The Astonishing Color of After(54)

“What, about this”—I gestured to my pajamas, sketchbook, and half a dozen pencils strewn out next to my breakfast—“indicates that I’d want to go somewhere totally not interesting, and make fake new friends who I’ll never speak to again, and be away from my actual friends, just to do a bunch of trust falls and get eaten alive by diseased mosquitoes—”

“It’s an art and nature camp,” said Dad.

I had to work hard to not roll my eyes. My father clearly thought that anything with the word art in it automatically won with me. At least he was making an effort?

But the wrong kind of effort.

“Can we address the elephant in the room?” I said.

His face shifted into something wary. “What’s the elephant?”

My stomach tightened with irritation. “Okay, Mom? Is in no condition to be left alone.” I hated the word condition, but it was easier than calling it what it really was. A war. Her depression was this big thing we were all battling together.

“She’s not going to be alone.”

“Oh, she’s not?” I did a pretty good job of keeping most of the sarcasm out of my voice. Most, but not all. Luckily, my father missed the tone.

“No. I canceled the summer intensive I was going to teach, and I’ve postponed my trip to Beijing. So I’ll be here.”

Great. Dad would be here. Here, quote unquote. I imagined him shut up in his office for eighteen hours, submerged under papers, everything else in the house forgotten. Here still didn’t mean he was actually present.

I unclenched my jaw. “Mom needs me.”

“Actually, that’s exactly why this came up. Your mother and I were thinking—”

“There’s no way Mom had an actual thought that was in agreement with this,” I said loudly over him. My mother hadn’t uttered a real sentence in over a week. She moved like a zombie. Over the last couple months her piano students had stopped coming—either she’d canceled the lessons or they’d all sensed something was very wrong. Now she spent her days in bed with the curtains drawn. If I coaxed her long enough, hard enough, she’d sometimes eat a tiny bit of food.

“We were thinking it would be good for you to get out of the house for a little bit. Get away from this, go somewhere positive. And it’ll give your mother a break so she can relax and have some peace and quiet—”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Language, Leigh,” said my father.

I made a noise of disgust.

“We’ve already enrolled and paid for you to go—”

I stood up, all but slamming my mug down. “You what?”

“We’ll be driving you there on Sunday. So you should probably start packing.” He stood and pushed his chair under the table.

“Dad, you can’t be serious.”

“I am absolutely serious, Leigh. This’ll be good for you.”

“That’s the biggest goddamn lie—”

He shot me the look of death. “Language, young lady. If you can’t speak to me with respect, you’re going to get yourself grounded.”

“Oh, grounded for four whole days.” I rolled my eyes. “Before I’m chauffeured straight to hell.”

“That’s it,” said my father, throwing his hands in the air. “You officially are grounded. Which is perfect. Plenty of time for packing. I’ll send you the website so you can see what they recommend.”

“This is like the opposite of a kidnapping.”

“Leigh, this is not meant to be a punishment. I did actually try to pick something you would like. I think you’re going to enjoy it.”





He was so very wrong. On all counts. It was a punishment. And no, I definitely wasn’t enjoying it.

Camp Mardenn. Six weeks of hell. We lived in wood cabins, ancient and smelly, complete with plastic buckets if it rained and leaked. Every day we went out to “be with nature and make art”—I focused on the art of screaming silently.

I missed Axel and Caro desperately.

I missed my mother even more.

Was she eating? Was she shut up in the bedroom? Was Dad talking to her, maybe trying to make her laugh? She’d been totally unresponsive when I begged her to talk him out of sending me to camp. Was she any better now?

When my parents dropped me off, my mother had given me a tight and wordless hug. The pendant she always wore smashed up against my sternum; I imagined a cicada-shaped imprint in my skin, aching as it faded. I was surprised she even came. She’d spent the ride sitting slanted in the shotgun seat with her face pressed against the window. As I waved goodbye, her expression was almost apologetic. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.





I’d survived two weeks of camp. Barely.

The bathroom smelled like a dental office, like the chemically sweet toothpaste dentists used for scrubbing your teeth. The kind that often pretended to be bubble-gum-flavored. Pretended, and failed miserably.

The smell made my head hurt, but it was worth the bit of privacy. At least it didn’t smell like ass.

“That’s it,” said Axel, his voice coming in through my phone all tinny. “I’m coming to get you.”

I snorted.

“I’m serious. You sound completely miserable.”