I was seriously wanting to pick out my own clothes—I’m twelve now! I had a very specific list in my mind. So, by my nodding at or pointing to just the right items, we found shorts—one really cute, really short, with a rolled cuff, and another pair with an embroidered flower on one side. And jeans—stretchy and skinny and just the right hue of blue. We found several cute tops—nice to know that part of me was finally filling out a little! Socks and underwear got tossed into the bag, but only after I’d nodded my okay. This stuff is important!
And shoes. Yes, I might not be able to walk, but my kicks matter. They have to be white, not pink with little flowers like Penny’s, and they gotta be the latest styles. Yes, I do know the brand names, and yes, those are the ones I like! We found a pair of Nikes—cloud white, perfect—even though Mom grumbled about how a pair of sneakers cost more than three baskets full of groceries. I made Elvira screech “Thank you” over and over as we navigated through the stores.
On the final trip, I managed to convince her to get me a fresh Nike sweatshirt—black with a white swoosh. So then she went and tossed a second pair of sneakers—pink Adidas—into the woven bag behind my chair. I squealed—loudly. You just can’t DO that—mix brands and colors and stuff! And PINK?
Elvira had my back, for sure. I popped up the volume. “No pink shoes!” I tapped. “Black or white only.”
I kicked. I twisted. I did my best to point to the Nike sign.
Mom, totally baffled by my behavior, said, “What? You don’t like those? I think they’re cute and kinda stylish—plus, they were on sale!” She smiled hard to convince me.
I finally spelled out N-I-K-E on my board and pointed to the sign with the swoosh. She placed the pink shoes back on the rack. Whew! That was close! We found a second pair of black Nikes—Air Zooms—on the sale rack, and she placed those into the shopping bag. I reached back and touched my hand to hers.
Thanks, my eyes said. For getting it. And for getting them.
Mom made So. Many. Lists. She used different-colored highlighters to indicate my medications (not as many as I used to take), my food needs (stuff has to be mashed pretty soft), and food I hated (like green peas—but who’s gonna serve peas at camp?). She drew an elaborate chart to explain how to use my talking board and how to charge it at night. She also added a note to remind them that it was fairly water-resistant, but it didn’t need to fall into that pretty lake on their brochure.
We packed. Then repacked. We sorted and tossed and added.
Jeans. Underwear. Socks. Tshirts. And shorts to match the new Tshirts—green and blue and purple. Mom likes stuff to match. It makes her crazy if I go to school in a blue shirt and blue jeans, but come home with a purple top and red pants because maybe I had a spill that day. She always feels like she has to change me again. Yeah, issues!
Mom rolled everything into nifty, curled units, each roll containing a T-shirt, matching shorts, underwear, and socks. “This will make it easy for your camp guide,” she said. For once I was glad I couldn’t talk because when she saw me cracking up, she put her hands on her hips like a challenge. “And what is so funny?”
I can’t wait to get to camp and wear a green shirt with purple shorts, is what I didn’t tell her! I just kept laughing. She never figured it out.
The last thing she tucked into the duffel was a dress—a red dress.
“I won’t need that,” I tapped with a roll of my eyes.
“You never know.”
“It’s camp, Mom, not the prom!”
She ignored me and tucked it in anyway.
Penny flitted around, aware of the excitement, but not really sure what it all meant, except that she always managed to get a new coloring book or markers or clothes for her dolls every time we made a run to the store.
Saturday evening Mom sat down in the rocker by my bed and just rocked silently. We’ve had it since before I was born. One of the armrests wobbles a little now, and most of the red roses that Dad had hand-painted on it had worn off, but when I was little, that chair had pretty much saved us both.
I had been a tiny baby—only three and a half pounds at birth. The doctors kept me in a specialized incubator for preemies for a few weeks. At first Mom could only touch me through ports in the Isolette, as it was called. She sat for hours, rubbing my arms and legs and back, whispering words of love and singing to me. At least that’s what she told me. I’m pretty smart, but even I can’t remember day one and two and three!
Mom was finally allowed to hold me when I was about a month old. Dad told me that she sat there in that hospital room nearly all day long—just rocking her little Melody. So when I got to come home, Dad had welcomed me with that hand-painted rocker. Every single day, either she or Dad would rock me and sing to me. Every day. All day. Maybe that’s why I rarely cried. That rocker soothed me—maybe all of us—during those first few months. And it was soothing still, I guess, for my mom, who was clearly having all kinds of feelings about me heading off to camp.
Mom sat and rocked, and I was sitting in my chair, watching. Penny was stacking colorful wooden blocks into wobbly towers, which consistently tumbled onto the floor. I couldn’t help her, but she didn’t mind—she just gathered them around her once more and rebuilt. She hummed as she stacked. Moonlight was streaming through the window of my room.
Squeak. “Are you ready for this—leaving for camp?” Mom asked.
Squeak. I tapped quickly. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Squeak. “Are you worried about being away from home for a whole week?”
Squeak. “Nope!”
The squeak stopped as she stood up and clutched her heart.
“Ouch!” she cried with fake despair. “My baby is growing up on me!”
We giggled at that, but she was right. I was.
CHAPTER 8
It took us most of last night to pack our well-used SUV for the trip to Camp Green Glades. All we had to do this sunshine-bright Sunday morning was to add the cooler (snacks and colas and juice boxes already loaded) and my box of medications. Or so I thought.