Once school was over for the year, my parents sent my younger brother and me to Camp Dahlia for the cooler air and outdoor activities. In the city, I was in demand when kids picked teams for playground games. Ricky, my brother, wasn’t, because he didn’t run as fast as I did. When teams were chosen, I made sure he was picked whenever I was. At Camp Dahlia, I didn’t have to watch out for him. Everyone was picked for a team. I could just have fun.

There were rules for campers and counselors. When one boy threw a ball at another boy's stomach, he had to apologize. When one counselor grabbed a grilled cheese sandwich from a camper’s reaching hand, the next morning she was gone. Every day had a schedule, and everything we did was fun. In the evenings our counselors pulled out their guitars and played folk songs. This was the 1960s, when folk music was everywhere. We didn’t know what the songs meant, but we knew they were mysterious and sophisticated, which is what Harriet, my best friend at camp, and I wanted to be. Right now, we didn’t like boys, and we certainly didn’t want to kiss them, but maybe someday we would, like the girls in the songs on the radio. We pondered the lyrics with the precision of scholars, but we came no closer to understanding their meaning. Who was Suzanne? Why would she take someone down to a place by a river? We yearned to be adults, because adults knew everything.

Harriet and I thought that adulthood happened instantaneously, like walking from one room to another. We were both eleven. As an adult I would understand the songs. I would take the subway by myself. I would know the answer to every question. I would paint pictures to hang in a museum. I would write a novel that everyone would read and love. I would have a boyfriend in a leather jacket. He would run his fingers through my long straight hair that parted in the middle. (Never mind that my short curly hair didn’t part in the middle.) I would toss my hair over my shoulders. (It didn’t toss.) I would wear mascara and lipstick. I would be beautiful. My boyfriend would kiss me, and I would kiss him back. He would have a big brass bed and sing Lay Lady Lay as I smiled up at him, waiting for something wonderful to happen. Harriet felt the same way, except her boyfriend would wear a blue jean jacket, and she wanted to be a famous scientist.

“Girls! Flashlights out! Stop whispering!” We giggled one last time and stopped talking.

On the last morning of camp, Harriet and I vowed eternal friendship and promised to return to camp as best friends the following summer.

“Let’s write every week!” we vowed, hands on our hearts. We hugged each other until we boarded our designated buses for home.

The next summer I didn’t see Harriet, because Ricky and I were sent to Camp Beginnings. My parents drove us there, hugged us good-bye, and told us they'd be back in a month to bring us home. Camp Beginnings looked like Camp Dahlia, only smaller. The lake was smaller, the cabins were smaller, and there weren’t as many trees or campers. I didn’t mind that it was smaller. My counselor seemed nice, and the other girls were friendly. The first thing I didn’t like was breakfast—a bowl of watery oatmeal topped with a few sour blueberries, delivered with a crash by a frowning elderly lady named Cook. I ate it and looked around for more—bread, fruit, juice, potatoes, even a second serving of oatmeal, but my counselor, surprised when I asked her if there was anything else, said there wasn’t.

“There’s a canteen where you can buy candy and soda in the afternoon, if you have pocket money.”

“I don’t have pocket money.”

“Then ask your mom or dad to send you a care package. Some of the campers do that.”

“OK,” I said. I was hungry all morning, but at lunch I put extra meat and cheese on my sandwich, and no one stopped me. During quiet time after lunch, we stayed in our cabin to rest or write letters. I wrote to my parents and asked them to send food right away.

“Please send lots of dried fruit and nuts and candy!” I didn’t have high hopes for the candy part, but I mentioned it anyway. “There’s not enough food here! It’s not like Camp Dahlia!”

Camp Beginnings was confusing. There were things to do, but they were not planned activities. We could swim in the lake under the bored gaze of a teenaged lifeguard, but there were no rowboats or swimming lessons. We could hike, but the counselors never wanted to come with us. There were balls and jump ropes we could use, but there were no organized games. Sometimes we watched a movie or played charades, which I hated. There were no marshmallows or ghost stories. There were no guitars. When I asked my counselor what else there was to do, she asked me what I wanted to do.

“I want to draw or paint or learn to swim better.”

