My eyes are blurry when I finally get to the campground. Well, it’s not really a campground. It’s a bunch of cabins in a park near a lake. My family came here the summer I turned sixteen. It looks smaller than it did when I was a child, and a little more run-down, but to be honest, I’d take just about anything over where I’ve been.

My daughter, my copilot, is in the passenger seat. She’s the same age I was the year my parents and I came here, and I want to share this place with her more than any of the other kids.

“This is it?” she says, looking around at the thimble-sized cabins.

“Yes, this is it.” This is the best place on earth, little girl, and hopefully the safest place.

“You have to be kidding me.”

It’s a good thing God makes children cute, or parents would eat their young. “Will you sit with the kids while I get the keys?”

“Duh,” she says with all the ego of a sixteen-year-old ingrate. Normally, she would have her face stuffed in her cell phone but I didn’t let her bring it with her. I didn’t bring mine, either.

I walk to the camp office, where there’s a metal box with a combination lock on it. That’s where the instructions said I would find the keys. I pull a piece of paper from my pocket where I’ve written the lock numbers and I dial them in. The box opens and I see a set of keys. They’re small copper keys and I pick them up. The key ring has a naked centerfold on it. That’s just like Mr. Jacobson. He’ll never change.

I remember Mr. Jacobson as a surly middle-aged man. He was never very nice, but he was interesting. You wanted to ask him things just so he would bark at you and threaten to beat you over the head with a boat oar, because when you turned your back, he’d be halfway grinning and there was a chance you could catch it if you looked at just the right time.

I wonder where he is now.

I see my children getting out of the car and I lay a hand on my pregnant belly. I’m eight months along, and every move I make causes a counter move from the newbie, as Gabby likes to call him. Gabby is my oldest, and she tends to get stuck with the children when I’m busy. Then there’s Alex. He’s nine. The youngest is Trixie, who is seven. We thought we were done after Alex. Then Trixie surprised us all, who got the nickname when Alex couldn’t say Tracy. Then life went to shit, and now I’m here, trying to escape it all.

The baby that’s still at residence in my belly gives a little kick. “I know, baby,” I say to him, “you’re not shit. Life is shit. Our circumstances are shit. But you, baby boy, you are loved. My coming back here proves it.” I heave a sigh and start toward my children, who are tumbling out of the car like jack-in-the-boxes. The two youngest live like they’re on coiled springs all the time. Gabby grabs Trixie’s hand as she slips it into hers and Gabby smiles down at her. Trixie is the quiet one, the one who has been most affected by my poor decisions.

“Can we go swimming?” Alex asks.

I look down at my watch. It’s seven in the morning. “We need to unpack first. Then we can go swimming.”

He jumps up and down, pumping his fist. Trixie leans her head against Gabby’s thigh and smiles her soft smile, the one that always makes my heart melt.

I pop the trunk and we start unloading the car. We brought baskets of clothes, but not much more. We were in a bit of a hurry. We brought what was in the washer and dryer, and the kids were able to grab two toys each. Nothing more. “Did you guys bring swimsuits?” I ask.

They all look at Gabby. “Yes!” she cries. “I got swimsuits. One for each of them!” She makes grabby fingers and starts to chase the little ones around. They squeal and run in circles, yelling while she growls and chases them.

We stand outside looking at the tiny cabin where I spent the summer the year that I turned sixteen. I asked for cabin number 114, and they said it was available. It looks just the same, but smaller. Or I’m bigger. I’m not sure which.

“Let’s go inside, shall we?” I say, forcing a smile to my face.

Gabby grabs baskets of clothes and passes them to the smaller kids, and Trixie’s basket immediately tips and dumps onto the ground. Her eyes well up with tears.

“No one here is going to get mad at you, Trix,” I tell her. Then I dump my basket, too. I grin. “Oops! Look what I did!”

My kids have had enough anger to last a lifetime. I don’t want them to have one more minute. Gabby dumps the basket she’s holding too, and Trixie finally starts to giggle. We sing a song as we clean it all up, and I stick the key in the lock of the cabin, giving it a gentle turn. The door creaks and dust falls down around us like snowflakes in beams of sunlight as we step inside.

“Wow, this is a pit,” Gabby complains.

“It’s not a pit. It’s charming.” It has the same country-blue curtains it had when I was a girl, only now they’re a little worn by time. And dust. I cough and push open a window. “Let’s get these open and air the place out a little,” I say. The kids and I go around opening windows, letting in the summer lake breeze. It’s the middle of May, and the campground probably hasn’t been used yet this year. In fact, I was surprised that they let me have a cabin at this time of the year. “We can clean it up. No worries.”

The tiny cabin has two bedrooms and a pullout couch. Calling them bedrooms is actually a stretch. They’re more like glorified closets with beds in them. Gabby will have her own room, and I’ll take the couch. And the two younger kids will share, since there are bunk beds in that room. “Let’s get some beds made up, and then we can go swimming.”

The kids and I go around putting sheets and blankets on all the beds, and we dust as much as we can, but it feels like every time we move, more dust falls out of the sky on us.

Finally, I flop onto the sofa. I need a nap. I drove all night.

The light patter of butterfly wings on my temple gets my attention. I open my eyes to find Alex staring down at me, his face touching mine, his eyes so close that his long dark lashes are sweeping my skin. “Can we go swimming now?” he asks.

I nod and hold out a hand so he can heave me to my feet. He pulls me up like a champ, and then they all run off to put on swimsuits. They come back moments later. “You’re not going to swim, Mom?” Gabby asks. But her eyes hold a world full of knowledge, more than she should have ever had to deal with.

“Not today,” I say.

She nods like she understands, but what she doesn’t understand is why my bad choices got us here, how I could have been so weak. How I messed it up so bad. “Let’s go, little kids,” she cries, barking like a drill sergeant. She got that from her dad. She also says “up and at ’em” and “get a move on, knuckleheads” just like her dad. The little ones line up behind her like ducklings, and then she starts to march. They follow her, walking with their knees lifting up high, their backs straight.

It’s a short walk to the beach area, down a wide path where those with bigger cabins drive golf carts down to the water. We don’t need anything like that, not while we have feet capable of walking, my parents would say.

There’s a cool breeze coming off the lake, but the air is warm and the sun is shining. I have a feeling that the kids are going to stick one toe in the water and decide it’s too cold for swimming, but they might surprise me.

We spread our towels on the sand and I sit down, crossing my legs in front of me. The sun feels good on my legs, so I pull my hat off in hopes of feeling it on my face.

Gabby rushes forward, pushes my hat back down on my head and adjusts it. “Right,” I mutter. I almost forgot. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to take them wading,” Gabby says. Lately she looks at me like I’m going to break, and I hate it. She shouldn’t have to deal with all she’s faced the past year. My biggest fear is that she won’t trust me anymore.

But to be honest, I don’t trust myself either.