Billy arrived early to pick up Luke from camp that afternoon and ended up sitting in her car in the Gooseberry Falls visitor center parking lot, eating Cracker Jack and trying to keep her emotions in check, since excitement and anxiety were both vying for attention. To distract herself, she took a copy of Luke’s itinerary out of her purse, unfolded it, and checked the schedule for today. It had begun with a “special breakfast” at the last campsite—Billy guessed that at this point, any breakfast without an errant pine needle in it would probably qualify as “special”—and was followed by hiking to the spectacular Gooseberry waterfalls. The campers were due at the visitor center by noon. Billy folded the itinerary and put it back in her purse, then reached into the box of Cracker Jack and searched for a peanut. (Where were the peanuts? This was an outrage. Her father, whose first stop on any long drive had always been at a gas station to buy a bag of Cracker Jack, would not have approved.)
She checked her cell phone. It was 12:05 now. And she was about to get out of the car when she saw a group—a couple of counselors and a handful of ragtag boys—come around the corner of the visitor center. There was the soft, pasty-looking boy named Oscar who’d clung miserably to his parents at the drop-off point two weeks earlier. Luke had looked embarrassed for him, but Billy had been secretly jealous. A little part of her had wished her own son, who’d been sullen in his good-bye, would miss her as much as Oscar was obviously going to miss his parents. This Oscar, though, looked different. He was suntanned and cheerful as he chatted with one of the counselors. But where was Luke?
And then she saw him. He was walking between two other boys, toting his backpack and wearing a baseball cap she didn’t recognize. It was obvious, from his animated gestures, that he was telling some kind of a story, and he and his friends were laughing and jostling each other as they walked along. In that second, Billy felt like crying. Then she realized something. She hadn’t just missed Luke. She’d missed the Luke who got excited and laughed and told stories. He’d been absent for far too long.
As Billy got out of the car, Luke saw her and waved, a big wave. She wanted to run over to him and give him a hug, but recently hugging had seemed to be out, so she forced herself to walk calmly over to him until he called out, “Mom!” and gestured for her to hurry. When she got to him, Luke gave her a look that seemed to say, Well . . . ? Billy smiled and nodded emphatically. But one of the boys with Luke—a sandy-haired kid in a snowboarding T-shirt—asked Luke for his contact information, and there ensued a search for something to write with and on. Billy provided them a scrap of paper—the back of a recent shopping list—and a stubby library pencil from her purse. As Luke’s friend was scribbling away, Billy gave Luke a hug, which, miraculously, he didn’t resist.
“Mom, this is Travis,” he said then, indicating his friend. “He’s from Minneapolis. He plays youth hockey with Charlie,” he added. “Can you believe it?” Charlie had been Luke’s best friend when they’d lived in St. Paul.
“What a coincidence!” Billy said, though she was staring at Luke’s sunburned, peeling nose. What had happened to the sunscreen she’d so carefully labeled “Harper” before packing it in his backpack? And, for that matter, what had happened to the insect repellant? she wondered, noticing a collection of mosquito bites on one of his arms, a few of them scratched almost to the point of bleeding. Oh, well, nothing to be done for it now, she decided, smiling at Luke’s new friend instead.
“Mom, Travis and I are going to get together the next time we visit Grandma, all right?”
“Absolutely,” Billy said, and there was a bustle of activity now as more parents arrived, more introductions took place, and more cell phone numbers were exchanged. As families began to leave, Billy reached down and picked up Luke’s backpack, which he’d let slide onto the ground.
“I’ll get that, Mom,” Luke said, taking it from her—whether out of protectiveness or politeness, she didn’t know.
“Okay,” she said. But as they headed for the car, they were stopped by Mad Dog, the head counselor Billy had met at drop-off. “Hey, Luke,” he said, seeming incredibly relaxed for someone who’d just spent two weeks with a dozen adolescent boys. “I wanted to be sure to say good-bye before you left.” He put his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You’ve got a great son here,” he said to Billy. “If he wants a job with us in five years, we’d be happy to have him.” Billy beamed, and Luke, she saw, tried to appear nonchalant.
“It sounds like the trip was a success,” she said.
“It was the best group of boys we’ve ever had,” Mad Dog said. He told Luke and Billy good-bye, and Luke started walking toward the car.
