Chapter One
April 8th
I didn’t want to journal tonight because I thought it would just be too sad, and well it is, and so I guess that’s why I have to journal. So here it goes.
This sucks. It sucks in the “life goes on” kind of way. Tomorrow morning I hand over the keys to my childhood home. I’ll never sit in that front nook and read a book or burn lasagna in that kitchen or put too much detergent in the washer ever again. All of the furniture was sold in the estate sale last weekend except for this couch that Nana would have torched in the backyard if she could. But that’s only because I picked it up at a garage sale and she said I could be bringing bed bugs in the house. I secretly think she loved the faded green fabric. It was like her reliving the 60’s or something.
Well tomorrow along with handing over the keys, I say goodbye to this couch. I think I read a million books on this couch and maybe wrote as many entries into journals just like this. But on the brighter side, Mr. Wilson is going to give it a good home in the corner by the books at the shelter. He said it’ll help bring life to an otherwise dull corner in the reading room. I’ll miss Mr. Wilson. It was nice having him here when Nana took the turn. That’s what I call it I guess. The turn. I don’t like to think about it, but it happened. Stupid cancer.
SIGH.
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow other than I am getting on a plane for the first time in my life and I am terrified. Even scarier than spending another night alone in this empty house. It’s not the same house. It wasn’t the same after Pap died and now that Nan is gone, it’s just a creepy empty shell. Even though the last year was exhausting, I would give anything to hear Nana’s cough from her bedroom. I want to run to her, hold her hand and hum her to sleep. But I have to remember that she is in a better place. No more pain. I just miss her. I don’t know how to deal with this, but the show must go on, right?
I just don’t know what my next act will be. Maybe cousin Nicola will know or maybe she can point me in some direction, because right now I’m pretty sure I have on two different colored socks and all my belongings are in one suitcase and I’m flying three thousand miles to a state I’ve only seen in movies. What am I doing? -CR
“I thought I’d find you out here.” A more tired than usual Mr. Wilson closed the back porch door. The young woman with long rusted red tendrils swaying in the breeze smiled up at the elderly man as he carefully made it down the three rickety stairs that needed repair. Sadly they would have to wait for attention from the new owners moving in later that week.
“This old dogwood sure does hold a lot of memories.” Mr. Wilson wistfully looked to the blooming branches and then down to Camlin sitting Indian style against the trunk on a plaid fleece blanket as he approached.
“I sure am gonna miss it.” Camlin’s soft voice sifted through the air and Mr. Wilson nodded.
“I remember the day your grandmother planted it. Can’t believe how tall it’s grown, but then again you had only been a few days old when your Nana found it at the nursery. She wanted to watch it grow alongside her beautiful grandbaby.” He ran his arthritis stricken fingers over the groove marks along it’s trunk. One for each year of Camlin’s life. Twenty-two nicks, and the last having been carved by the young woman as her Nana had been too sick to leave the house to partake in the tradition.
“I wish I could take it with me but I don’t think they allow trees on planes.”
Mr. Wilson chuckled, a sound Camlin would miss as well. Mr. Wilson had been a staple in her life for as long as she could remember. She knew him as her grandfather’s closest friend and the best paying neighbor when it came to raking leaves in the Fall and shoveling sidewalks in the Winter.
The fragile man lowered himself onto the blanket next to Camlin and leaned up against the old dogwood letting his gaze fall on the now empty house Camlin had grown up in. She joined him in his stare, trying to commit every paint chip to memory. She smiled, glad to be sharing these last moments with her friend.
Mr. Wilson had always been a jolly, whole hearted man, even when she was a child and innocently asked where Mrs. Wilson was. He had patted her on the head with his signature chuckle and joked that she had run off with the world’s tallest man when the circus came through their small town. She had believed that story until Nana had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Camlin was fourteen years old and couldn’t believe that her grandmother only forty-eight years young would be facing the big C.
Pap had been gone from his own bout of cancer seven years prior and now it seemed it was Nana’s turn. Mr. Wilson explained that he had lost his wife Maura to her own battle long before Camlin was born and it was he who stepped in to teach Camlin how to care for her ailing grandmother when the time came that she could no longer care for herself. They had been through a lot together.
