Harmony (12 page)

It's Saturday, the night before the first batch of Guest Campers arrives, and Scott is leading us all out into the woods for something called Saturday Campfire. Scott's been working out here for a couple of days with the help of the dads, fixing up a clearing for us, and this morning, Candy and Diane and I made these special fire-starters by collecting pinecones and dipping them in melted wax.

We've been walking for a while, maybe five or ten minutes, which isn't that long when you're playing a game or watching a movie or something, but it feels pretty long when you're walking on bumpy ground, tripping over tree roots and ducking down so the branches don't hit you in the face. We all have flashlights, but we haven't turned them on, because it isn't dark yet. It's shadowy, though, because of the tall trees, and . . . well, it's not quiet exactly, but everything sounds a little softer than usual: grown-ups talking, and birds making noise here and there, and our feet crunching along on the pine needles. Even though I know it's not true, I could almost believe that we were walking someplace where no humans had ever gone.

I'm creeping myself out, so I slow down until Tilly catches up with me.

“It's weird out here,” I say.

“Yeah, kind of,” she says, but I can tell she's not really paying attention. She's deep inside her head, as always.

“Did you know,” she asks, “that the Motherland Calls memorial is sinking into the earth?”

She's talking about this giant statue she likes in Russia. It's a humongous woman with a sword sticking up in the air; it's got something to do with World War II. I don't really like it. Actually, it kind of scares me.

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “You told me.”

“It's shorter than it used to be, and it's because it's so heavy that the ground can't completely support it. And no one's doing anything to fix it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What if it sank down so far that it was completely inside the earth? Like first her legs would disappear, and the bottom of her dress, and she'd be sticking up out of the ground halfway. She'd look like she was buried and she was climbing out, like the Statue of Liberty in
Planet of the Apes
.” Not that either of us has ever seen
Planet of the Apes
, but our dad found a picture online, back when Tilly was first getting into all this monument stuff.

“That wouldn't happen. You said that they think it'll just fall over someday.”

“I know, but what if it
did
sink that far down? In the end, you'd only be able to see the tip of her sword sticking up out of the dirt. And hundreds of years in the future, people would wonder what it was. And if they ever dug it up, maybe they'd think that God put it there, instead of people, and they'd make up a whole religion about it.”

I sigh. Obviously, that's completely stupid, because in this future place, wouldn't they still have history books and the Internet, and
wouldn't they know that there used to be a huge statue in exactly this spot? Or wouldn't there be a big hole in the ground or something? But she's busy thinking about it now, getting deeper and deeper into the idea, and there's not really any point in arguing with her.

This is what Tilly's mind is like. You know how teachers are always saying that the imagination is this great thing, because it lets you go anywhere and do anything? It's not really true for everyone, though, the way it is for Tilly. It's like the rest of us have our brains cooped up in a little box, and we're always bumping into the walls whenever we try to think about anything too big, like
Is it possible for a statue that big to sink completely into the earth?
Or
But wouldn't the future people know that the statue used to be there?
But somehow Tilly never hits those walls. It's like she flies right through.

Sometimes I wish I could be inside her head, just to see what it's like. But I guess that being inside her head would also mean all the other stuff, like forgetting to eat with a fork sometimes and freaking out when you lose a pen, because maybe you'll never find it, maybe it's not under the couch or in some other room that you carried it into when you weren't paying attention. Maybe nothing is the way it's supposed to be, and maybe the pen is just freaking
gone
.

Up ahead of us, there are two trees that are leaning toward each other, with a path between them, like a gateway, and just beyond that there's a big empty area. We've all been walking in groups, but everyone sort of narrows down into a line to go through the trees. And then suddenly everything's brighter, because there aren't any branches above us, and we're in a big clear space, with a bunch of firewood piled in the middle.

Everyone crowds around the woodpile in a circle. Tilly and I are standing together, with our mom and dad behind us. The four of us squeeze in tight, till we're all touching, which is nice, sort of like a family hug.

