“How far away is it again?” Shane says.
“I’m not really sure,” I say, wrapping the urn up in some T-shirts and putting it inside my backpack. “I think it’s kind of at the edge of the whole camp. From what I remember.”
I don’t want to put Ev in my backpack, but I’m afraid I’ll drop him or leave him somewhere again. But just so it’s not too dark for him, I leave the top of the backpack unzipped so there’s some light.
During the drive down, I had enough faith in my memory to be sure that once I was here, I’d easily find the way. But it’s been years now, and last time I was here, the trees were green, and it was hot as hell. Now, most of the trees are bare and a couple of inches of snow line the gravel road. But if memory serves, that meadow should be right on the other side of the camp, behind a creek.
We leave the car parked on the side of the gravel road, hidden slightly from the main road by some bushes. We climb over the locked metal gate and start walking. I remember the gravel road and how it turned into a dirt road. Right now, it’s muddy from melted snow and our shoes make squelching sounds as we walk along. After we pass through some trees, there will besome cabins on one side of us, likely closed for the winter, and there will be an open field on the other side where we played kickball and dodgeball. The field where Everett fell one time and sprained his wrist.
We’ll be going right past that field, some more cabins, and some tents, a couple of giant trampolines, and past a rope obstacle course. I take note of each thing we pass as the dirt road starts to narrow into a dirt path. We walk past a gravel parking lot where Everett once caught a toad under a car, and it peed on him. I snicker at this memory and, Shane, walking alongside me, looks over at me. “What?”
“Just remembering something funny. Ev picked up a toad and it pissed on him. I guess because it was scared, but he got all grossed out.” I laugh again. “We took it down here to this creek to let it go and Ev had to go around with toad pee on him all day.”
Shane laughs. “Poor Ev.”
“Yeah.” I laugh again. “It was kinda cool, though. The other guys were telling him to kill it and throw it against a rock, and he wouldn’t do it.” I remember the look of shock and indignation on Everett’s face when one of the other boys started yelling about toad guts. I hadn’t wanted him to kill the toad either. So, instead, Everett walked all the way from the parking lot to where we’re walking now to that creek and set the toad free. It hopped away across some rocks and disappeared.
“You know,” Shane says. “I don’t think I ever saw him even kill a bug.”
The path starts to narrow even more, so Shane has to walk behind me. We pass the cabins and kickball field. Shane stops to stare at it.
“What’s up there?” he asks, pointing to a trail on the far side.
“That went up to the dining cabin,” I say. “We’d have to wait outside in a line before each meal with the boys in one line andgirls in another.” Snow falls on me from above, and I look up to see a blue jay hopping around on a branch above me.
Shane looks up too. “Thought they were hibernating or whatever.”
“You mean migrating? Yeah, sometimes some of them stay behind.” The blue jay hops along a branch then flies away. “We’d see all kinds of birds here in the summer. The counselors would try to point them out to us.”
We keep walking in silence for a while, passing more cabins and tents, and I feel more confident that we’re going the right way. I look around and remember this place as a kid. I had a crush on Shane when I was here. I’d think about him and miss him. I hit a growth spurt one summer and when I got home, I’d hoped he’d see me and see how tall I’d gotten. I wanted to impress him. I wanted his attention so badly.
It seems like forever ago, and I can’t believe those were the things I used to worry about.
And Everett was here too. Alive and jumping and running and being Adventurous Everett. It’s hard to believe he’s the pile of ashes in the urn in my backpack now. It’s unfair. It’s shitty.
And it’s suddenly weird being here at this camp with Shane.
“I wish you’d been able to come here with us,” I say, breaking the silence around us. “I’d think about you. I had the biggest crush on you, and I missed you.”
Shane walks up on one side of me, off the trail, and puts his hand in mine.
We keep walking down a hill a ways, woods on either side of us, when I see we're coming up to the creek. There was a waterfall at one end where you could climb up beside it and keep walking up the creek if you wanted. They’d built a metal slide beside the waterfall, but no one ever used it for some reason.
This time of year, the creek is low and mostly frozen. I lead us off to the left, down another dirt path, and I see thewater hole where we would paddle boat, and beyond that, some trampolines. The giant rectangular ones.
“I think it’s just down here,” I tell Shane.
He keeps walking beside me, his hand in mine.
When we eventually reach the meadow, it’s not much of a sight in the wintertime with the grasses all yellowed and brown and partially hidden under patches of snow. It’s pretty underwhelming, in fact. But in the distance is that mountain ridge and to one side of us are some more woods. I pause in the middle of the field and look around.
“Is this the place?” Shane asks.
“Yeah.” I stand there for a moment and feel a breeze whip up, coming down off the ridge and across the meadow. I suddenly feel a profound sense of sadness at what we’re about to do.
We’re going to let him go.
I don’t know if I’m ready.