“Your Pap hated this house.” Mr. Wilson abruptly stated with his stark white head of hair tilted slightly at an angle.“I don’t think I ever told you that.”
Camlin’s eyebrows raised. The old man must be confused. “No, and you’ve told me a lot of stories. I thought he loved this house.”
“Nah,” Mr. Wilson grumbled, “Thought it was too big. It was your Nana who pushed and pushed until he caved. Happy wife, happy life, you know how they say.”
Camlin nodded and her brow creased in thought. “Do you think she was happy even though she wasn’t able to have a big family?”
“Oh yes, Sylvia was very happy. Don’t you worry about that. Having your mother was a downright miracle. It took your Nan a while to come to terms with it, but she understood that sometimes in life, God has a plan that may venture from your own, but it all has a purpose. And then you came along. And she was so very proud of you. ”
“I don’t know.” Camlin stared at her green converse sneakers warming in the sun. “What’s there to be proud of? I’ve never been anywhere, or done anything interesting. I’m downright boring.”
“Now don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve done the best you can with the cards you’ve been dealt. And not to mention you are the only one in your family to go to college.”
“Community college, and I graduated with an online certificate.” Camlin mumbled.
“That is a huge accomplishment. Don’t let anyone of those juggheads out there tell you any different. Now your photography, now really something.”
“Just a bunch of pictures of flowers and trees Mr. Wilson.”
“But they are the most beautiful pictures of flowers and trees these old eyes have ever seen. Now you have the chance to take pictures of anything you want kiddo. Do you think you’re ready for this big adventure you’ve got planned?”
Camlin reached into her over sized sweater and pulled out a picture and a folded up piece of paper. “I’m in too deep to pull out now. What do I have to lose?”
“Let me see those again.” Mr. Wilson asked and Camlin handed them over.
The photograph paper was tinted yellow by age but the black and white photo was clear. A brunette teen in a one piece bathing suit stood proudly holding a surfboard planted in the sand. A small child with long blonde pigtails stood to her right holding a castle beach pail. Both girls were smiling as an ocean of waves glistened in the distance. The year 1972 was scribbled in black ink on the right bottom hand corner.
“She was so young and beautiful.” Camlin looked longingly at the photograph. “So happy.”
“I didn’t know Sylvia back then, your grandparents moved into this house in the late seventies. But she often spoke about her trip with my Maura. I’d overhear them chatting over lemonade in the garden. Your Nana wanted to teach my wife how to surf! To think of Maura on a surfboard.” He chuckled and held his stomach. “Oh she was the clumsiest person I ever knew, but I sure did love her for it.” He sighed, releasing the memory. “But then, well you know, Maura met her sickness and the rest is history. So this, here,” he pointed to the child in the photo, “this is the cousin you’re going to stay with in California? You were able to get in touch with her after all these years?”
“Yep, that’s Nicola. It wasn’t that hard to get in touch with her. She sent flowers to the house for the funeral along with a letter. I reached out on Facebook, and that led to Facetime. She seems really cool, down to earth. A bit of a modern day hippy I guess.”
“Face this, face that, I can’t keep up anymore. I’m just glad you found family. I mean you’ll always be my little rugrat, but it’s not the same. So she suggested you fly to California?”
“Yeah, she insisted. I wasn’t sure at first but after she started talking about her house in Huntington Beach, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. She has a guest room just sitting there and she said I can stay for as long as I want.” Stars were twinkling in Camlin’s eyes as she imagined her upcoming trip, only hours away.
“And how long do you think that will be?”
Camlin took the picture back and stared at the memory in time with unsure eyes. “For as long as it takes, I guess.”
“For as long as what takes honey?”
“Well, I guess until I get through a few items on that list or until I figure out where I belong.”
Mr. Wilson looked down at the folded parchment in his hand. “You’ll always belong here in Blue Hill, you know that, yes?”
Camlin leaned her head on his shoulder. “I know. I just feel like I’ve done all I can here in Maine. I want to see what’s out there. All I know is who I am in Blue Hill. Some dull, boring nobody with no stories, no friends, and no life.”
