“You really slept in this bunk when you were a kid?” Lily asks.
I nod.
“Is your name on the wall?” Em asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say. I had wanted to erase my name from this place, not engrave it.
“Can we have candy now?” Lily asks.
“Okay, girls, pajamas and then one piece of candy each! Let’s go!” I clap my hands and stand up. “Everyone to the cubby room!”
The girls follow me. I’m not sure how the cubby room has already become a total disaster, but it has. Clothes are everywhere.
“Put your dirty clothes in your laundry bag!” I remind them.
“Where’s my laundry bag?”
“I can’t find my pajamas!”
“Have you seen my slippers?”
I do my best to help all eleven girls find their stuff. By the time we’re done, the cubby room looks about ten times worse than it did before. Awesome.
“Candy time!” Fancy yells at the top of her lungs.
“Just one each!” I holler. I take a few minutes to try to organize and then go back into the bed area.
Danish, Jill, and Josh are standing in the middle of it.
The girls are all stuffing their mouths with candy. What happened to one piece each? This is a disaster.
“How’s it going?” Josh asks me, eyes darting around the room.
“Just getting them ready,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
“Maybe no candy tonight?” Danish says.
“They’re only allowed one piece each,” I say.
“Francie, are those peanut M&M’s?” Jill asks.
What is Jill even doing here? Isn’t she in charge of the CITs? We don’t even get a CIT!
Fancy has about ten in her hand and ten in her mouth. Plus she is giving them out to other girls.
“Are you kidding me?” I say out loud. “Are you trying to kill someone?”
Fancy’s eyes widen.
Everyone stares at me. “Sorry,” I say. “That came out wrong. I thought I got rid of the peanut stuff before.”
Josh confiscates the offending chocolates.
“Sorry,” Fancy says.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Try and get them into bed soon,” Josh says. “Tomorrow’s a big day. And get rid of the candy by end of day tomorrow, okay, Sam?”
I nod, mortified.
“I’ll come back and check in on you in a couple hours, ’kay?” Danish tells me.
Please, I think, please let them be asleep by then.
An hour later, ten o’clock, the candy has been eaten, and almost all the girls have brushed their teeth. All the girls in 6B are in their beds.
Could it be? Are all my kids almost in bed too?
Em, Slugger, Shira, Fancy, Prague, and . . . missing one. Who am I missing?
Lily. Where’s Lily? I check the cubby room. Nope. Sinks. Nope. “Lily?”
“In the bathroom!” she says.
“Okay,” I say. “Lights out in two.”
“Be right there,” she says.
“Does everyone have their flashlights?” I ask. I am almost done. Woot! I am almost done!
I wait two more minutes. I head back to the bathroom.
“Lily?” I say softly. “You okay in there?”
“Just trying to poop,” she tells me.
Excellent. A little TMI, but I guess I should get used to it.
A few minutes later she finally flushes, comes out, and washes her hands.
“Did you already brush your teeth?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Then brush your teeth, ’kay?” Omigod, forget brushing teeth, this is like pulling teeth.
She spends at least five minutes finding her toothbrush and then her toothpaste and then brushes her teeth for what must be a world-record amount of time. At least fifteen minutes.
Finally, finally, she is in bed.
“I’m turning out the lights now,” I say. “Everyone have their flashlights?”
They all turn them on.
“Lights off!” I say, and flip them. Some of them giggle.
“I can’t believe I’m really here,” Em says. She hugs her fuzzy lion.
“Me neither,” Slugger says.
I silently add, Me neither.
I change into my own pajamas—checked flannel ones that are adorable—and then wash my face and brush my teeth. I even floss. I tell the girls they have five more minutes to turn their flashlights off, and then five minutes later, I tell them to turn them off for real. Then I get into my bed. I look at my phone, even though I know I won’t have another message. I scroll through my pictures of Eli and find my favorite, when he was sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park. It’s the look he’s giving me that I love, the one that says I love you and I want to kiss you immediately.
I wish he were here. It would be fun to have him at camp. I’m not sure if he’d be a good counselor or not, though. Everyone likes him, but he’s not exactly an early riser. He kind of does whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it.
Today’s conversation wasn’t great. It was rushed; he was obviously annoyed.
Maybe I can sneak away and call him after breakfast, during cleanup.
There’s a knock on the counselors’ doorframe.
“Yes?” I say.
The curtain opens. It’s Fancy. “Sam?”
“Yes, Fancy?”
“Shira is crying again.” She rolls her eyes.
I get out of bed. “She is? How come?”
“Who knows?”
“Okay, I’ll come back,” I say. I follow her into the room and hear that Shira is indeed crying. She’s facedown on her pillow but I can see her little shoulders shaking.
I sit down on the edge of her bed. “Hey, sweetie,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
Her shoulders shake again. “I miss Tamara,” she says.
“Who’s Tamara?” I ask. I look at the family picture taped to the wall. “Your sister?”
“No,” she sobs. “My sister is Maya. Tamara is my dog. And I miss her so much. She sleeps in my bed every night! She’s probably really lonely!”
“I’m sure she misses you too,” I say, but that just makes Shira sob harder. “But maybe . . . maybe . . . maybe she went to sleep with Maya! Because I’m sure Maya misses you too and this way they’re keeping each other company!”
She turns over to look at me. Her eyes are dripping with tears. “You think she’s sleeping in Maya’s bed?”
“Yeah! For sure!” I say.
Her sobs escalate. “Noooo! What if she wants to stay sleeping with Maya even when I get back?”
I open my mouth but no words come out.
“What if when I get back she loves Maya more than me?”
Good Lord.
The next thing I hear is more sniffling. But not from Shira. This time it’s Slugger.
“I miss my mom,” she says.
Oh no.
“So do I,” sniffs Em, hands trembling around her lion.
It’s like dominoes! They’re all going down! How do I stop this? They’re going to dehydrate!
“What’s happening in here?” one of the 6B girls asks, popping her head around the dividing wall. “You guys are being super loud.”