The Names They Gave Us(73)

“Okay, two things. Yes, I want to still see each other. And to answer your first question: cars. Automobiles? We have a few in Michigan.” He pretends to maneuver a steering wheel. I refuse to laugh.

“I’m serious, Henry! I’m really busy during the school year! It’ll probably be difficult to actually be together.”

“So what?” His smile is easy, unencumbered. “You scared of difficult things?”

“Yes!” I say, laughing. But maybe I’m not—not with him.

For some reason, this unwinds me. He’s not trying to deny that we’ll have challenges, but that doesn’t mean we’ll fall apart. It’s a nice perspective, I think.

So maybe I don’t know what’ll happen. But it’s nice to have someone to not know with you.

I could use this time to tell him my biggest unknown: about my mom and chemo and how that might be a really big, difficult part of my year. But he leans in to kiss me, and I just want this happiness for a little while longer—this happiness that feels safe and entirely mine.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“You were offsides,” someone yells.

“No one knows what that means!” one of my Blue Team kids yells back.

D’Souza blows her whistle. “Bickering penalty!”

“That’s not a thing!” the kid howls.

“It is now! It means someone has to substitute in for you.”

Soccer against the Red Team is going great. It’s sweltering hot, which is messing with all of us. The humidity feels like something building in the air—a visible cloud packed around us.

As if the pressure has hit its peak, an ambulance siren shrieks, getting quickly louder. The campers stop everything— bickering, kicking, sulking—to cover their ears.

On pure instinct, I look around for any obvious distress. D’Souza mouths the numbers as she counts us off. The siren is nearing, and the counselors exchange worried glances.

“I’ll go check.” Tambe jogs toward the lodge and Miss Suzette’s cabin.

“Could it be Tara?” I whisper.

D’Souza grimaces, looking at the path Tambe took as if she might run after him to investigate too. “I hope not. She’s a few weeks away from full-term.”

When Tambe reappears, he’s walking. I exhale. If it were bad, he’d run.

“It wasn’t for us. Drove right past,” he said. “It’s probably for the church camp that’s another mile ’round the bend.”

Holyoke. Mom. My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh, Lord. No. No.”

“Luce? What’s wrong?” Tambe asks.

“My mom. Shit. Shit!” I take off in a sprint, sneakers slamming against soft ground. I’ve never run so fast in my entire life, the world distorting as I tear past the lodge, past every cabin, past every person who calls something out to me. I can’t hear any of them; I have to get to her. I plunge through the trees, and there’s no sound but the huff of my breath and the crunch of the leaves. A branch stretches into my path, and I can’t dodge it in time. It digs a line into the skin across my upper arm. I feel nothing.

My leg muscles move easily into a long stride, like my whole body knows that now is the time to perform. I could run for hours, for miles, for days.

What if I don’t get there in time? What if she’s scared and she needs me to be there and I’m not?

I push my legs harder, pumping my arms. I’m moving so quickly that the sweat on my forehead cools. What’s a fast time for a mile? Six minutes?

I burst into the clearing and up the path, where I see a crowd has gathered by the chapel. I’m coming, Mom. Whatever happens, I’m going to be there with you.

The ambulance sits with open doors, belligerently red in a world of oaks and evergreens. I can’t see through all the kids and adult counselors waiting in a wide circle. I can’t see her. Two people in navy blue EMT clothes are crouched low, strapping a gurney.

“Mom?” I call, trying to duck through people.

Every head snaps up, staring at the crazed stranger who just emerged from the woods. But it’s not my mom on the gurney. It’s a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a sheepish look on his face.

It’s not her. It’s not her.

My mom steps forward, arms crossed. I didn’t even notice her standing near the third EMT. “Lucy? What’s wrong, honey?”

It’s her. It’s her. With her dangly earrings, with her face creased in concern. She looks sicker than last week—her face a little puffy, her hair thinner.

“Oh, thank God. You’re okay.” My panting turns into sobs of relief. “We heard the ambulance, and I thought—I thought—”

I clutch onto her, needing both comfort and affirmation that she is really in front of me. Fine. Whole. Here.

“Oh, honey.” My mom rubs my back. “Everyone’s fine. One of the pastors from Conley Lutheran threw out his back doing relay races.”

In response, I sob into her shoulder. It’s the adrenaline, I hear Miss Suzette say in my mind.

“You ran here? Oh, Bird. I’m fine. Just fine.” She watches as I feel around in my shorts pocket for my inhaler. Of course this is the morning I forget to grab it. “I’ve got a spare in the cabin. Let’s go inside, okay?”