“I’m your friend.”
“Yes Paul, you will always be my number one friend.” Camlin pulled back and looked at Mr.Wilson intently with her iridescent sky blue eyes. “Are you going to be okay? I feel so guilty leaving you.”
“Stop right there. Who else is going to run the neighborhood watch for all these old fogies?” He smiled and then his expression turned serious. “The only reason I gave you this list is so it would motivate you to explore and live a little. Sylvia wanted nothing more than for you to find what makes you happy. She felt terrible about all the responsibility that her care brought on you. You didn't really have a chance to be young, she wanted nothing more than for you to enjoy life.”
“It wasn’t a responsibility, I tried explaining that to her. I wanted to be here. She’s all I had, and after Pap died, we were the only family each other had. I wouldn’t have taken back a single moment.”
“I know child, I know.” He opened the list and pulled out a set of readers from his jacket pocket. Adjusting the glasses he looked over the list that his wife and Sylvia had constructed more than thirty years ago. “Well, I guess you can finagle a few of these in California. You can’t quite teach my Maura how to surf, but you can learn.”
“Yep, that’s my first goal I guess. I mentioned the list to Nicola and she has a few ideas. She said that once I get settled she’ll take me down to the beach and teach me some beginners moves to see if I like it. She’s pretty hardcore. She surfs every morning when the tide’s not too rough.”
“She’s what, in her early fifties? Goodness, what I would give to be back in my early fifties!”
Camlin gave him a playful shove. “You’re not that old!”
Mr. Wilson looked at Camlin over the top of his readers. “Seventy-nine years young is not what it’s cracked up to be, it’s just everything cracking!”
The two laughed in the afternoon light under the dogwood tree that would soon be a fixture in the life of a new family. A husband and wife with a young son and a baby on the way. Maybe they would hang a swing from one of the dogwood’s sturdier branches and build a fort in the corner by the big pine. All things she had wished there would have been time for when she was growing up. But there hadn’t been time, Camlin had rushed into adulthood at an early age and hadn’t taken a breath until today.
“You know the one good thing about realizing you’re in the final chapter of life?” Mr. Wilson asked.
“All the drugs?”
“No! And they’re not drugs, they’re prescriptions and a few just happen to have a few nice perks. Now what was I saying?”
“The good thing about the last chapter?”
“Ah yes.” Mr. Wilson put his readers back in his pocket and leaned his head back, looking to the sky. “It’s knowing there is one big party in the sky waiting. My Maura, your mom, Sylvia and your Pap. Even Rusty, I don’t know if you remember him. He was our chocolate lab. You might have been four or five when he passed on. Buried him right over there in our backyard.”
“I do remember him, a little. He wasn’t very active.”
“No, he was a tired old boy, but he was loyal.”
“Is it scary getting older and having everyone you love pass away?”
“Of course it is. A real stick in the mud if you ask me, but I don’t resent being left behind. It’s almost an honor. I get to pass on their stories for them. When it’s my time, it’ll be the right time and not a moment sooner.”
Camlin picked at some grass between her fingers. “What do you think my mom would be like if she were still alive?”
Mr. Wilson opened his eyes and put his arm around Camlin’s thin frame. “Oh your mother was a wild child. She was a soul from the days of peace and love. Free spirited and in love with life. She was so young when she had you, but that didn’t stop her from being young at heart. Did you know she used to put headphones on her belly. She sat right out here in the early summer months on a lawn chair facing the sun so she could tan and place the headphones on her belly blasting whatever rock band she was into at the time. She called it an early education in rock and roll.”
“Kimberly always had a hand in one thing or another growing up. Your mother was always on some committee in school. Selling baked goods for this charitable cause or writing an article in the school paper about environmental activism. She earned her title as Homecoming Queen and when you came along, well, the pregnancy only enriched her life. She couldn’t wait to be a mother.”
“But she was only seventeen. She hadn’t even graduated high school when she got pregnant.”
