On visiting day, we Tubman bunk campers woke up spectacularly early. The breezy mountain air felt clean and new, blowing away the cobwebs of sleep. Tingly with anticipation, we all waited on the bunk steps after breakfast for the buses and cars to start arriving. Sharon had scrubbed the sparkly green polish from her fingernails and toenails the evening before, while everyone else cleaned the bunk.
“The best thing about visiting day,” Poose said, “is that your family brings all your favorite foods.” The other girls laughed and joked about fried chicken and homemade brownies, but Emma and I were pretty quiet. Our excitement was mixed up with worry.
We had carefully choreographed where we would each greet our families, and how we would escort them across the grassy field to our staked-out picnic spots on opposite sides of the giant oak. So neither family would catch sight or sound of the other until the perfect time.
Then there was Oliver sprinting across the field, his arms outstretched, banking into a turn and swooping at me for an exuberant hug. We marched arm in arm, grinning and trying to trip each other, back toward our parents, waiting just a few feet away on the path at the edge of the grass. Esther was so thin. It was hard to look at her. Her head was wrapped in a turquoise scarf, with a fancy knot at her neck. I closed my eyes when I kissed her, then hugged her gingerly, wondering if she was still nauseous and tired all the time.
“I missed you.” Esther’s voice sounded exactly the same. She smelled the same too, like rain.
“Me too,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.” That was certainly true.
“I want to hear all about camp. Your friends, everything.” Esther stroked my hair and I wondered if the red made her think of Rosa. Did that make her hate my hair or love it?
“You didn’t get too old for a Molly sandwich, did you?” Jake asked.
“No way,” I said, but I wondered if maybe I had. Jake hugged my back—that made me the sandwich meat in our childhood game.
“Enough mushy stuff,” Oliver said. “Let’s eat.”
I picked up the beach quilt and started walking. “I’ve got the best spot picked out—my favorite place in camp.” I led the family parade to the far side of the white oak, facing the woods and the path down to the lake. Esther pulled paper plates and paisley napkins from the canvas bag, pausing and smiling at me between every handful.
I wasn’t ready for this. Rachel had always complained a lot about her mom, but I usually liked mine okay. Now I had no clue who Esther really was: my sweet mama, who made paper dolls from scratch? Who was sick and could die? Or a radical rabble-rouser who kept a secret so big it grew into a lie? I didn’t know which, and maybe I wasn’t ready to find out for sure. But it was hard to be around her.
So I turned to Jake. “Come take a walk with me?”
“Now?”
“Just to the lake and back. I want to talk to you.”
Esther looked hurt but she nodded. “Go ahead, but be back in fifteen minutes or Oliver and I will eat your brownies.”