Reach for Tomorrow

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “But I love her!” Meg cried. “And Edna St. Vincent Millay too. Do you know her work?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “And how about the Brownings? And Maya Angelou?” She stopped abruptly, realizing that he was looking at her with an amused expression. She felt her cheeks flame. “Uh—look, I’ve got to go.” She started jogging away.

  “Wait,” he called. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Maybe later.” Meg put her head down and dashed off as fast as her legs would carry her, feeling like a fool.

  Minutes later she arrived at the rec room, where a CD player was blaring and everybody was already sitting down with plates in front of them. Why had she ever agreed to come? She didn’t belong here. The other girls were friends, and they had an unshakable bond. Meg would always be the outsider.

  “Burger or hot dog?”

  She looked up into Eric’s smiling face. “What?”

  “I’m the cook,” he said. “Can I fix you a burger or a hot dog?”

  “A burger’s fine.”

  “You look like you’ve lost your best friend.”

  She forced a smile. “Just a little overwhelmed.”

  “Hey, me too.” At the sizzling grill, he flipped her a burger. “You’re Megan, aren’t you?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Your name tag.” He pointed. She blushed. He said, “Actually, I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it looks like me and you are the only normal people here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Everybody’s either been sick at some point, or had a transplant.… Geez, I feel out of place, you know? I’m healthy.”

  His expression made her laugh. “You have a point. I’m healthy too. And glad of it. Are you sure we’re the only ones?”

  He grinned disarmingly. “Well, maybe I exaggerated a little. I think that Josh guy has never been sick either.”

  “Um—how about Morgan, the stable keeper?”

  Eric set Meg’s burger on a bun and handed it to her. “I’m not sure. He keeps to himself. I’ve tried to talk to him some, but he’s not real sociable.”

  “I hope he isn’t sick,” she said.

  Meg glanced over her shoulder and saw Morgan standing against a wall, staring at her and Eric. She turned quickly.

  Eric leaned down. “Why don’t we go sit down and talk? I’d like to get to know you better.”

  For the second time in an hour, Meg felt surprised that a guy wanted to be with her. Must be something in the air, she told herself. “All right,” she said to Eric.

  They sat, ate, and talked, and she figured out quickly that Eric liked to laugh and to party. He had a serious side too, however, and got very quiet when he told her about the deaths of his two friends. It didn’t take much for her to surmise that Kara had liked him, or that he had been turned off by the mere idea of her illness. “So, here I am,” he finally said. “Working at a camp full of sick kids. I’m only doing it for Kara and Vince. Because they didn’t deserve to die and because I should have tried harder with them while they were alive.”

  “It makes no difference how hard you try,” Meg said. “I did all I could for Donovan, but in the end I couldn’t save him. If it had been a kidney he needed, I could have donated one of mine to him. But it was a liver.”

  “You would have done that? Given away a kidney to save somebody?”

  She nodded. “I would have.”

  Eric’s grin split his face. “I’m sticking close to you all summer. Just in case.”

  She laughed. He was very easy to be with, not at all like Morgan of the brooding eyes. Yes, having fun with Eric would be a perfect way to balance the job she had ahead of her caring for sick children.

  Minutes later Mr. Holloway stood and led them in singing rounds of “Oh, How Lovely Is the Evening.” The male voices, deep and resonant, underscored the girls’ sweet, lilting echoes. They sang the song three times, then stood in reverent silence as the notes floated off on the summer breeze. Tears formed in Meg’s eyes at the tender beauty of the song as she thought about all the kids who’d never see a lovely evening here on earth again.

  FIVE

  “Bluejays! Over here!” Katie stood in the rec center holding a sign that announced the name of her cabin in large, colorful letters. The center was complete bedlam as campers and their families milled around the check-in tables, sorted through papers with the medical staff, ran to meet returning friends, and searched for their counselors. Piles of luggage, duffel bags, pillows, and keepsakes grew on the floor around Katie’s feet as one by one the campers found her.