“And she took the gift with stride. Even though the man who helped in the conception was just a boy who fled back to whatever college he was in town visiting from, it didn’t stop your family from showering you with love. Your mother and grandparents didn’t care what anyone in this town thought, you were brought into this world for a reason.”
“I wish I could have known her. I wish she was here right now so she could tell me what to do.” Camlin’s heart was feeling tired and weary. She had gotten through the last few years with luck and the help of Mr. Wilson, but this adventure as they were calling it was brand new territory.
“She’s here girl, in your heart.” He placed his hand over his own and looked into Camlin’s eyes. “You have her tenaciousness and her spirit. There’s nothing you can’t do and if anything happens out there on that big scary road to wherever you think you need to go, you come right back here for a break and we’ll figure it out. I don’t plan on cashing in my ticket to the big party in the sky anytime soon.”
“Thanks Mr. Wilson. I needed to hear that. I’ll write you know. I promise.”
“You better. No one writes anymore, it’s a lost art form. Such a shame.”
“I will, and postcards too. I know how you like postcards.”
“I do. Just promise me that you’ll be careful and use that smart noggin of yours. Don’t let anyone push you around or talk you into something you know in your heart isn’t right. You have a good head on your shoulders and there are a lot of shysters out there who will take advantage of a young, beautiful woman on her own. But this is your journey Cam, you write your own story when you lock that front door.”
Mr. Wilson leaned over and kissed Camlin on the top of her head. “Love you girl, but if I sit here on this hard ground any longer, these bones might not ever let me get back up again.”
Camlin helped the elderly man on his feet and enveloped him in a hearty hug. “I’ll miss you Mr. Wilson.”
“I’ll miss you Camlin Eberly Rose. Be good living your best life and don’t forget about the little people.”
Mr. Wilson smiled and made his way around the side of the house down the narrow pebble walk towards his neighboring house. Camlin picked up the blanket from the ground and ran her fingers over the nicks in the tree bark one last time. She wasn’t sure if she would ever smell this tree’s flowers blooming in April ever again but she would never forget her last day in Blue Hill, Maine. The day the rest of her life began.
April 8th
I didn’t want to journal tonight because I thought it would just be too sad, and well it is, and so I guess that’s why I have to journal. So here it goes.
This sucks. It sucks in the “life goes on” kind of way. Tomorrow morning I hand over the keys to my childhood home. I’ll never sit in that front nook and read a book or burn lasagna in that kitchen or put too much detergent in the washer ever again. All of the furniture was sold in the estate sale last weekend except for this couch that Nana would have torched in the backyard if she could. But that’s only because I picked it up at a garage sale and she said I could be bringing bed bugs in the house. I secretly think she loved the faded green fabric. It was like her reliving the 60’s or something.
Well tomorrow along with handing over the keys, I say goodbye to this couch. I think I read a million books on this couch and maybe wrote as many entries into journals just like this. But on the brighter side, Mr. Wilson is going to give it a good home in the corner by the books at the shelter. He said it’ll help bring life to an otherwise dull corner in the reading room. I’ll miss Mr. Wilson. It was nice having him here when Nana took the turn. That’s what I call it I guess. The turn. I don’t like to think about it, but it happened. Stupid cancer.
SIGH.
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow other than I am getting on a plane for the first time in my life and I am terrified. Even scarier than spending another night alone in this empty house. It’s not the same house. It wasn’t the same after Pap died and now that Nan is gone, it’s just a creepy empty shell. Even though the last year was exhausting, I would give anything to hear Nana’s cough from her bedroom. I want to run to her, hold her hand and hum her to sleep. But I have to remember that she is in a better place. No more pain. I just miss her. I don’t know how to deal with this, but the show must go on, right?
I just don’t know what my next act will be. Maybe cousin Nicola will know or maybe she can point me in some direction, because right now I’m pretty sure I have on two different colored socks and all my belongings are in one suitcase and I’m flying three thousand miles to a state I’ve only seen in movies. What am I doing? -CR
“I thought I’d find you out here.” A more tired than usual Mr. Wilson closed the back porch door. The young woman with long rusted red tendrils swaying in the breeze smiled up at the elderly man as he carefully made it down the three rickety stairs that needed repair. Sadly they would have to wait for attention from the new owners moving in later that week.
