It takes us ten minutes to collect the various items of clothing Lilo and Stitch have dragged all over the house. We’ve finished cleaning up and are about to sit down with cold pizza, when the front door opens.
As usual, Spencer is the first one to come barreling inside with his sister following at a more sedate pace.
“Hey, Daddy, hey, Aunt Taz. Guess what?”
“I give up,” I joke, but Spencer’s already well into his story about Grandpa giving him his lucky fishing hat to take on our trip.
As Spencer is proudly showing his dad, I notice Mom staying in the hallway, Sofie by her side. “Won’t you come in?” I ask, getting up to join her there.
“No, I should get back to your father. I just wanted to wish you a good trip.” She watches as I absentmindedly stroke Sofie’s braids.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll have my phone, though. Anything happens, call, okay? We’ll only be a couple of hours from here.”
Her eyes dart over my shoulder and I can sense Rafe closing in. “Lisa also offered to be on standby for whatever you need,” he adds, and I see Mom nod.
She seems to swallow hard as she takes us in; Sofie with her back to my front, my arms loosely crossed over her chest, and Rafe behind me, not touching, but close.
Then she nods again, “I will,” and walks out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rafe
“Who’s coming with me to gather wood for tonight’s fire?”
“Me!”
I chuckle when, of course, Spencer is the first to raise his hand. We did pick up some firewood on the way, but it’s barely enough to last us the first night.
“Daddy, are there snakes here?”
“Pipsqueak, there’s snakes everywhere. Even in Eminence. You used to bring me snakes all the time.”
“They’re gross.” She shivers dramatically.
“Why don’t you help me get our beds ready, Sofie?” Taz suggests. “No snakes in the tent.”
She only hesitates for a moment before she darts inside the tent.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, Son.”
The campground is basic: remote and private sites, a picnic table and firepit, a central shower building with bathrooms—not much else. But, it has a ton of hiking trails, and it borders a river teeming with trout. Maybe this afternoon we can do some fishing.
I dreamed of trips like this when I was growing up. Imagined parents who could teach me basic survival skills. I’d seen a movie once of a family on a camping trip: the father and mother showing the kids how to make a shelter, build a fire, and catch fish. I was never that lucky, but when I was old enough I taught myself, and was determined to pass it on to any kids of my own.
Sofie had been an adventurous toddler, and Spencer barely a year old, the only time we ever took them camping. What should’ve been a week ended up being a three-day trip. Nicky had been miserable, Spencer had been cranky, and the only person having fun had been Sofie.
In hindsight, it probably hadn’t been a good idea to go camping with a baby and we never tried again, but now—at five—Spencer seems to be soaking it up.
“This one, Dad?”
He holds up a small branch of dead wood.
“That’s good kindling to start the fire, Son. Find me more pieces like that.”
By the time we head back to the campsite, he has his arms full of branches and I’m dragging an entire dead tree behind me.
“What are you doing?” I ask Sofie, who’s standing underneath a tree on the far side of the small clearing, looking up.
“Aunt Taz is tying ropes.”
Spencer drops his bundle by the firepit and rushes over to stand beside his sister, peering up into the tree. “Cool! Can I come up, Aunt Taz?”
Sure enough, when I join them and tilt my head back, I can see Taz straddling a thick branch about ten feet up, affixing a rope to the trunk. “You break something you’ll ruin the trip, you know that, right?” I call up.
Her response is a wide grin aimed down at me. “I’m not gonna fall. Our Congolese drivers didn’t nickname me Makaku for nothing.”
“What does that mean? Maka–whatever,” Sofie asks.
Taz loops a second rope around the branch she’s sitting on before climbing down with more confidence than I feel. “Makaku—monkey,” she explains with a smile when she has two feet firmly back on the ground. “Best way to get fresh fruit in the Congo is to get it right from the tree; bananas, mangoes.”
“No fruit up there,” I point out.
“Nope, but a rope between this tree and that one over there,” she points to one about fifteen feet away, “will keep our food safe.”
“Why do you have to hang it in a tree?” Spencer asks, and this time it’s his sister who answers.
“So the bears and the mountain lions can’t get at it. Right, Aunt Taz?”
“Bears?” he looks around with a worried look.
“Don’t worry,” I quickly reassure him. “They don’t like people much, so they tend to stay away unless we leave food lying around. They don’t mind an easy meal.”
I watch as Taz hands one end of the rope she looped over the branch to Sofie. “Hold on, honey.” The other end she ties to the emergency tarp I had in the back of the truck. “Spencer? Do we have more tent pegs? Would you mind grabbing those?”
Eager to help, he runs off to look for them.
“The food would’ve been safe in the truck,” I whisper, sidling up to Taz.
“I know, but where’s the fun in that?” she mumbles under her breath, before making her way over to the second tree.
I grin as she loops another coil of rope diagonally across her torso, and easily climbs up.
Grabbing a beer and a chair, I sit down and enjoy watching her show the kids how to build a cover with the large tarp. This is even better than in my childhood dreams.
“You’re amazing, you know that?”
The kids are out of earshot, manning the two fishing poles at the edge of the river. It had been a bit of a struggle getting them to wear their life vests, but once they realized there wouldn’t be any fishing at all unless they put them on, they quickly complied.
Taz and I are keeping an eye from in the folding chairs we dragged to the water’s edge.
She turns her head my way, smiling. “How so?”
Instead of answering I reach for her hand, bring it up to my mouth, and kiss her palm. “You just are.”
I smile at her and turn my eyes back to the kids, in time to see Sofie with her back to the water, watching us. Before I have a chance to react, she throws down her fishing rod and takes off running toward the trees.
“Sofie!”
I shoot out of my chair and hightail it after her, trusting Taz will stay with Spencer.
She’s fast, darting through the woods, but with my much longer legs I have no trouble catching up with her. She’s crying when I finally hook her around the waist and swing her, struggling, up in my arms. I sit down with her on an overturned log and hold her until the crying subsides into sniffles.
“Sofie…Pipsqueak,” I start gently.
“Why?” Her pitiful plea cuts me deep. “Don’t you love Mom?”