Scott waits until everyone's there and has found a place, and then he says, “Welcome, Core Family. Welcome to the Harmony Circle.”

I want to giggle because he sounds so formal, but I know he's trying to be serious and solemn, so I don't.

“This is a space,” he says, “that's just for us, the Core Family, the CF. Once the Guest Campers start arriving, there are going to be a lot of other people moving in and out of Camp Harmony. But every Saturday night, in between one group of GCs leaving and the next one arriving, we'll gather here, and for that little slice of time, it'll be just us again.”

Next to me, I can feel Tilly starting to get twitchy; her arm jerks against mine, and she starts moving her shoulders up and down. She doesn't like to stay in one place for very long; it's almost like she can't, like her body starts bothering her if it goes too long without moving. I wonder how long Scott is going to talk.

“The Harmony Circle is a place of renewal and purification,” Scott says. “It's a weekly chance to clarify our purpose, to check in with each other, to remember why we're here. So let's get started, okay?”

He picks up the cardboard box that has the fire-starters in it. “Kids, come on up here,” he says.

“Oh, good,” I hear my dad whisper to my mom. “Let's give them open flames.” Mom laughs quietly.

Tilly and I and the rest of the kids move away from our parents and gather around Scott. Ryan ends up next to me, and I hear him repeating something quietly, under his breath: “Arson for the parson, arson for the parson.” I'm assuming it's some
Simpsons
thing, and that he really wants to say it, but he doesn't want to get in trouble with Scott for making a joke about the fire. No one's gotten AD Block yet, and nobody wants to be the first one.

Scott passes around the box of fire-starters, and we each take one. I grab one for Hayden, too, and put it into his hand for him. I overheard the grown-ups having a talk about this, about whether it was safe to let Charlotte and Hayden use one of these, especially Hayden since he doesn't really understand what's going on most of the time. Janelle wanted to skip it, and maybe give him something else to throw
in the fire, but Scott convinced her that it was important for all the kids to be treated equally. He said, “We'll practice with him before dinner, we'll make sure he knows what he's supposed to do. How do you know whether he can rise to the occasion if you don't give him a chance?” And Janelle shook her head and was quiet for a minute but finally said okay.

“Here we go, guys,” says Scott. He has a big long lighter, like the kind you use to light a barbecue grill, and he moves down the line of us, touching the flame to the tips of our pinecones.

I watch mine for a second after he lights it; I'm interested in the way that the fire starts just at the top tip and works its way downward along the rows of scales as if it were a living thing. For a second, everyone's quiet and the air smells like Christmas, and we just stand there, holding the glow in our hands.

Then, really quick, I feel heat on my fingers and I toss the pinecone onto the firewood. Mine hits first, and then there are others flying through the air to land on the pile, and everything crackles as all the little fires join into one.

“Scott,” someone yells. It's Janelle. “Scott, get it from him.”

I look over at Hayden, who's still holding his pinecone in his hand, eyes wide and dark as he watches the flame travel down toward his hands. Then Scott pushes past me, knocking me and Tilly over into the dirt. He lunges at Hayden, and I don't see what happens, but then Hayden starts yelling big angry noises, and Scott's howling because his hand is on fire. The pinecone sails through the air in the wrong direction, flying over my head and into the trees. All the adults are around Scott, pouring bottles of water and yelling, and I'm the only one who thinks to follow the pinecone into the woods to stomp the fire out. I'm the only one who thinks to put my arms around Hayden and give him a hug as he cries and yells for the bright, pretty thing that Scott gave him and then took away.

You're sitting at a table at a banquet facility in Poughkeepsie, New York: the wedding of one of Josh's cousins. It's a sit-down meal, and your table has been waiting for salad for a while. The girls are getting fidgety.

“I spy . . .” you say. You've just got to keep them going till you can get some food in them. You're thinking you'll say
D
, for Daddy; you can see Josh across the room, making conversation with an uncle.