“This old dogwood sure does hold a lot of memories.” Mr. Wilson wistfully looked to the blooming branches and then down to Camlin sitting Indian style against the trunk on a plaid fleece blanket as he approached.
“I sure am gonna miss it.” Camlin’s soft voice sifted through the air and Mr. Wilson nodded.
“I remember the day your grandmother planted it. Can’t believe how tall it’s grown, but then again you had only been a few days old when your Nana found it at the nursery. She wanted to watch it grow alongside her beautiful grandbaby.” He ran his arthritis stricken fingers over the groove marks along it’s trunk. One for each year of Camlin’s life. Twenty-two nicks, and the last having been carved by the young woman as her Nana had been too sick to leave the house to partake in the tradition.
“I wish I could take it with me but I don’t think they allow trees on planes.”
Mr. Wilson chuckled, a sound Camlin would miss as well. Mr. Wilson had been a staple in her life for as long as she could remember. She knew him as her grandfather’s closest friend and the best paying neighbor when it came to raking leaves in the Fall and shoveling sidewalks in the Winter.
The fragile man lowered himself onto the blanket next to Camlin and leaned up against the old dogwood letting his gaze fall on the now empty house Camlin had grown up in. She joined him in his stare, trying to commit every paint chip to memory. She smiled, glad to be sharing these last moments with her friend.
Mr. Wilson had always been a jolly, whole hearted man, even when she was a child and innocently asked where Mrs. Wilson was. He had patted her on the head with his signature chuckle and joked that she had run off with the world’s tallest man when the circus came through their small town. She had believed that story until Nana had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Camlin was fourteen years old and couldn’t believe that her grandmother only forty-eight years young would be facing the big C.
Pap had been gone from his own bout of cancer seven years prior and now it seemed it was Nana’s turn. Mr. Wilson explained that he had lost his wife Maura to her own battle long before Camlin was born and it was he who stepped in to teach Camlin how to care for her ailing grandmother when the time came that she could no longer care for herself. They had been through a lot together.
“Your Pap hated this house.” Mr. Wilson abruptly stated with his stark white head of hair tilted slightly at an angle.“I don’t think I ever told you that.”
Camlin’s eyebrows raised. The old man must be confused. “No, and you’ve told me a lot of stories. I thought he loved this house.”
“Nah,” Mr. Wilson grumbled, “Thought it was too big. It was your Nana who pushed and pushed until he caved. Happy wife, happy life, you know how they say.”
Camlin nodded and her brow creased in thought. “Do you think she was happy even though she wasn’t able to have a big family?”
“Oh yes, Sylvia was very happy. Don’t you worry about that. Having your mother was a downright miracle. It took your Nan a while to come to terms with it, but she understood that sometimes in life, God has a plan that may venture from your own, but it all has a purpose. And then you came along. And she was so very proud of you. ”
“I don’t know.” Camlin stared at her green converse sneakers warming in the sun. “What’s there to be proud of? I’ve never been anywhere, or done anything interesting. I’m downright boring.”
“Now don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve done the best you can with the cards you’ve been dealt. And not to mention you are the only one in your family to go to college.”
“Community college, and I graduated with an online certificate.” Camlin mumbled.
“That is a huge accomplishment. Don’t let anyone of those juggheads out there tell you any different. Now your photography, now really something.”
“Just a bunch of pictures of flowers and trees Mr. Wilson.”
“But they are the most beautiful pictures of flowers and trees these old eyes have ever seen. Now you have the chance to take pictures of anything you want kiddo. Do you think you’re ready for this big adventure you’ve got planned?”
Camlin reached into her over sized sweater and pulled out a picture and a folded up piece of paper. “I’m in too deep to pull out now. What do I have to lose?”
“Let me see those again.” Mr. Wilson asked and Camlin handed them over.