“What does astute mean?” Luke asked her after he’d tossed his pack onto the backseat.
“Astute? It means . . . being perceptive or insightful. Someone who’s astute is someone who’s good at assessing a person or a situation,” Billy said as they got into the car.
“Oh. ’Cause, um, Mad Dog said I was astute,” Luke said casually, not looking at her.
She hid a smile. “Well, it sounds like Mad Dog knows what he’s talking about.”
Once they were both in the car, though, with the doors closed, Luke turned toward her. “Mom, what’d he say?” he blurted. And she realized he’d used all his self-restraint to wait until they were alone to ask her.
“He said . . . he said he wants to meet you. He’s going to try to come to Minneapolis sometime in the next couple of weeks, before school starts.”
He stared at her, elation and fear mingling in his face. She was tempted to put her hand on his arm, to offer reassurance, but something told her not to. Something told her he needed space to process this on his own.
“I can’t believe it,” he said finally, shaking his head.
“That makes two of us,” she said.
“And, um, my sisters? Are they coming, too?”
She hesitated. “I don’t think so,” she said, though she hadn’t asked Wesley about this. “I think you might have to wait for that,” she added carefully. What she wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell Luke now was how uncertain Wesley had sounded on the phone. Not unfriendly, but uncertain. He’d told her that he’d thought about her letter for more than a week before calling her. She’d worried that he might not remember the night they’d spent together, but he’d told her he remembered it “very clearly.” And then he’d asked her, with more than a little awkwardness, how she knew Luke was his. She’d told him that he was the first man she’d ever been with and that she’d lied about being on birth control pills. “I see,” he’d said finally, and it was impossible for Billy to read in those two words what Wesley might be feeling. He’d asked her then about Luke—he wanted to know more than she’d put in her letter—and she’d told him, honestly, what an amazing kid she thought he was. And then she’d pressed, gently, for them to arrange a time and a place for him to meet his son.
“Did you tell him I’m a really good fisherman?” Luke asked, excitedly.
“I did not,” she said, smiling. “I’ll let you tell him that in person. He’s going to confirm with me in the next couple of days.”
“I’m really going to meet him,” Luke said, more to himself than to her. “Holy shit,” he breathed.
“No swearing,” Billy said, though this so perfectly described the way she was feeling that she was tempted to laugh.
“Sorry, Mom,” he muttered.
She started the car now and pulled out of the parking lot. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Because we can go straight to lunch.”
“No, I can wait,” he said, reaching into the open box of Cracker Jack in the console. He put a handful in his mouth. “I can just eat this.”
As they headed toward Butternut, she asked him questions about his trip, and he answered them, more or less, though she had the distinct impression now that he had to work hard to focus on anything other than meeting his dad. But he did tell her some funny stories about mystery dinners, tent mix-ups, and sleeping bag pranks.
“Oh, Luke,” she said then, “your Pop-Pop would have loved to hear about all of this.” She looked over at him quickly. She knew she wasn’t supposed to bring up Pop-Pop. “I’m sorry,” she said, but Luke was staring steadily out his window. She sighed. Apparently their conversation was over. As they drove on in silence, Billy was reminded how quickly his mood could change.
And then he surprised her. “I missed him on this trip,” he said, not looking at her. “I miss him all the time, but especially when I was out there. It was all the stuff he liked to do, you know?”
“I know,” she said. Amazing, she thought to herself. This was the first time in the year since his grandfather died that Luke had admitted—to her, anyway—that he missed Pop-Pop. Just as she’d hoped, hiking the Superior Trail had offered him more than an adventure in the wilderness. “Do you want to get something to eat now?” she asked loudly as a logging truck thundered by.
“Sure,” he said, fiddling with the radio.
“I thought you weren’t that hungry,” Billy said, watching him bite into a second cheeseburger a little while later. They’d gotten hamburgers and fries to go from a Dairy Queen and were parked in the parking lot, eating them in the car. Or, rather, Luke was eating them. All Billy could do was sip her Diet Coke. She was still recovering, tentatively, from the stresses of the last couple of days.
“I’m not that hungry,” he said. “But . . . can I have your fries, too?”
“Knock yourself out,” Billy said, retrieving them from the greasy paper bag and handing them to him. She watched him eat them ravenously.