“No, wait, I've got one,” Tilly cuts in. “I spy, with my little eye, something that begins with the letter
F
.”

“Flowers,” Iris says.

“No, but close.”

You have a bad feeling. “Is it flower
girl
?” you ask, giving her a look.

“Yep.” Tilly laughs; Iris makes a frustrated noise in her throat and punches her sister in the arm. She turns and stomps away toward her dad. The flower girl—five-year-old niece of the groom, currently twirling adorably on the dance floor—is a touchy subject. Iris is nine now, beyond standard flower-girl age, and not close
enough to the couple to have been considered. But she's never been a flower girl, and she always wanted to be one, so she's been grumpy for the whole trip. And Tilly's more than happy to needle her about it. “Not really necessary, Till,” you say.

“No, but fun,” she says, taking another roll from the basket on the table. She looks pretty tonight; she's wearing a purple silk dress and low heels, though you weren't able to talk her into panty hose. Relatives who haven't seen her for a while have been commenting on how much darker her hair has gotten in the last couple of years; you're with her every day, yet you can't quite say when it changed from dark blond to light brown. Iris's hair still has that baby-gold sheen, but you can really only see it in sunlight. So easy to miss your children changing before your eyes.

It's been almost two months since you went to Scott Bean's seminar, and you think maybe you can say that things are getting a little better. Not that there's a direct correlation, necessarily—you've also been working with Tilly's doctor to fine-tune her medication, and it's hard to say what's causing what. But you think the Scott Bean stuff is helping. You ended up ordering his set of CDs, and you've been listening to them in the car. None of it is particularly revolutionary—limits and consequences, rewarding and redirecting, staying calm and encouraging responsibility. But there's something comforting about his voice, in the air, surrounding you. He sounds sympathetic. He sounds like he believes you can do it. It's probably a better use of your driving time than beating yourself up.

“I need to pee,” says Tilly suddenly, jumping up.

You catch her arm before she goes, tug her closer so you can lower your voice. “Need any help?”

She groans and rolls her eyes, like any tween girl, like every picture of a daughter you ever imagined. “No, Mother,” she says and walks away, leaving you smiling.

She has her period, first time ever. It arrived this past Tuesday,
while she was at school. She didn't notice it right away; she doesn't like the school restrooms and tries to avoid using them if she can help it. The school nurse called you to come pick her up at lunchtime, because the blood had soaked through her pants.

Tilly seems to be taking the whole thing in stride; mostly she's annoyed by it. She doesn't like the imprecision, the fact that she doesn't know for sure when it's coming or how long it will last. She's freaked out by the way she inevitably gets blood on her hands, and she's horrified (almost morally outraged, it seems) by the existence of menstrual cramps. She's made a few awkward jokes about sexual activity and pregnancy. Fairly average stuff, really; probably not so different from the responses of her neurotypical peers. You've been dreading this moment for a while, but it's not nearly as bad as you'd feared. You underestimate her sometimes, you think.

Big family events, like this wedding, can be hard for you. You're seeing other kids Tilly's age and comparing; you're wondering how she appears to people who don't know her very well. On the car ride from the church to the reception, you listened to your girls pick apart the ceremony, enumerating which aspects they would or would not like to include in their own weddings. And you tried to believe in a future so easy and bright.

You see Josh's mother, Irene, winding toward you through the scattered circles of guests. You smile, nudge the chair next to you into a more welcoming position. You've always felt like you lucked out in this area. Josh's dad died before the two of you met, but his mom is warm and kind, noninterfering, relatively drama-free.

She sits down next to you, sets her glass of wine on the table. “You finally get a moment to yourself,” she says, “and here I come to ruin it.”

“No,” you say. “I'm glad to have some adult conversation.”

She squeezes your shoulder. “It's so nice of you guys to come. I know it's a long trip.”

Seven and a half hours, factoring in traffic, meals, and bathroom stops. But you shrug. “We're happy to be here,” you say.

