting. She’d pull herself up slowly, water streaming off her as if she were a seal, then sit in the chair next to Scott where it was perfectly obvious no one else was allowed to sit. They would talk, and then something frisky would happen and wrestling would commence, and Claire would get thrown in the water, and the whole thing would begin again. I lay on an inner tube not far from the shore, floating around in circles in Melinda’s Mickey Mouse T-shirt, watching.
I did not accept Jesus as my personal savior on Tuesday night, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday. My panty hose were now in shreds. It was Friday night that Claire decided to go, having waited for most everyone else to take their moment up front with Minister Bob. It turned out that when Claire did open her heart it was a wide, wide avenue, because she sobbed and vowed to change all her secret ways, and Bob was so moved he kept his hands on her a long time, and Mrs. Canary bobbed her head so steadily it appeared she might go all the way down and take a drink of water. Nearly everyone wept that night. I stayed on my bruised, abraded knees and imagined the light in Josh’s nursery first thing in the morning, the way he woke up babbling a happy baby language. Claire was so saved, as a matter of fact, that Scott had to walk her back to the cabin, only halfway
On the third day I asked to use the office telephone, explaining that my family was prone to emergency appendectomies (true) and I believed it was my time. Mom answered the phone and I said, “Well, now I’ve gone and gotten really sick and it’s time for my appendix to come out.”
“Is that right,” she said. I heard her turn the page of a book.
“Yes. I don’t believe I need to remind you that Danny’s
burst
on the
operating table
and had to be removed with a
spoon,
and if you’d waited too long you’d be sonless.”
“Tell me what your symptoms are,” Mom asked, without inflection. My mother could not abide a sick person in any form, not fevers, burns, protruding bones, heaving, headaches, diabetes, or amputations. She had once been a Christian Scientist and it had gotten in her like a virus and even though she had been a Quaker since long before I was born, she still believed the Seven Beautiful Daughters of the Seven Beautiful Kings were Perfectly Healthy Within Us.
“I’ve got an ache in my side.” That’s what I remembered from when Julie had it.
“Where in your side.” Again, this was not a question.
“Over, you know, between my ribs and the rest of me.”
“Which side?”
Blast the woman! Blast her eyeballs! I only had a 50–50 chance and those were not good odds as any daughter of Bob Jarvis would know. I did the only thing I could: I guessed. “The left.”
“I’ll see you at the end of the week, sweetheart,” she said, hanging up.
I would not sing Kum-Bye-Ya around the campfire. I would roast marshmallows but I would not sing. I would not play games of tag in the dark, where the boys and girls were allowed to hunt for one another, and find each other, in ways that made my veins run cold. The air was desperate, scented with blood. I snuck back into the mess hall and washed all the tables with bleach.
During the days we swam. Scott was a lifeguard and wore practically nothing, just trunks, sunglasses, and a whistle around his neck. He looked like he was preparing for a life as an anemic Erik Estrada. The T-shirt Claire wore over her string bikini somehow managed to be more revealing than the suit itself. Every day she would swim languidly out to the dock where Scott was sitting. She’d pull herself up slowly, water streaming off her as if she were a seal, then sit in the chair next to Scott where it was perfectly obvious no one else was allowed to sit. They would talk, and then something frisky would happen and wrestling would commence, and Claire would get thrown in the water, and the whole thing would begin again. I lay on an inner tube not far from the shore, floating around in circles in Melinda’s Mickey Mouse T-shirt, watching.
I did not accept Jesus as my personal savior on Tuesday night, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday. My panty hose were now in shreds. It was Friday night that Claire decided to go, having waited for most everyone else to take their moment up front with Minister Bob. It turned out that when Claire did open her heart it was a wide, wide avenue, because she sobbed and vowed to change all her secret ways, and Bob was so moved he kept his hands on her a long time, and Mrs. Canary bobbed her head so steadily it appeared she might go all the way down and take a drink of water. Nearly everyone wept that night. I stayed on my bruised, abraded knees and imagined the light in Josh’s nursery first thing in the morning, the way he woke up babbling a happy baby language. Claire was so saved, as a matter of fact, that Scott had to walk her back to the cabin, only halfway
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