When he finds her puffy white coat, Ryke squats down and helps pull her arms into the holes. I stand up while he distracts Luna from me. So I can speak to this mother.
I lean towards Hannah and say lowly, “If any of this ends up online, you’ll be sued for all you’re worth.”
Color drains from her face. “It won’t.”
I don’t say another word to her. Ryke zips up Luna’s coat, and then I pick up my daughter, carrying her on my side. My brother grabs her backpack and sleeping bag. We’re out of there in less than two minutes, and when we reach the curb, I feel something wet soak my shirt.
I glance down, her crotch stained.
Luna sniffs. “I fell asleep first, and so they put my hand in water. They said they always do that.” Her glassy amber eyes look right up at me. “I didn’t know the sleepover rules.”
We’re a block away, and I set her down and kneel on the asphalt, close to her height. “There aren’t any sleepover rules, Luna. Anyone who pulls pranks like that isn’t a friend. They’re not good people.”
She rubs at her forehead, knowing what’s there. “It won’t come off.”
Ryke’s jaw is hard as a rock, and he has to walk past us for a moment, cursing beneath his breath.
I take Luna’s small hand, stopping her from touching her forehead. I hold it. “It’s permanent marker,” I say, not candy-coating this shit. “You’ll have to wait and it’ll fade.” Each word comes out calm, but I could wrap my arms around my daughter and cry with her.
Luna’s lip trembles. “I can’t remove it?”
“It’ll disappear in a day or two, that’s it.” I squeeze her hand. “Luna, I need you to know something.”
She raises her big eyes to mine, and for the first time, she cries. Tears slide down her soft cheeks, and I brush them with my thumb. “I love you,” I tell her strongly. “Your mom loves you. Your brothers and sister love you. Your aunts, uncles, and cousins all love you.” I cup her cheeks. “You’re so goddamn loved.”
“You said a bad word, Daddy,” she says, snot dripping. I wipe her nose with the bottom of my shirt. “And you forgot something.”
“What did I forget?” I ask.
“I don’t have any friends that love me.” The way she says it—like it’s what matters most—breaks my fucking heart.
“Luna Hale,” I reply. “Let me tell you the secret of the universe.”
She rubs her eyes with her fist, but the tears just keep flowing. “The entire universe?”
“The entire universe,” I affirm. “Your worth isn’t dictated by the number of friends you have. You can have zero friends and still be the most amazing, spectacular person in the whole galaxy. You want to know why?”
“Why?” Her voice is meek, but the waterworks have ended.
“Because the love friends give you isn’t even comparable to the love you give yourself. Do you love who you are, Luna Hale?”
She nods vigorously. “Yes.”
“Then you’re the queen of your own galaxy.” I stand up, and she grabs onto my hand as we walk ahead.
Ryke falls in and nods to Luna. “Hey, sweetie.”
“Uncle Ryke, I’m not a weirdo.” She reaches up to rub her forehead again.
“So what if you are?” Ryke says. “Weirdos are fucking cool.”
“Really?” she asks, frowning. She doesn’t chide him for cursing since all our kids know that Uncle Ryke is allowed to say bad words.
“Yeah, really.” He messes her hair and then fits her Wampa cap on her head. It must’ve been in her backpack. “And to add to what your dad told you. Friends come and fucking go. Family is forever.”
We walk maybe one more block and a car rolls down the lamp-lit street. Rose’s Escalade rolls to a stop, and I look to my older brother. He’s the only one who could’ve told someone what happened.
He shrugs like it’s nothing. “I sent a group text. I had to…fucking release.” I can imagine the kind of words in that text thread.
The window slides down, revealing Rose Calloway Cobalt in all her 10:00 p.m. glory. Hair twisted in a pony, dressed in a black silk robe. She flicks off her headlights since Luna is squinting, and Rose leans towards the window, piercing yellow-green eyes landing on me.
“I have two boys in my car that want to have a sleepover at your house. They’re also grounded, so they can’t watch television.” She says that last line loudly, and we can all hear laughter from the SUV. Her eyes narrow at me again. “I’m serious. Don’t let them watch TV.”
