“I’m not selling it off to an investor,” cutting him off, I glare at him. “We’ve been over this a hundred times. If you want to sell out, then sell out to me, butonlyme.”
At the utterance of my sharp words, he raises his hands defensively. “Okay, okay.‘Uha, calm down. I’ve got other investments that are doing well. I’ll keep my half of the co-ownership for as long as you can handle it. I know you’re strapped for cash, so I won’t keep hounding you about it”—he pauses, thoughtfully—“until I can see you’re drowning.”
“I’m prepared to swim,” I rebut.
He chuckles, likely at something he’s about to say that will undoubtedly be corny as hell and remind me, yet again, of all the ways Kai cannot take a single thing seriously. “Good thing we named it Camp HealingWatersthen. Would kind of suck, if you couldn’t swim.”
I flash him a smarmy smile. “You’re hilarious,” I deadpan.
Hejokes, but he helped name the business back when he was more involved. Back when we had the shared vision of a summer camp to help troubled youth—me, a licensed clinical social worker, and him, an up-and-coming property investor. Brooks, a body of water, and Kai—Hawaiian for ‘the sea’—another nod back to his ancestry. The camp is situated on a lake, and thus the name seemed fitting. Since I believe in finding healing in nature, we do a lot of water sports here.
And no, notthosewater sports.
He leans down and whispers in my ear, “Well, someone must be wearing his favorite pair of pretty undies again, underneath those sweats. I know this, because his panties are in a bunch now, unlike they were when they were on my floor the other night.”
“Shut up. They arenotmy favorite, and you bought the things,” I hiss at him, as Morgan comes bounding down the stairs. I’d rather she not find out about the ‘with benefits’ portion of my ongoing situationship with Kai, if I can help it. As far as she knows, we’re just two really close best friends—gay best friends, who used to date but split up amicably.
It’s been far from amicable, really, but she doesn’t need to know that.
She approaches Kai with a saccharine sweet pout on her face, a brush in her hand, and two hair elastics that match the color of her softball uniform. “Can you French braid my hair, please?”
He chuckles. “Well, of course. You didn’t think I stuck around here just for the company of your shut-in dad, did you? I can’t even talk him out to a night on the town with me and the guys for my birthday.” He winks at me.
I roll my eyes. “Another night,” I reassure him. “Tonight, I have snack shack duty at the ballpark, and I need to work up a budget forfood for this year. Somethingyoucould probably help with, if you took a more active role… partner.”
“Silentpartner,” he reminds me. “Meaning, I only bring the money, honey.” Then, he eyes the paperwork in front of me. “By the looks of it, a lot of it.”
Ah, there it is. Another not-so-subtle dig about being the main funder of this camp again. I’d have bought him out a long time ago, if I had the means to do so, but the reality is, I just don’t. He frequently reminds me of his contribution, however, likely to keep his claws in me somehow.
He continues to provide funding and I ascribe to be his personal booty call, I suppose. If I had a backbone at all, I’d set some boundaries there with him too, so I didn’t feel like I whore myself out to keep the camp afloat. I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to officially quit the guy, as much as I’d like to, for my heart’s sake. He likes the easiness of our ongoing casual hookups. I, apparently, like getting my heart strung along, because I don’t know how to docasual, despite the unaffected affect I plaster on.
Yep, that’s right, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to get over Kai. He’s toxic, I know, but I can’t help but hope that someday he’ll actually want to change, and we can be together again.
“Can’t help the money issue. I hate going up on tuition,” I proffer, changing the subject. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of peoples’ heartache. It shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to send your children to grief camp.”
While he starts braiding Morgan’s hair, he glances over at me. “What’s the biggest expense we’re looking at so far?”
“Repairs,” I tell him. “The weather here is harsh on those buildings, especially over the winters. They weren’t in the best shape almost adecade ago, when we bought the place. Also, the kids are hard on them when we’re open for the summer. Plumbing alone is a huge expense I have to plan ahead for.”
Morgan snorts. “I thought that toilet Bentley clogged last year was going to blow up,” she says, giggling. Morgan has been a mainstay at Camp Healing Waters since its inception. She was the first camper enrolled here when Kai and I first bought the old sporting camp on Mahoosuc Lake, right around the time she came to live with me.
Now, she’s graduated to the role of youngest camp counselor here. One she excels at. She’s great with kids, and the campers here love her back. I run the day-to-day business side of things, all while providing therapy sessions to the campers.
Unlike some summer camps, which only hold sessions for a week or two at a time, the experience here is highly immersive. Campers spend an entire summer here, beginning a week or so after school lets out, and lasting until a week or two before it starts back up again. Because it is a grief camp, I couldn’t see a point in doing anything less than a month. I need that much time for sessions even with the small number of kids I have signed up, a number that keeps dwindling each year. At max, we can currently host about fifty campers. This year, I have thirty-eight.
I am not sure if the dwindling numbers are because of income limitations, the lack of updated facilities around here, or if there’s a steadily declining rate of parents and caregivers that believe this niche camp experience would be beneficial. Lord knows there isn’t a lack of issues for children to overcome.
I know this because I was put on a foster caregiver list when I took in Morgan. I get calls all the time asking if I can take in an emergency placement. Due to my already stretched thin bandwidth, and the factthat I let my license lapse, I unfortunately cannot, but it hurts my heart every time I have to inform DHHS that I can’t do it.
I try to rationalize that I make up for that with the work that I do. It helps lessen my burden of guilt, to know that I am still helping kids in some capacity.
We split the camp up into two equivalent age brackets. The younger crowd, elementary school-aged kids, are a wild bunch. They end up needing the most supervision, that’s for sure. I try to work with them mostly to guide them to accepting the reality of their situation, and give them good tips for coping moving forward. Emotional regulation with them is most key, since many of them don’t realize the gravity grief can weigh on them.
The other half are middle-school kids. They’re usually the ones that don’t need quite as much supervision, as they’re more self-guided. However, they do tend to have bigger mental health needs when it comes to grief and healing. Not only are they dealing with some heavy burdens regarding loss of some sort, they’re also in their most formative years. Self-discovery is such a big thing for them.
I remember Morgan going through middle school. Peer pressure, friend cliques, and self-image were ever-present topics of our nightly dinner table discussions here.
My only wish is that we had more time in the summer to have a separate session for high schoolers as well. Maybe if Ryann had a place like Camp Healing Waters around for her, when she was that age, she wouldn’t have started on the path that eventually took her life. Kai and I had already formulated a business plan for this camp to be for troubled youth right before her passing, but by the time we laid her urn in the ground, I was even more determined to see this new grief camp concept to fruition.