“I think we have coloring books,” she said. “Let’s go find them.” I told her I was too grown up for coloring books.

“So just hang out with the other girls. When I was your age, I liked to braid my best friend’s hair. Braid Andrea’s hair and then she’ll braid yours. That’s fun."

It didn’t sound like fun or like camp to me, but I didn’t know what to do or say. Counselors were grown-ups, weren’t they? I wanted to be at Camp Dahlia, where every day had a schedule, and the counselors did the activities with us. I wondered if Harriet was at Camp Dahlia this summer. Did she have a new best friend? Back in the cabin, I asked Andrea if we could braid each other’s hair, and she agreed. Andrea slept on the bunk above mine, and sometimes she cried in the night. One night I asked her what was wrong, but she didn’t answer.

 At Camp Dahlia, the boys and girls did activities together, but at Camp Beginnings they did not. I saw my brother only at meals and sometimes at a movie or charades. Girls and boys were not allowed in each other’s cabins. My days fell into a boring routine: watery oatmeal, a swim by myself, a walk with the girls in my cabin, lunch, and sitting in the cabin with the other girls all afternoon, eating candy they bought from the canteen. We braided each other’s hair and experimented with our counselor’s makeup. Our counselor usually left the cabin in the afternoon. She always said she had a counselor’s meeting. One of the girls had a transistor radio, and if we found a station playing music, we’d sing along and dance. When our counselor returned, we went to dinner, giggling when we saw boys in the distance. Sometimes I saw my brother drifting behind the other boys, his head down.

“Ricky!” I called when I saw him, but he never looked up. One time I veered toward him, but Andrea called me back, reminding me that we weren’t supposed to mingle with the boys.

“You’ll get in trouble.”

“For what? I’m just saying hello to my brother.”

“I don’t know. It’s a camp rule. The counselors would get mad.”

One evening, when we returned to the cabin, there was a package from my parents with dried apricots, nuts, and some small bags of candy. I immediately ate most of the dried apricots. They made me think of home.

“I have candy!” I whispered to Andrea. “I’ll give you some after lights out.”

“OK, good!” she said. “Let’s wait until everyone is asleep.”

Finally, when everything was quiet, I tapped the bottom of Andrea’s bunk. She put her hand over the side. I put a bag of M&Ms in her hand.

“Thank you,” she said. I heard her tear it open. I opened a bag for myself. We ate in silence.

“These taste so good. I love chocolate! Who sent the package to you, your mom or your dad?”

“They both sent it.”

“Don’t they live in separate places? Don’t you have two bedrooms and switch between two homes?”

“No, we all live in the same apartment. They’re my parents."

“You’re so stupid! Why are you here? Everyone here lives with their mom or their dad because their parents are divorced! This is a camp for divorced children! Don’t you know that? It’s not for children like you!”

She leaned over the bunk and threw M&Ms at me.

“I don’t want your stupid candy from your stupid married parents! You shouldn’t be here! They’re not divorced!”

I lay frozen on my cot while Andrea hurled M&Ms. Why were Ricky and I at a camp for divorced children? Eventually I fell asleep. In the morning, I braced myself for trouble, but Andrea ignored me. I walked behind her and the other girls to breakfast, listening to them talk. After breakfast I went swimming After lunch, while the other girls huddled around the transistor radio singing “Please Mr. Postman,” I put some candy in my pocket and went to find Ricky. I saw him on the lawn, watching some boys play kickball. I stopped, half hidden by a tree. Ricky was at the edge of the group, using a long stick to scratch the dirt.

“Hey stupid!” a boy called to him. “You wanna play kickball even though you’re so bad at it?” Ricky shook his head no. The boys resumed playing, ignoring him.

“Ricky!” I hissed. He turned. I beckoned him over. He walked slowly, dragging the stick. His face was caked with dirt, and his shirt and shorts were filthy.

“What’s wrong with your face? Aren’t you washing it? Why are your clothes so dirty? Don’t you change them?”

My brother shook his head no.

“I hate it here!” he said, starting to cry. “The boys are mean. My counselor doesn’t stop them from teasing me. I want to go home! I didn’t come tell you because we’re not supposed to talk to the girls! I want Mom and Dad!”

