What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(53)

“And you do so very adequately. I know about these things. I’m a doctor.”

When Cal had been back at Sullivan’s Crossing for about a week, Maggie took off for the day to meet with her lawyers in Denver. It was a long day so she planned to stay overnight. She met Jaycee for sushi, something they used to do regularly. Then she had a nostalgic visit with her house.

It was a great single woman’s house, large enough to give her plenty of room, small enough to hug her when she was there. Even though her schedule hadn’t allowed her a great deal of time at home, she had gone to great trouble and considerable expense in decorating. Her furniture was contemporary and comfortable, dark walnut tables and accents, her sectional cozy and deep velour.

She had a wonderful mattress that she had missed, but she missed Cal more. Sometime in the middle of the night she went to the guest room bed and found it slept just as well.

When Maggie returned to Sullivan’s Crossing she was driving a rental truck that she could return in Leadville and she was towing her car. In the truck was a thick area rug and the furniture from her guest bedroom. She brought a bookcase and reading lamp. Sully already had an old leather chair and ottoman that had been his father’s—it was a beautiful, comfortable relic.

“What’s this?” Cal asked.

“We’re moving downstairs. Into Sully’s rumpus room.”

“Will he know everything we’re doing if we’re down there?” Cal asked.

“Only if he has a nanny-cam.”

Cal’s eyes lit up with pleasure. “Oh boy. We’re going to rumpus our brains out!”

Cal was quickly absorbed into summer at the crossing. Guests and campers greeted him by name. He asked kids if they were having fun, checked to see if there was anything he could do for their parents. He worked with Tom on the care of the grounds and did any heavy lifting that had to be done if he caught it before Sully did. He also got better acquainted with the neighbors and friends who stopped by. People who worked at other campgrounds on the lake liked to grab a beer or drink at Sully’s store; first responders dropped by now and then to see how things were going, get the latest gossip, grab a beer if they were off duty.

“Tom’s got a lot on his plate. I can take on his Wednesday jobs,” he suggested to Sully. “I can keep up with the grounds.”

“I couldn’t do that to Tom,” Sully said. “He supports four kids on his own. He does every job he can manage and he’s a search-and-rescue volunteer besides. He depends on his paychecks. And now he’s helping Jackson with college.”

Cal was impressed—this responsibility to each other people around the crossing shared. His own family was barely capable of that. They checked on each other and one would think, given the unbalanced lifestyle in which they’d grown up, they would cling to each other for survival, but it seemed to go the other way. Once they broke free, their contact was steady but minimal. It was every man for himself. He liked his brother-in-law, Sedona’s husband, and his niece and nephew were great, but they didn’t see each other often. Dakota, being a military man, wasn’t easy to keep up with; he had deployed three times in the past ten years. If they didn’t all have cell phones, they would hardly be in touch at all. They didn’t exactly have family reunions.

“Family reunion?” Sedona had once said. “Doesn’t that sound like a day in hell?”

“Nah,” Cal had replied. “Just a day at the loony bin.”

Summer brought Sullivan’s Crossing to life—vacationers abounded. The camps across the lake were full; there were fishing boats and Jet Skis all over the water. The occasional Boy Scout or teen camp counselor escaped to Sully’s to get away from their kids.

Hikers passed through in a steady stream—some who had made the trek south from Boulder, some who had been out for a short time, some who had come all the way from the Mexican border and had already logged close to a thousand miles. They usually straggled in at the end of the day. They had a variety of reasons for taking to the trail—a cancer survivor who had a lot of living to do, a professor who was documenting his hike, a divorcée getting her confidence back, a couple of ministers who wanted to experience the CDT for the spiritual messages, married teachers doing as much of the hike as they could over summer and hoping to get across three states. They sometimes recognized each other from the trail or from names in trail logs they’d read along the way. They gathered around picnic tables, on the porch or the dock. Remembering all too well coming off the trail, Cal began grilling burgers for hikers. He kept ground beef and buns on hand just for that purpose—burgers and chips. No charge.

“You’re gonna go broke that way,” Sully groused.

“I can spend my money any way I like,” Cal said.

Later that night Maggie told him that Sully had been doing the same thing for years. Most hikers weren’t destitute at all and traveled with their credit cards. They’d leave a nice tip behind, more than covering the cost. Cal and Maggie both loved talking to them, watching them open the packages they sent themselves, hearing them describe the almost religious experience they had from taking a hot shower.

Cal particularly enjoyed watching families together, couples with two or three kids who camped in big family-sized tents and stayed for anywhere from a few days to more than a week. Sometimes they were on the move, seeing as many of Colorado’s national parks as possible. They usually staked out a picnic table and grill for their meals and played cards or games at night and went hiking, rock climbing, boating or fishing by day. Cal had always expected to have a family like one of these, a boy and girl, a family having fun together in the healthy outdoors.