Where Secrets Lie (11 page)

When everything spun out of control and Brian started talking about running away together, the likelihood her unprotected sex with Seth was the source of her pregnancy came back to haunt her.

After her miscarriage, the staggering weight of her remorse precipitated an emotional shutdown, and her relationship with Brian languished. Nonetheless, Sara could not bring herself to be the one to end their relationship. Instead, she allowed Brian the opportunity to come to the inevitable conclusion in his own time.

At the end of the summer, right before they started college, Brian suggested they see other people. Not long after that, they stopped seeing each other altogether without Brian ever grasping what Sara had known for quite some time.

Their relationship ended the moment Sara conceived.

While Lee danced with Jack at their anniversary party, she craned her neck so she could see around his shoulder.

“
Hey now,” Jack said. “I thought you were only supposed to have eyes for me.”

“
I’m sorry,” Lee said, “but I’m trying to find out where Sara disappeared to.”

“
Disappeared? What are you talking about?”

“
After dinner,” Lee said. “Didn’t you notice?”

“
I saw her leave the table if that’s what you mean.” Jack tightened his grip on Lee’s waist as he maneuvered them around another couple. “Don’t worry, she’s probably just off talking to someone.”

“
Yes, probably,” Lee said.

There was no need to bring the palpable tension between Sara and David to Jack’s attention. Still, whatever was going on between those two might be more serious than Lee previously thought.

“
We need to cut the cake soon though,” she said. “Can you saunter me over that way? I’ll get Katie to find her for me.”

~

Katie approached the middle of their mother’s rose garden and saw Sara sitting alone on one of the benches.

“
I thought I’d find you here,” Katie said. She sat next to her sister and linked their arms together. “You taking a breather?”

“
I suppose you could call it that.”

“
Sorry to interrupt.”

“
It’s ok,” Sara said. She was finished deliberating anyway.

Once David found her birth control pills, Sara reached the pivotal point where keeping her secret became more detrimental than divulging it. David deserved an explanation for her behavior, and she needed to give it to him. Continuing to withhold the truth from him was driving a wedge between them. Sara was convinced that exposing her past was the right thing to do, but her fears were unabated.

Would David still feel the same way about her once he was aware of the depth of her past betrayal? Would he be able to understand by the time she’d met him, keeping her secret was more of a habit than an intention? She became so adept at pretending none of it ever happened, sometimes she actually forgot it had. Would that make sense to someone who didn’t believe in keeping secrets, who’d never done it themselves?

Regardless of her fears, Sara knew that as far as her marriage was concerned, the time for secrets had passed. She needed to come clean. In that way and only in that way, would they move past this ordeal together.

“
I take it Mom sent you?” Sara asked.

“
Yeah, she’s getting ready to cut the cake.”

“
I guess we ought to go then.”

“
We can stay if you want,” Katie said. “You know she won’t start without us.”

“
True, but she might come looking for us.”

“
Oh God, we don’t want that, do we?”

Sara smiled. “No, we really don’t.”

They both stood up, and as Katie followed her sister out of the garden, she reflected on Sara’s disinclination to share her problems. Katie didn’t find it surprising. After all, it was their family’s style, but was it what she wanted for herself?

Although Katie learned to function within the confines of her family’s reticence, it never felt natural to her. All her life, something pleaded with her to explore another tactic, but she refrained. Maybe it was time to listen to that pleading and forge another way. Maybe she should have been listening all along.

~

The summer before her sophomore year in high school, Katie was an assistant counselor at an all girls’ camp near Grand Lake, an historic mountain town located in the heart of the Colorado Rockies.

Grand Lake was home to the deepest and largest natural lake in the state. Before the town was settled in the mid-1800s, Native American tribes made annual summer pilgrimages there in order to hunt and fish. In the late 1870’s silver was discovered in the rivers and mountains nearby, and a brief mining boom ensued, after which many miners settled in the area for good.

Less than 100 miles from Denver, early city visitors to Grand Lake braved wagon and stagecoach trips over mountain passes in order to spend their summers there. Today’s tourists partook in year round activities amidst the town’s mountain rustic charm and breathtaking scenery.

Grand Lake was the west endpoint of Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous paved road in the United States, which cut through majestic Rocky Mountain National Park and connected Grand Lake to Estes Park, less than fifty miles to the east.

Trail Ridge Road was Lee’s preferred route to take from Boulder whenever she drove Katie to camp, which she had done every summer since Katie was nine. Sara never joined her sister. Despite Lee’s efforts, day camp at Chautauqua Park in Boulder was as far as she could ever persuade Sara to venture.

Located a few miles outside of Grand Lake, the camp was reached via a winding dirt road, which was about four miles long and barely wide enough for one lane in each direction. Before entering blind curves, drivers would honk their horns to warn oncoming traffic they had better be on their own side of the road, a practice children relished and parents found harrowing.

The road ended in an expansive area of hard packed dirt that served as a parking lot. At the edge of the lot stood three log cabin buildings, an auditorium on the left, a dining hall on the right, and the camp director’s residence in the middle. Behind the auditorium, there was a meadow for softball games, and behind the dining hall, there was a gigantic stone pit for nightly campfires.

Everyone, except the camp director, lived in tents less than half a mile north of the dining hall. The tents were set up on wooden platforms, and each tent contained six bunk beds and two single beds, which were for the full-fledged counselors. Dispersed within the cluster of tents were several long stone buildings that housed the communal bathrooms.

