Calmly, Carefully, Completely(11)

I step into my flip-flops when I get to the gate, and I see my dad coming toward me. “You ready to go meet the new campers?” he asks, dropping his arm around my shoulders. He’s one of very few people I allow to touch me. If anybody else grabbed me like he does, I would have to take him out. Dad smiles at me and kisses my forehead.

My mom comes around the corner of the house and catches up with us, and she has my brother Lincoln in tow. Link doesn’t like to hold hands with anyone, and he rarely looks anyone in the eye, but he looks like your average kid in every other way. Only he’s not average. He has autism. He speaks when he wants to speak, and when he doesn’t… Well, there’s not much of a chance of getting anything out of him. We’ve had a lot of kids with autism at the camp, and they all have different challenges, and not one is like another. I hold out my hand for Link to give me five. He grins in that sideways way he does, and it still makes my heart turn over even after all these years.

“The prison bus is here,” my mom warns.

“I’ll go talk to them,” my dad says. “You go unload the kids and help them get settled.”

I really want to go find Pete, but instead I have to help settle kids into their cabins. Some of them have caregivers. Some of them don’t. Some of them have a parent with them. The ones who don’t will have a camp counselor assigned to their care. They’ll sleep with the boys and hang out with the boys and make sure they eat, drink, take their meds, and shower. The counselors are all from the local hospital. Some are medical students. The youth offenders won’t be responsible for the kids’ needs at all. They’ll interact with them but in a very small way.

My mom gives me a clipboard, and we pin color-coded name tags to all their shirts so we will know who the nonverbal ones are at all times. I read through the descriptions, see what their challenges are, and make notes in my head about each of their special needs.

The boys are always fun. We had girls here last month, and the girls are more of a challenge. They always have drama. Boys are just boys, and they want to ride the horses and swim in the pool and have a good time. They want to be boys in the most basic sense of the word. And this is where they can do it.

When the kids are all settled, I go to find my dad. He’s sitting on the top of a picnic table with his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling down between his thighs. He’s giving them the speech I’ve heard every year since I was eleven.

“You’ve been given a lot of responsibility, and I just hope you’re up to it,” he says. He holds up a single finger. I stand behind a tree and smile because I know this part of the speech. “I have one rule,” he says. “If you break it, I’ll send you back to the center immediately.”

The young men all look at him with expectant faces. “My daughter is home for the summer from college. If you touch her, if you look at her, if you talk to her, if you think inappropriate thoughts about her, I will chop your nuts off while you sleep.” He picks up a hatchet he had on the picnic table for dramatic effect and slams it into the wood. He waits for a minute, and I see the young men all ball into themselves. I cover my mouth to hold in a laugh. It’s always the same routine. He threatens, and then they spend the week avoiding me.

I stand there a little longer, until I feel like he’s done, and then I get ready to go talk to my dad. He’s with the parole officer so I wait. I turn and lift my foot to take a step, but the tip of my flip-flop gets caught on a tree root and I trip, my hands flailing as I careen toward the ground. But before it happens, strong arms catch me, and I tumble into something solid.