The photograph paper was tinted yellow by age but the black and white photo was clear. A brunette teen in a one piece bathing suit stood proudly holding a surfboard planted in the sand. A small child with long blonde pigtails stood to her right holding a castle beach pail. Both girls were smiling as an ocean of waves glistened in the distance. The year 1972 was scribbled in black ink on the right bottom hand corner.
“She was so young and beautiful.” Camlin looked longingly at the photograph. “So happy.”
“I didn’t know Sylvia back then, your grandparents moved into this house in the late seventies. But she often spoke about her trip with my Maura. I’d overhear them chatting over lemonade in the garden. Your Nana wanted to teach my wife how to surf! To think of Maura on a surfboard.” He chuckled and held his stomach. “Oh she was the clumsiest person I ever knew, but I sure did love her for it.” He sighed, releasing the memory. “But then, well you know, Maura met her sickness and the rest is history. So this, here,” he pointed to the child in the photo, “this is the cousin you’re going to stay with in California? You were able to get in touch with her after all these years?”
“Yep, that’s Nicola. It wasn’t that hard to get in touch with her. She sent flowers to the house for the funeral along with a letter. I reached out on Facebook, and that led to Facetime. She seems really cool, down to earth. A bit of a modern day hippy I guess.”
“Face this, face that, I can’t keep up anymore. I’m just glad you found family. I mean you’ll always be my little rugrat, but it’s not the same. So she suggested you fly to California?”
“Yeah, she insisted. I wasn’t sure at first but after she started talking about her house in Huntington Beach, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. She has a guest room just sitting there and she said I can stay for as long as I want.” Stars were twinkling in Camlin’s eyes as she imagined her upcoming trip, only hours away.
“And how long do you think that will be?”
Camlin took the picture back and stared at the memory in time with unsure eyes. “For as long as it takes, I guess.”
“For as long as what takes honey?”
“Well, I guess until I get through a few items on that list or until I figure out where I belong.”
Mr. Wilson looked down at the folded parchment in his hand. “You’ll always belong here in Blue Hill, you know that, yes?”
Camlin leaned her head on his shoulder. “I know. I just feel like I’ve done all I can here in Maine. I want to see what’s out there. All I know is who I am in Blue Hill. Some dull, boring nobody with no stories, no friends, and no life.”
“I’m your friend.”
“Yes Paul, you will always be my number one friend.” Camlin pulled back and looked at Mr.Wilson intently with her iridescent sky blue eyes. “Are you going to be okay? I feel so guilty leaving you.”
“Stop right there. Who else is going to run the neighborhood watch for all these old fogies?” He smiled and then his expression turned serious. “The only reason I gave you this list is so it would motivate you to explore and live a little. Sylvia wanted nothing more than for you to find what makes you happy. She felt terrible about all the responsibility that her care brought on you. You didn't really have a chance to be young, she wanted nothing more than for you to enjoy life.”
“It wasn’t a responsibility, I tried explaining that to her. I wanted to be here. She’s all I had, and after Pap died, we were the only family each other had. I wouldn’t have taken back a single moment.”
“I know child, I know.” He opened the list and pulled out a set of readers from his jacket pocket. Adjusting the glasses he looked over the list that his wife and Sylvia had constructed more than thirty years ago. “Well, I guess you can finagle a few of these in California. You can’t quite teach my Maura how to surf, but you can learn.”
“Yep, that’s my first goal I guess. I mentioned the list to Nicola and she has a few ideas. She said that once I get settled she’ll take me down to the beach and teach me some beginners moves to see if I like it. She’s pretty hardcore. She surfs every morning when the tide’s not too rough.”
“She’s what, in her early fifties? Goodness, what I would give to be back in my early fifties!”
Camlin gave him a playful shove. “You’re not that old!”
Mr. Wilson looked at Camlin over the top of his readers. “Seventy-nine years young is not what it’s cracked up to be, it’s just everything cracking!”
The two laughed in the afternoon light under the dogwood tree that would soon be a fixture in the life of a new family. A husband and wife with a young son and a baby on the way. Maybe they would hang a swing from one of the dogwood’s sturdier branches and build a fort in the corner by the big pine. All things she had wished there would have been time for when she was growing up. But there hadn’t been time, Camlin had rushed into adulthood at an early age and hadn’t taken a breath until today.
