WE GREW UP IN THE LAST DAYS of real childhood. Spending our summers running wild in the woods, where we built tree forts out of downed limbs and had tea parties featuring acorn soup and pinecone parfaits. We raced leaf boats down eddying streams. We discovered secret swimming holes. We wired soup cans with twine in lieu of cell phones.
I’d help Aunt Nancy every morning and every evening during the summer. But afternoons were mine, and I spent every minute with my two best friends. Even back then, Jackie was the organizer. She’d have our afternoons all mapped out, probably would’ve developed a marketing plan and forecasted future opportunities for play if we’d let her. Randi was quieter. She had beautiful wheat blond hair she wore tucked behind her ears. She preferred playing house in the tree fort, where she always had the perfect finishing touch for her tree stump, maybe some creative combination of berries and leaves that made a random pile of decaying limbs feel just like home.
I recommended her skills to Aunt Nancy, and for much of our high school years Randi helped out in the B&B on the weekends, hanging holiday ornaments, preparing fresh centerpieces for the dining room, decorating the front parlor. Jackie would come along as well, hooking up Aunt Nancy’s first computer and, when the time came, introducing my aunt to the Internet.
I didn’t have Jackie’s drive, or Randi’s artistic skills. I thought of myself as the glue. Whatever they wanted to do, I did. Whatever hobby they had, I took up. I’d been raised at an early age to go along, so going along was what I did best.
But I meant it. I loved them. I’d grown up in the dark, then I’d come to the mountains of New Hampshire and found the light. Randi and Jackie laughed. They asked my opinions, they complimented my efforts, they smiled when I walked into a room.
I didn’t care what we did. I just wanted to do it with them.
Of course, small town kids inevitably have big city dreams. Jackie started the countdown our junior year in high school. She was sick of nosy neighbors, community theater, and a post office that doubled as the biggest gossip center in town. She had her sights on Boston College, gonna hit the big city and live the glamorous life.
Randi, in her quiet way, upstaged Jackie. One snowy weekend in January, she met a Brown University med student on the ski slopes. We graduated high school in June, and she was married July 1, packing her childhood into four cardboard boxes and heading for Providence, content to spend the rest of her life as a doctor’s wife.
Jackie got her scholarship. She was gone by September, and for the first time in ten years I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stripped, sanded, and refinished Aunt Nancy’s hardwood floors. Steam cleaned all the drapes. Shampooed all the furniture. Started organizing the bookshelves.
End of September, Aunt Nancy took me by the hand.
“Go,” she said, firmly, gently. “Spread your wings, and then, when you’re ready, come home to me.”
I ended up in Arvada, Colorado. Followed some guy I never should’ve followed. Did some things it’s best that Aunt Nancy never knows about. I learned the hard way, you can’t always just go along. Sooner or later, you have to find yourself, even without your beloved aunt and two best friends to help show the way.
After the breakup, determined not to slink home with my tail between my legs, I applied for a job as a 911 operator. Biggest attraction of the job: You didn’t need a college degree, just a high-school diploma, fast typing fingers, and an innate ability to think on your feet. Given those were about the only skills I possessed, I decided to give it a whirl. For thirty thousand dollars a year, I worked long hours, surrendered any hope of having a personal life, and actually discovered a calling.