  So far, so good, she thought. She was lucky. Her six bunkmates were mostly older girls, twelve or thirteen. The oldest was sixteen, a girl named Sarah McGreggor who hadn’t turned up yet. But Katie had also inherited Dullas, who might make up for five flawlessly nice girls. Although Katie had to admit, adoption and belonging to Kimbra’s family had calmed Dullas considerably. Dullas could actually be friendly, and her language had certainly cleaned up. Last summer, she would burst into a stream of cursing at the least provocation.

  “Are you Katie?”

  Katie looked down into the sweet face of a young girl. Her hair was the color of pale honey and fell straight to just below her ears. “Yes, I’m Katie. And your?”

  “Sarah McGreggor.”

  Katie was shocked. This girl looked too young to be sixteen. Then she remembered being told that sometimes chemo treatments stunted a person’s growth. “Welcome to Jenny House,” Katie said.

  “I’m not sure I even wanted to come,” Sarah said. “Hope you don’t mind hearing that.”

  “Not at all. I felt the same way the first year I came. And my friend Lacey … well, her folks dragged her. But we’re all back, and this time we’re counselors. I say that so you’ll know what a special place we think it is.”

  Sarah glanced around the room. “But it looks like I’m the oldest one here besides you counselors. I know I don’t look sixteen, but I am.”

  “You’ll have a good time,” Katie assured her.

  Just then a little boy skidded to a halt beside them. He looked as if he must be five or six. “Sarah, guess what? You get to ride horses! Dad took me down to the stables and there’s these many horses!” He held up all his fingers.

  “My brother, Richie,” Sarah explained, a soft smile lighting her face.

  “Actually there are only seven horses, but we do get to ride them,” Katie said with a laugh. “We’ll rotate cabins, so you’ll ride every other day.”

  A girl strolled up. She was a head taller than Sarah. “My sister, Tina,” Sarah said. “She’s fourteen.”

  Katie thought she looked more mature than Sarah, and felt sorry for the older girl. Cancer had robbed Sarah of much already. “Hey,” Katie said to Tina.

  “I wish I was staying,” Tina grumbled.

  “It’s not a vacation for me, Tina,” Sarah said. “I’d much rather be at home, you know.”

  Tina looked pouty, but she didn’t argue.

  When it came time for the families to leave, Katie watched each of the Bluejay Cabin girls hug her parents goodbye. Richie looked as if he might cry, and Sarah bent to give him a hug. “It’s just for a few weeks,” she told him.

  “Like when you go to the hospital?” he asked her.

  “Same amount of time, different reason,” Sarah told him.

  Mrs. McGreggor took the little boy’s hand. “Sarah’s not going back to the hospital, remember, Richie? She’s had her transplant, and she’s better now.”

  Katie didn’t like eavesdropping, but she couldn’t help thinking that Sarah didn’t look better. Katie was automatically reminded of her own appearance after her heart transplant surgery: gaunt and colorless. She had also experienced a period of rejection, followed by a long recuperation process. But as her body had accepted the transplant, she had begun to gain weight back and had felt more energetic. Perhaps the weeks at camp would work the sa
me wonders for Sarah, filling out her thin frame and brightening her dull complexion. Katie hoped so.

  The Bluejays marched in a line to the cabin, where their stuff had already been delivered by workers. Inside, the group scattered like ants, scrambling for bunks. “Why don’t you bunk near me?” Katie said to Sarah, and pointed to the far end of the room.

  “But that’s the bunk I want,” Dullas announced.

  “I want Sarah to have it,” Katie said politely but firmly.

  “That’s all right,” Sarah said. “She can have it.”

  “No. I’m the counselor. I get to choose. Sarah gets that bunk.”

  Dullas shot Sarah a murderous look but didn’t argue. A miracle, Katie thought.

  But when Katie pulled everybody into a get-acquainted game, Sarah begged off. “I’d just like to rest,” she said.