~

Patty had been the camp director for the last 25 years, so her cabin felt like a second home to her. It was a cozy space with one bedroom and bathroom, a tiny kitchen, a decent sized living room, and a small office. The front door opened onto a large porch with several rocking chairs and numerous planters packed full of flowers. On the side of her cabin, next to the dining hall, there was an outdoor entrance to her office, which she left open whenever she was working.

Patty was a stocky woman with short-cropped grey hair, a cheerful disposition, and energy to burn. Her bellowing voice reverberated through the camp during their daily softball games. She was the umpire and a robust cheerleader for both sides. Everyone’s efforts received her accolades regardless of their outcome.

“
Good try!” resounded with the same enthusiasm as, “Good hit!” or “Good throw!” so even the less athletic girls enjoyed playing in the games, and everyone, including counselors, enjoyed watching them.

Most of the counselors were college students although there were years when their ranks included young teachers who needed summer jobs. Assistant counselors, like Katie, were high school girls who already completed a summer of being a counselor in training, which had a minimum age requirement of fourteen. The summer consisted of four two-week sessions, and in order to accommodate everyone’s varied school schedules, they began in mid June and ended by mid August.

Patty arrived early in June along with a crew to prep, repair, and stock the entire camp. Their final task was to set up a luncheon for the counselors who arrived two days before the first session was scheduled to begin.

The luncheon was held in the dining hall and consisted of a buffet of assorted sandwiches, salads, and drinks. The dining hall itself was a huge rectangular room with an entrance on its north end. An open kitchen with a service line was to the right of the entrance. Long wooden tables with benches were lined up perpendicular to the kitchen and filled the rest of the room. On the south end, directly across from the entrance, two tables were elevated from the rest and, during mealtimes, were reserved for Patty and the counselors.

Katie entered the dining hall and put her luggage off to the side along with everyone else’s. As she made her way to the buffet table, she looked around at mostly familiar faces. The counselors were spread haphazardly across the room in various sized groups. They were eating and getting reacquainted.

At the far end of the room was a girl Katie’s age that she did not recognize. The girl was dressed in running garb and already had a deep tan. She stood by herself at the end of a table with a plate balanced in her left hand and a sandwich in her right. When she leaned over her plate to take a bite of her sandwich, her light ash brown curls narrowly missed landing in her potato salad. She put her plate down on the table next to a can of coke and, with one deft movement, restrained her long hair in a high ponytail. She resumed eating, and as she ate, her attention roved around the room and lingered on the larger groups. When a couple of girls approached her, she gave them an easy smile and chatted for a few moments. Katie decided she would go over and introduce herself, but as soon as she filled her plate, Patty asked everyone to gather together, so she could begin the meeting.

Patty welcomed everyone and started to give the same spiel about campground rules Katie heard last year including the absolute ban on cell phones, which incited a collective groan. Katie ate her lunch and let her attention wane until Patty began to assign activities.

Every camp activity required two or more counselors, and every counselor had a primary activity for the duration of the summer. Katie was poised to raise her hand the moment Patty inquired about their interest in hiking. However, instead of asking for volunteers, Patty turned to Katie.

“
Since you helped Suzy with hiking last year how do you feel about being in charge of it this year?”

Suzy graduated from college that spring and wouldn’t be working at the camp anymore.

Katie blushed. “I’d like that.”

“
Ok then, that’s settled, but you’ll need some help. Who’s interested?”

Patty looked around the room. The new girl raised her hand.

“
Ok, Lara will assist. Anyone else?”

No one responded.

“
Katie, do you think the two of you can handle it alone?”

“
Sure.”

It would be more time consuming with only two of them, but the prospect of more time on the trails appealed to Katie.

When Patty got through the list of activities, she reminded them that their tent assignments were posted by the dining hall’s entrance, and they could move in at their leisure.

Katie walked over to where Lara was sitting and introduced herself.

“
Have you ever been to this camp before?” Katie asked.

She knew she had not seen Lara last year when she was in training for the entire summer, but it was possible Lara had been a camper in prior years during a session Katie had not attended.

“
No, this is my first year, at any camp.”

“
Really? And you decided to be a counselor right off?”

“
I didn’t exactly decide. It was my mother’s idea, and to be honest, I’m pretty nervous about it.”

Katie laughed. “You’re scared of the kids?”

“
God yes, how’d you know?”

“
I felt the same way last year, but don’t worry. The kids are fun. Well, most of them are anyway.”

Lara raised her eyebrows and waited for Katie to elaborate.

“
Don’t worry, if we get a problem kid, all we have to do is tell a counselor and let them deal with her. They don’t make us do that kind of stuff.”

“
That’s good.”

“
Let’s find out what tents we got.”

They walked over to the bulletin board next to the entrance. When all the campers arrived, the inhabitants of each tent would vote on a name and design a placard to hang on the outside of their tent for the duration of their stay. Until then, the tents were referred to by numbers, which were stenciled on each tent’s platform.

“
Five,” Katie said.

“
Seven.”

“
We’re in the same area if you want to head over together. We can start on the trails after we unpack.”

“
Ok,” Lara said.

While they were gathering their belongings, Patty came up to them.

“
Katie, can you come with me to my office? I need to speak to you about the trails.”

Katie dropped her stuff and turned to Lara.