We are camping in the backyard. The night is cold but our tent is cozy thanks to my stockpile of blankets. My father tells me this is the best adventure he’s ever had and look at that shooting star and oh, he has one more ghost story to share. And we talk and laugh and stuff ourselves with marshmallows straight out of the bag because he never let me build that fire. Then we chase down the marshmallows with chunks of dark chocolate and broken pieces of graham crackers and it tastes so good we declare we will never eat s’mores any other way. We fall asleep still laughing.
My father and me.
On the camping adventure that never happened. And the relationship that never was.
I never camped again. My father had more moments of sobriety. Followed by more moments of failure. Such is the ride.
My mother . . . she worked, she endured, she nursed her rage. First at him. Later at me.
Till the day I graduated. I don’t remember it, being so well and truly wasted that even my father regarded me with pity as I stumbled home at four in the morning. Then soon enough, I was gone, off to bright lights and hard partying in LA.
Till one day, hundreds of miles away, a driver swerved across the center line. He hit a vehicle head-on, and just like that, my parents were dead.
I took the call standing outside a bar, one finger stuck in my ear to drown out the background noise as I listened to my aunt’s words. I think I nodded. Then I went back inside, to the business at hand.
I never met my parents as a sober adult. I never got to show my father this disease could be beat. I never got to prove to my mother that I took after her more than she thought; I’m a good worker, I know how to get the job done, I can make a difference in this world.
She knew I loved my father. She died before I could tell her that I loved her, too. That I did admire her. That my father might have been my favorite playmate, but she was my hero, and I never would’ve gotten my act together if I hadn’t had the example of her strength to guide me.
Unfinished business. An addict’s life is filled with such instances. The coulda, woulda, shouldas that will never happen again.
It helps me relate to the families I assist. Enables me to understand why Martin is driving us now, step after brutal step, deeper into the mountains.
Until we finally arrive at this place, Devil’s Canyon, where we stagger to a halt, half of our group still vertical, the other half of us dropping like rocks.
“This is it,” Nemeth declares, gesturing to a flat clearing next to a vast blue lake. “Home sweet home for the next six days. Everyone, welcome to our campsite.”
I think of my father and the backyard and the camping that never was, and I do my best to hide the exhausted tears running down my cheeks as I finally wrest the pack off my shoulders. I’m not the only one struggling; Neil, Scott, and Miggy appear equally wrung out.
“You are a goddamn asshole,” Miggy bursts out suddenly. He points a finger straight at Martin. “Haven’t you ruined our lives enough by now? We loved Tim, too, you know. Trying to kill us year after year doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”
He throws his pack on the ground and stomps off into a patch of trees.
Which is how I officially know this isn’t the end of our ordeal, but just the beginning.
CHAPTER 11
Devil’s Canyon appears to be a broad, flat expanse that spreads out . . . forever. The lake before us is framed by a staggering gray-brown cliff face and more red-and-green-streaked mountains in the distance. Up close are patches of dark woods interspersed with meadows of sun-dried grass and plains of dusty earth.
I understand at least part of Miguel’s temper tantrum. An entire day of grueling hiking later, my feet roar, my shoulders have knotted into a solid bar, and I’m not sure where the pain ends and I begin. Hard dirt and an ice-cold lake? I want a soft bed and bubble bath. Even Daisy has plopped down with an exhausted sigh. I wonder how much Tim’s former college friends still hike in their real lives, or if this is the yearly torture test, as Miggy claims.
I study Martin’s face for his reaction to the outburst, but his expression remains inscrutable as he begins unloading his pack.
Nemeth starts pointing and commanding. Fire here, latrine there. First clump of tents here, second there, third over here. As the two females, Luciana and I are assigned our own little corner of dirt. The bachelor buddies form the next grouping of three, leaving our fearless leaders as the final trio.
I don’t know what to do next. I have no idea how to set up a tent, establish a campsite. I never managed to spend a single night in my own backyard, so how the hell am I supposed to fake my way through this? Everyone seems to be unloading gear, so I follow their lead. Luciana already has her shelter spread out on the ground. Watching her, I’m filled with the age-old terror of making a mistake, looking foolish. How is it we all leave high school, but high school never leaves us?