“Tilly seems good,” she says. It's not a question, exactly, but she's providing a blank space, drawing a box in the air where your answer should go.

“Yeah,” you say, your tone upbeat. “I mean, it's a work in progress.” It's hard to explain to anyone who isn't right there in the middle of it. You could say that there are good days and there are bad days, and that makes it sound like her struggles aren't any different from anyone else's. But you know the difference, even if you don't know how to convey it to anyone else: on the good days, she's still telling her father she wants to fuck him. On the good days, she's still hitting her little sister if you can't manage to put yourself between them in time.

Tonight, though. Tonight, everyone is nicely dressed, and no one's yelled even once. Tonight, you are filled with good wishes, and you're going to dance with your husband, whether he likes it or not. You glance around until you spot your girls: Iris is across the room with Josh, saying something that's making all the grown-ups around her laugh, and Tilly's coming through the doorway, on her way back from the bathroom. All of your life here, in front of you.
I spy, with my hopeful eye . . .

 • • • 

After dinner, there are toasts, and then the newlyweds cut the wedding cake, which turns out to be a wedding pie, causing nearly uniform disappointment at your table. Pie seems more sophisticated than cake, you think, perhaps more of an adult choice. But that doesn't mean you have to prefer it.

This is one area, though, where you and your husband disagree. “Mmm,” he says. “That looks amazing. Why didn't we think of doing that at our wedding?”

You stare at him. “It's like I don't even know you anymore.” Your girls laugh, the sound bright, like little birds.

“Aw, come on,” he says. “Pie is great.”

“I don't know,” you say. “Maybe pie is more of a guy thing.”

You've lost them. “Mom, that's sexist,” says Tilly.

“Yeah,” says Iris. “It's offensive.”

You shake your head at them, these monsters you've created, and you walk away to join the line for dessert.

And when the DJ interrupts the pouring of coffee to ask that all of the married couples report to the dance floor, you stand up and take Josh's hand to pull him along with you. As you walk away from the table, you hear Tilly say to her grandmother, “Grammy, did you know I can get pregnant now?” but when you turn back to see if you're going to be needed, your mother-in-law smiles and shoos you away. The song is “The Way You Look Tonight,” bland and lovely. It's timeless and generic in all the best ways; it smooths away the specifics and turns this wedding into everywedding. The DJ keeps his microphone in his hand, ready to winnow the dancing couples down until only the oldest remains.

You put your arms around Josh's neck and rest your head on his shoulder. You're forty-two, and you've known him since you were nineteen. Impossibly lucky, you think sometimes, to love someone so thoroughly and so long.

“Okay,” says the DJ, midway through the first verse. “Anyone who's been married for five years or less, please leave the floor.”

Four or five couples, the newlyweds among them, step away and join the crowd of onlookers. Look at them, the bride and groom, the way they stand close and continue to hold each other's hands, happy to be young and flushed, happy to be the first ones to leave. You don't mind, you realize, being left behind in this middle place, alongside the old folks. At least you get to dance for a while longer.

Your own wedding was lovely, but looking back now you're mostly
amazed at how young you were. You said the words, and you meant them, but really you had no idea how it would feel to stick together through the bad times. You tighten your arms around Josh, as he drops a kiss onto the top of your head. This is it now: your sickness, your poorer. “Someday,” one of Tilly's doctors once said to you, “you'll look back on this and wonder how you ever got through it.”

“Okay,” says the DJ. “Only couples who have been married ten years or more.”

You're still safe; it's fifteen years since you stood where that girl in the white dress is standing. Here's what you have in common with the couples still moving around you: you know, all of you, what these newlyweds are in for, these starry-eyed fledglings who think this is the moment where everything good begins. You're dancing alongside veterans of wars and miscarriages and a thousand day-to-day disappointments. You cling to your husband, happy in his arms, until it's time to move to the side, to make way for couples who have lived through even more.