  Katie didn’t try to persuade her. She understood Sarah’s reluctance. After all, Sarah was sixteen; the others were just kids to her. She was in a child’s world when she didn’t want to be. Katie vowed to make Sarah’s time at the camp the best she could possibly give her. Whatever the petite teen had been through, it had changed her. Of that Katie was certain.

  “Everybody ready?”

  Morgan’s deep voice was answered by squeals and choruses of “Yes, yes!”

  Meg appreciated her girls’ enthusiasm; it was her cabin’s turn to go horseback riding. She hadn’t seen Morgan since camp started three days before, but just a look from him could turn her insides to jelly.

  “Are they safe?” Meg asked, giving the saddled and waiting horses a skeptical eye.

  “Perfectly tame and safe,” Morgan assured her. “They know the trail by heart. Even if you drop the reins, each horse will tag along after the other, go so far, then turn around and come back. You couldn’t get lost if you tried.”

  “You won’t be coming along?”

  “You’re their fearless leader,” he said.

  She looked up and saw a hint of teasing in his expression. She colored. “Then I’ll try not to embarrass myself.”

  “Ms. Meg.” Nine-year-old Cammie tugged on her arm. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Meg rolled her eyes.

  “Use the one in the tack room,” Morgan said. “I’ll get the others up on their mounts.”

  Meg ushered Cammie down the line of stalls and into the small room where saddles were kept. While the girl went to the rest room, Meg took a leisurely look around. The room smelled of leather and fresh hay. A cot stood along one wall, and sunlight streamed through a dusty window. She wondered whether Morgan slept there. A book lying on the bed caught her eye. Curious, she picked it up.

  Collected Poems of the World’s Great Poets. The title surprised her. Wildflowers were being used as bookmarks. She opened to one and saw a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. She turned to another and read Emily Dickinson’s name. Quickly she scanned the other marked sections and saw that every poet she had mentioned on the trail that night to Morgan had been flagged with a flower.

  The corner of a page in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s section had been folded over, the last few lines of the poem underlined and circled. Meg read the final, familiar words of “How Do I Love Thee” under her breath.

  “… —I love thee with the breath,

  Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,

  I shall but love thee better after death.”

  A warm flush crept over Meg’s body. Had Morgan loved the girl he’d mentioned this way? With his heart and soul? And if he had, where was she now? What had happened to their relationship?

  She heard Cammie flush the toilet, hurriedly tucked the dried flower back in place, and dropped the book on the bed. When Cammie emerged, Meg scooted her back outside. Morgan was patiently holding the reins of two horses. He helped Cammie mount, then turned to Meg.

  “Need a hand up?”

  “Not if he’ll stand still.”

  “Just don’t spook him.”

  “I have no plans to.” Meg hoisted her foot into the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn. At that moment, a fly nipped at the horse’s flank and the horse swished its long tail and shifted. Meg gave a little shriek and fell backward. Morgan caught her.

  Embarrassed, she struggled to regain her balance. The girls giggled, and the horse gave her a bored look. Morgan’s strong arms righted her. “You okay?” His eyes danced with laughter.

  “He moved,” Meg said weakly, knowing her face was beet red.

  “I’ll hold him this time.”

  Meg regained her composure and tried again. Once she was atop the horse, Morgan handed the reins up to her. When their fingers brushed, she felt something akin to an electric shock shoot through her.

  “Have a good ride,” he said, locking gazes with her.

  Her insides turned to mush.

  “If we’re not back in an hour, come get us.”

  “Oh, I will,” Morgan said, his bright blue eyes not leaving hers. “I surely will, Megan.”

  SIX

  After a week and a half of camp, Katie was feeling confident. No disasters had happened in her cabin, her girls were having fun. And even the reclusive Sarah was coming out of her shell, participating in activities and opening up to her fellow campers. Katie was interested especially in the friendship beginning to grow between Sarah and Dullas—it was good to see Sarah laughing and having fun, although any improvement in her condition was not obvious from her appearance. She had yet to gain any weight, and Katie was worried that the little weight she had put on seemed to be slipping away from her. Still, she was a small girl, and she was only just beginning to settle into life at Jenny House. Katie would continue to keep an eye on her but remained hopeful.