“You know the one good thing about realizing you’re in the final chapter of life?” Mr. Wilson asked.
“All the drugs?”
“No! And they’re not drugs, they’re prescriptions and a few just happen to have a few nice perks. Now what was I saying?”
“The good thing about the last chapter?”
“Ah yes.” Mr. Wilson put his readers back in his pocket and leaned his head back, looking to the sky. “It’s knowing there is one big party in the sky waiting. My Maura, your mom, Sylvia and your Pap. Even Rusty, I don’t know if you remember him. He was our chocolate lab. You might have been four or five when he passed on. Buried him right over there in our backyard.”
“I do remember him, a little. He wasn’t very active.”
“No, he was a tired old boy, but he was loyal.”
“Is it scary getting older and having everyone you love pass away?”
“Of course it is. A real stick in the mud if you ask me, but I don’t resent being left behind. It’s almost an honor. I get to pass on their stories for them. When it’s my time, it’ll be the right time and not a moment sooner.”
Camlin picked at some grass between her fingers. “What do you think my mom would be like if she were still alive?”
Mr. Wilson opened his eyes and put his arm around Camlin’s thin frame. “Oh your mother was a wild child. She was a soul from the days of peace and love. Free spirited and in love with life. She was so young when she had you, but that didn’t stop her from being young at heart. Did you know she used to put headphones on her belly. She sat right out here in the early summer months on a lawn chair facing the sun so she could tan and place the headphones on her belly blasting whatever rock band she was into at the time. She called it an early education in rock and roll.”
“Kimberly always had a hand in one thing or another growing up. Your mother was always on some committee in school. Selling baked goods for this charitable cause or writing an article in the school paper about environmental activism. She earned her title as Homecoming Queen and when you came along, well, the pregnancy only enriched her life. She couldn’t wait to be a mother.”
“But she was only seventeen. She hadn’t even graduated high school when she got pregnant.”
“And she took the gift with stride. Even though the man who helped in the conception was just a boy who fled back to whatever college he was in town visiting from, it didn’t stop your family from showering you with love. Your mother and grandparents didn’t care what anyone in this town thought, you were brought into this world for a reason.”
“I wish I could have known her. I wish she was here right now so she could tell me what to do.” Camlin’s heart was feeling tired and weary. She had gotten through the last few years with luck and the help of Mr. Wilson, but this adventure as they were calling it was brand new territory.
“She’s here girl, in your heart.” He placed his hand over his own and looked into Camlin’s eyes. “You have her tenaciousness and her spirit. There’s nothing you can’t do and if anything happens out there on that big scary road to wherever you think you need to go, you come right back here for a break and we’ll figure it out. I don’t plan on cashing in my ticket to the big party in the sky anytime soon.”
“Thanks Mr. Wilson. I needed to hear that. I’ll write you know. I promise.”
“You better. No one writes anymore, it’s a lost art form. Such a shame.”
“I will, and postcards too. I know how you like postcards.”
“I do. Just promise me that you’ll be careful and use that smart noggin of yours. Don’t let anyone push you around or talk you into something you know in your heart isn’t right. You have a good head on your shoulders and there are a lot of shysters out there who will take advantage of a young, beautiful woman on her own. But this is your journey Cam, you write your own story when you lock that front door.”
Mr. Wilson leaned over and kissed Camlin on the top of her head. “Love you girl, but if I sit here on this hard ground any longer, these bones might not ever let me get back up again.”
Camlin helped the elderly man on his feet and enveloped him in a hearty hug. “I’ll miss you Mr. Wilson.”
“I’ll miss you Camlin Eberly Rose. Be good living your best life and don’t forget about the little people.”
Mr. Wilson smiled and made his way around the side of the house down the narrow pebble walk towards his neighboring house. Camlin picked up the blanket from the ground and ran her fingers over the nicks in the tree bark one last time. She wasn’t sure if she would ever smell this tree’s flowers blooming in April ever again but she would never forget her last day in Blue Hill, Maine. The day the rest of her life began.