“Moffy’s at a sleepover,” I say, though she probably already knows that. “So if it’s Charlie and Beckett—”
“It’s not.” She turns in her seat and tells her children, “You can climb out. Behave at Uncle Loren’s.”
Five-year-old Tom exits the car first, his golden brown hair combed back. My muscles frost, my body solidifying like ice. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
A word is written on his forehead in black marker.
WEIRDO
He sets his black duffel on the ground while his older brother jumps out of the car. “Thanks for driving us, Mom!” Six-year-old Eliot calls out and spins around, the same word on his forehead.
My softened eyes flit to Rose.
She shakes her head, but she’s grinning. “Not my idea. They overheard Connor and me. We were talking about it, and then I caught them in the bathroom like this.” These are Rose’s sons. There is no question about it.
Solidarity.
For my daughter to have that. Christ. I internally shake my head, whiplashed. We speak of moving mountains, but sometimes people can completely rotate the world, just so someone else can land upright on their feet.
I nod to Rose in thanks, and she rolls up her window. We wait for her to reverse her SUV and drive back towards her house. Then we begin walking towards mine again.
I take Eliot and Tom’s bags, slinging them on my shoulder.
Luna is laughing. “Why’d you go and do that?” She points at Tom’s forehead.
Tom sticks his hands in his coat pockets. “Because if they’re gonna call you a weirdo, then that means we’re weirdos.”
“Definitely,” Eliot agrees.
As we head home, I feel all the sentiments Lily told me earlier tonight. Our bad days have the ability to become better. It may be a horrible month. A horrible year. But there will be good days, good moments, great seconds.
I vow to never forget that.
2026
“You’re all incredibly boring.”
- Charlie Keating Cobalt, We Are Calloway (Season 8 Episode 12 – Hot-Tempered Triad & Older Kids Club)
< 48 >
June 2026
Camp Calloway
Pocono Mountains
DAISY MEADOWS
“Look at that land crab go! Such pretty pinchers and shell, she crawls and she crawls,” I narrate Winona’s adventure while I sift through papers on a desk. Inside the director’s office of Camp Calloway, my two-year-old hops from one colorful beanbag to the next. About seven spread out.
It’s very kid-friendly in here.
“Oops, she falls!” I say as Winona splats on a yellow beanbag.
Sullivan, eight-years-old, pretends to be sleeping in the middle of the beanbags, and then she suddenly uncurls and rises to her knees.
I gasp. “A wave is coming!”
Winona shrieks.
Sulli smiles wide and raises her arms like she’s about to consume her little sister. “Woosh woosh,” Sulli plays along.
“Waves sweep little land crabs away. Go! Go! Go, Winona, go!”
Winona shrieks again, laughter stuck beneath the squeal. She hops to the red beanbag. My face brightens. I have a hard time concentrating on the legal papers. The camp director needs my signature on about ten before I leave.
My lawyers drew them up, so it’s not a blind transaction.
Winona splats on the blue beanbag, her brown hair much lighter than her older sister’s. Set free and loose. As wild
as Sulli’s. I’d record this event, but Ryke has the video camera. He’s somewhere outside. About an hour ago, he videotaped Sulli climbing out of the car.
It’s her very first time at camp.
…and soon we’ll drive away without her. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. I built this camp. I know she’s safe here, but I’ve never been away from Sulli for longer than four days.
While Sulli descends upon her sister, Winona shouts something that sounds like I’m just a land crab! She dubbed herself the Mightiest Land Crab in All the Land this morning. She bit Ryke’s arm when he picked her up, and then she pinched his cheek. “My crab claws!” she told him.
I couldn’t stop laughing, so he smacked the rim of my baseball cap over my eyes. Which only made me laugh more. Then I spun the green cap backwards.
I still wear it now.
Ryke and I mostly watch Nat Geo and Discovery Channel, so Winona’s knowledge skews towards animals and nature. Last week she told us she was a panther, and she hid behind the living room furniture and spent a whole hour stalking Ryke.
