It’s dilapidated, with peeling paint and a dip in the roof and a saggy porch, which is no surprise.
When it was sold, the new owners made it pretty clear they’d be building a custom mansion deeper into the property.
“Fucking bankruptcy,” Hy mutters.
I swipe my eyes. “I miss this place.”
“I brought handcuffs. We can strap ourselves to the fence post and refuse to leave. And my purse has enough food to feed all five of us plus the baby for at least four days. Jerry will bring refills. I apologize for not having good potty facilities in my bag too though.”
“I love you, Hy.”
“I love you too, B.”
The gravel road turns into pavement, and soon a massive house with a stone front and arched doorways and a portico and a turret comes into view, right where the dining hall used to be.
Hy flips it off and keeps driving.
“Bad house!” Dani cries in the backseat.
Little Leo, who’s barely two, tries to echo her. “Baa how!”
“Show it your fingers, Wee-o!”
“Feeg-aahs!”
“I love those kids,” Hy whispers.
The road turns to gravel, then dirt. “Where are we going?” I ask.
She pulls off onto the overgrown former wide pathway to the section of camp that had the pool and the campfire ring-slash-amphitheater and the art hut. She points to a pin on her car’s GPS. “There. That’s all I got.”
My stomach drops as the weeds get thicker around her car and the pin gets closer.
We’re going to the art hut.
God, I miss that art hut.
And now I’m wiping tears again, half-furious, half grateful.
I can’t think of the art hut without thinking of Hayes building me an art hut in his house.
I’ve been doing so well at squashing memories of him, but there it is. Welling up and mixing with my favorite childhood memories.
“Fucking art hut,” I mutter.
“Aunt B, don’t say fuck,” Dani says. “It not nice.”
“It really doesn’t sound right on Aunt Begonia, does it?” Hyacinth says to her daughter.
Dani shakes her head.
“Let me out,” I tell her. “I don’t want to go.”
She ignores me.
“Marshmallow, jailbreak!” I cry.
I turn and watch my dog delicately eat a Goldfish out of my nephew’s hand and make no effort to free himself from his straps and harness to rescue me.
“Stop being dramatic,” Hy says. “That’s my job.”
“I don’t want to go.” Dammit. Now I’m crying. “Hy, it’s too much. It’s—”
She pulls the van to a stop, and I can’t avoid it anymore.
There’s the art hut.
And just like my relationship with Hayes, it’s over.
The door is falling off the hinges. All of the bright designs that campers painted all over the outside of it over the years have washed off with time, so all that’s left is a broken gray building missing a few shingles sitting amidst an overgrown field of weeds and baby trees.
The forest wants its art house back.
“B, go on,” Hyacinth says. “I have to spray these rugrats down with bug and tick spray before I let them out.”
“I’ll get them,” I offer.
“Begonia. Get your ass into that art hut and make sure the toilets still work, because that’s the next thing I’m gonna need, and if I’m gonna be peeing in the woods instead, I have to spray my cooch with bug and tick spray too.”
“Do not spray your cooch with bug and tick spray.”
“Go find me a bathroom.”
“I’m sure the new owners will—”
“Go!”
She’s being such a pill, and I get it.
This is hard for her too.
But my stomach is in knots and I want Hayes.
There.
I said it.
I want Hayes.
I don’t want to walk into my dad’s old art hut, the place I discovered my entire mission in life, all by myself when the last person that I thought could love me tried to recreate it for me and then couldn’t tell me he loved me.
I want him here with me.
I want him holding my hand and telling me that I can do this. That I can walk into this building that meant so much to me so long ago and tell someone else how to rebuild the dream I let go of forever ago.
God, I miss him. He’d squeeze me in a hug and tell me I can do this, and then he’d tell me he’d buy the whole damn place for me, which I’d tell him was ridiculous and unnecessary because I’m finding another job, a real teaching job that’s not just summers working for peanuts at a camp, and I can’t just pretend I’m a kid at summer camp for the rest of my life.