  At the moment, Katie’s charges were in the rec center busy with a craft activity, and it was her turn to sort the mail into the proper slots for the campers and staff to pick up later.

  She hummed as she worked. It seemed as if everyone had received mail that day. She saw a letter for Lacey with Jeff’s return address in the corner. “This should make you happy, girl,” she said aloud, and filed it in Lacey’s box. The next letter stopped her cold, however. It was addressed to Josh in a distinctly feminine handwriting.

  Her heart thudded and jealousy pricked at her insides. Covertly she read the name in the upper left-hand corner: Natalie Brooks. She knew no one named Natalie. Her fingers itched to tear it open and read it.

  “Stop it!” she told herself aloud.

  “Stop what?”

  Katie jumped and whirled. “Dullas!” she barked. “Don’t come sneaking up on me like that.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I wanted to ask you something.”

  Katie forced herself to calm down as she shoved the letter into Josh’s box. “What? And why aren’t you at crafts?”

  “I hate crafts. It’s dorky and dumb to sit and make pot holders.”

  “Everybody else is doing it.”

  Dullas just looked bored. She crossed her arms. “I want to talk to you about Sarah.”

  “Listen, Sarah’s had that bunk for over a week now, so stop badgering me about it.”

  “It’s not about the bunk. It’s something else I found out about her.”

  Curious, Katie asked, “What about her?” Dullas rarely thought of anybody except herself.

  “She’s adopted. Just like me.”

  “How do you know that? Did she tell you?”

  “I accidentally saw her records.”

  As the implication of Dullas’s confession sank in, Katie caught her breath. “You read her file? Good grief, Dullas, you can’t go peeking into anybody’s records. What were you thinking? It’s illegal.”

  Dullas sniffed, not the least put out by Katie’s reprimand. “It was an accident, I told you. I was in Kimbra’s office and saw Sarah’s file and accidentally knocked it on the floor, and when I picked it up, I just happened to read some stuff.”

  Katie could imagine how the file had “accidentally” hit the floor
. “Well, what if she is adopted? It’s none of your business.”

  “But don’t you see? Me and Sarah are alike. We both have had cancer and we’ve both been adopted.”

  Katie started to tell Dullas that she and Sarah weren’t anything alike, but Dullas looked so impassioned, she held her tongue. “So what’s your point?”

  “Well, from now on, I’m going to be her special friend.”

  “Does she want a special friend?”

  “You’ve never been adopted, Katie. You don’t know what it’s like to always wonder who your real parents are and why they dumped you.” Dullas sounded serious.

  Katie was pricked by her confession. “You’re right, Dullas, I don’t know what it’s like. Both my parents love me very much. But I met Sarah’s adopted parents and her brother and sister. They acted as if they love her very much. When it was time to go, her little brother cried like he was losing his dearest friend. Besides, Kimbra cares about you. So what does it matter who your real parents are? Parents are people who hang around and take care of you and love you.”

  Dullas nodded. “Sure, that’s true, but still a person wonders. You wonder where your real parents are, what they’re doing, if they ever think about you. I know my old man’s in jail, but my mom, what about her? Where is she? And you wonder if you have grandmas and grandpas, or other brothers and sisters. You wonder a lot of things.”

  Katie felt the emotional impact of Dullas’s words. Of course a person would wonder. It was natural to want to know about your family, your roots. “You may be right,” she said slowly. “But don’t go making too many assumptions about Sarah. Maybe she doesn’t think about it much at all. Maybe she’s dealt with her feelings and moved on.”

  “No one moves on, Katie. You always think about it, and I know Sarah does too.”

  Katie couldn’t dispute what Dullas was saying, so she tried a different tack. “Just remember, if somebody wants you to know something about them, they’ll tell you. And that includes Sarah. So my advice to you is, MYOB.”

  “You’re one to talk. Don’t you want to know who the girl is that’s writing to Josh?”