Who was sitting in the same place as he ate granola cereal.
I call out, “There goes the wave!”
Sulli lifts up Winona’s white shirt and blows a raspberry on her belly.
Winona laughs, “Sulli!”
Sulli tickles her sister’s sides. “Gotcha, squirt.”
I uncap a pen with my teeth and sign the top paper, rocking on my feet. Winona’s laughter fades, and I hear Sulli tell her that she’ll be right back. So I look up.
My daughter unzips her turquoise duffel, a matching sleeping bag rolled up nearby. Sulli wears this deep contemplative look. One that surfaces nearly every day. She re-zips her duffel and then scratches at her head, then near her hairline. That right there—the head-scratch—tells me that she’s nervous. She scratches just below her swim cap during “the most important” meets.
I haven’t signed another paper yet. However I feel about leaving Sulli here for a whole month might not even compare to how she feels.
I spit my pen cap out. “Guess what, Sulli?”
Sulli faces me and then walks closer. “What?”
“I have your cabin assignment.” I sift through the papers for her camp welcome letter. I meant to give it to her when we exit the office, but maybe this’ll take her mind off potential homesickness. Bam! I find the letter. I wave it at her and she snatches the envelope.
She unfurls the letter and reads quickly.
Winona is busy rolling on every beanbag.
Sulli’s shoulders sag, just slightly. “I thought I was going to be in the Yellow Daisy cabin?”
“Yellow Daisy is for ten-year-olds. You’ll be there in a couple years. Right now, you’re starting out in the Red Poppy cabin.”
Sullivan refolds the letter.
I scoot around the desk and then nudge her elbow with mine. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know…” She glances out the window and tugs at her loose-fitted tank top. Campers move into their wooden cabins and hug their parents goodbye. Some are weepy first-timers. Others are jubilant camp veterans. The excited ones race off towards the mess hall where the Welcome Bash will begin.
I always thought that’d be Sulli, and I think she thought it’d be her too. For years, she’s talked about being old enough to finally attend Camp Calloway.
Her long brown hair hangs in tangled waves. “Are you sure you can’t stay?” she asks. “Can’t you be a counselor this year?” She hops up on the desk.
I sit beside her, our legs swinging. She knows I’m the owner, not a counselor or director. “The counselors here are totally amazing, so hey, you’ll hardly know I’m not here.”
Sulli lifts her feet to the desk, her long, long legs tucked towards her chest. She touches her colorful ankle bracelets, as though ensuring they’re still there. We made tons this year already.
Sulli sets her chin on her knee and tilts her head towards me. “I already miss you and Nona and Dad, and you’re right here.”
Tears brim in both our eyes. We brush noses, and I whisper, “I’ll be back for Spirit Days. I know it’s far away, but there’s so much about camp that you’ll love.”
“Like what?” she says just as quietly.
“Horseback riding. You’ve never been horseback riding, and you feel free, Sulli. You’ll play huge games of capture the flag that’ll have your heart racing. Zip-lining, the beautiful lake, rock climbing. And then you’ll grow close to the girls in your cabin. You’ll stay up late at night telling stories. You might even go prank the boys’ cabins, just because you can.”
She laughs softly into a smile.
“You’ll probably hate the showers, but so will the other girls. You’ll laugh and bond and realize that you’re all equally homesick but at least you’re homesick together.”
Camp Calloway is as old as Sullivan Minnie Meadows. I never attended camp when I was her age, but throughout eight years, I’ve seen enough campers and their experiences to empathize and feel everything I say.
Sullivan drops her legs and swings them, a little more cheerful. “I wish Jane was here.”
I rub her back.
Jane was sick at the last minute. She tried very hard to come anyway. According to Rose, Jane packed her bag and sat in the car, waiting to go. They would’ve brought her too, but she had a hundred-and-one degree fever.
“Moffy is here,” I remind Sulli, though I know it’s not the same in her mind. Cabins are segregated between boys and girls. Some activities are too. So she won’t see Moffy all the time.
Sullivan takes a deep, hearty breath and glances at the window again. “We’re allowed to swim in the lake, right?” This is the tenth time she’s asked, worried the answer may change.
I reaffirm that there’s definitely swimming, and then I say, “So I have this theory.”
Sulli immediately smiles. “Can I guess?”
Theatrical, I wave her on. “My peanut butter cupcake.”
“Your theory is that I’ll make at least one lasting friend. If not this year, then next year, and if not next year, then the year after, and if not then, well…maybe I already have that kind of friend.”
She came up with this all on her own. It’s a theory with a positive outcome no matter what happens. We’re both smiling, and we’re both in tears again.
“That’s a brilliant theory if I ever heard one,” I say.
She laughs.
I laugh.
We hop off the desk together, and I hug my daughter.
“I love you so much, Mom.”
“I love you just as much.” We nuzzle noses again, and then when we break apart, she’s lighter on her feet. She picks up her bag.
“I can help. Do you need me to carry your duffel? I can walk you to the cabin?”
“No. I think I want to do this on my own.” She slings the duffel and tucks her sleeping bag beneath her arm. “Will you come say goodbye?”
I gasp. “You think I wouldn’t?”
She smiles. “No, I know you would.” I want to make sure she’s settled with her bunk and take some photos before we leave.
Sullivan clasps the door and waves to her little sister. “See you, squirt.”
Winona rolls off her beanbag. “Bye!” She has no clue Sulli won’t be around for a whole month, or else she’d be crying and grabbing onto Sulli’s legs. Ryke already prepared for a tantrum on the ride home. He bought two chocolate bars for me. Because chocolate is the cure to most things.
Cake is the cure to everything.
“Sulli,” I say before she goes. “You may see your dad out there.” I think he most likely went to test the rock wall, confirming that all the anchors are secure. He usually does this every summer, and some years, he’ll fill in as the climbing instructor for a week or during Spirit Days. “Just to warn you, he’ll want a hug before you leave and he may cry.”
Sulli smiles again.
“Oh and he may not want to leave you, so you’ll have to t
ry and convince him to come home with me.”
She laughs. “It won’t be hard. Dad loves you like…so much.”
I love him like so much too.
And then she’s out the door. I watch her through the door’s window, walking to the Red Poppy cabin alone and brave. So brave. Because every camper probably knows who she is before she even introduces herself. In the same breath, she has no idea who they are.
It’s unequal footing, but if there’s anyone who has the endurance and will to pull themselves higher—it’s Sullivan Minnie Meadows.
Just like her dad.
* * *
Outside, I sit on the wooden steps of the director’s office, Winona between my legs. She picks at my ankle bracelets and tries to unknot one. I wait for Ryke so we can say goodbye to Sulli.
Loren Hale leans against an oak tree only about fifteen feet away, his attention cast towards the White Rose cabins. Pretty far from here. I catch sight of Moffy’s shirt: a Vic Whistler logo from The Fourth Degree comics on the back. He talks with two other boys by those cabins.
I say aloud, “Accurate depiction of saying goodbye: hey, Daisy, this is going to suck as bad as you suck—”
“Whoa,” Lo cuts in, his gaze cemented on me. He points towards his black crew neck shirt. “Not your husband.”
I mock gasp. “You’re not? You look a lot like him.”
Lo flashes a dry smile and then says to Winona, “Your mom thinks she’s really funny.”
“Because she is!” Winona shouts.
I smile, and Lo feigns hurt. “Winona, you just pierced my heart.”
Winona tugs at my ankle bracelet and mumbles, “That’s because I’m a crab.”
Lo gives me a look like this child is one-hundred percent mine. “I thought I had a monkey for a niece?”
“Oh no, she’s a crab now.”
“Goddamn.”
Winona hears curse words too often to even flinch at that one.
Lo straightens off the tree, and he must remember the heart of what I said before. “The first time is the worst because you’re not sure if they like it or not, but Moffy couldn’t wait to come back. For a kid that isn’t very trusting of anyone, he was excited to go to a place populated by his peers. That’s something, Daisy. What you created, it’s good. It’s really goddamn good.”
Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) Page 50