“Come to my cabin when everyone goes to dinner. I’ll help you wash your face. Here, take this.” I handed him the candy. He tore it open.

“Don’t forget, Ricky. Come to my cabin right before dinner.” He nodded and went back toward the boys. I went back to my cabin. The other girls were still listening to music and dancing. Our counselor wasn’t back yet. She always told us she had a counselor’s meeting in the afternoon, but one of the older girls said our counselor had a boyfriend whom she met in the woods. No one noticed that I had gone out. When our counselor returned, it was time to go to dinner. I said I had to use the bathroom and would catch up.

Ricky came, and I took him into the bathroom and washed his face with my washcloth, but the dirt was so thick he looked like a zebra when I was done—stripes of clean skin against stripes of caked, dampened dirt.

“It’s not working,” I complained. “Your face is too dirty.”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“I’m going to call Mom and Dad, and they’ll come and get us,” I decided. “I’ll take some quarters from my counselor’s drawer. There’s a phone in the main building. Go to dinner now. If anyone asks where I am, tell them I’m in the bathroom.” He nodded. After he left I ran to the main building and called my parents.

“You have to come get us,” I told my mother in a rush. I wasn’t sure if campers were allowed to make phone calls or how many minutes I had before the operator cut in.

“What’s wrong?” she said, sounding alarmed.

I spoke quickly. “It’s Ricky! He hates it here! He’s not washing his face! I don’t think he’s changing his clothes! The boys are mean to him! I tried to wash his face, but he’s not allowed in my cabin, and it didn’t work anyway because his face is so dirty, and this camp is for children with divorced parents! We shouldn’t be here! You’re married! It’s not a good camp like Camp Dahlia! It’s not the right camp for us! I don’t like it either!”

“What? I didn’t know any of that! A camp for divorced children? Oh, for heaven’s sake! Your father and I will come get you early tomorrow morning,” my mother said. She started to say something else, but the operator cut in and disconnected us. I didn’t have any more quarters, so I walked to the dining hall and took the long way to my table so I could whisper in Ricky’s ear. He was sitting at the end of his table, drawing lines in a clump of mashed potatoes with his fork. He still looked like a zebra. Nobody was talking to him.

“Mom and Dad are coming tomorrow morning,” I whispered. He turned his face toward me.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“They were dumb to send us to this stupid camp,” he said, stabbing his mashed potatoes.

I went to my seat and thought about my parents. They knew lots of things. They knew all the subway and bus routes. They knew how to cook. They helped us with our homework. They read books and magazines and newspapers. They had gone to college and graduate school. They took care of us and my grandparents. If they said they were going to do something or be somewhere, they kept their promise. They didn’t litter. They told us to be careful and to look both ways every time we crossed the street. They told us not to talk to strangers. They answered our questions. They sent us to Camp Dahlia. They knew we would have fun at Camp Dahlia because it was a good camp. Why did they send us here, to Camp Beginnings? It troubled me that I didn’t know the answer. Weren’t adults supposed to know everything? After dinner I told my counselor my head hurt, and I didn’t want to play charades. Instead, I lay on my cot, thinking. My head didn’t really hurt.

“I’m not playing those stupid charades ever again,” I told the sky. “And at home I’m eating as much as I want for breakfast. I want pancakes. And I’m not sending my children to a stupid camp like Camp Beginnings.” When my counselor and the other girls came back, I pretended to be asleep. When Andrea whispered, “Good night,” I pretended I didn’t hear her. I was leaving tomorrow, even if no one else knew that.

My parents arrived during breakfast the next morning, and Ricky and I were summoned by loudspeaker. We packed our bags, went back to the office, and got into the car. No one said good-bye. My father drove us away from camp, onto the highway. My mother kept turning around to ask if we were OK.

“Yes, just starving,” I said. We stopped at a diner, and my father washed Ricky’s face in the bathroom. Then we sat in a booth with red seats that stuck to our legs and ate pancakes like wolves. My parents ate slowly while they talked softly to each other. When I was done eating I took a deep breath and looked out the diner window, where cars were whizzing by, heading to and from the city. My mother saw me looking and said, “Ready to go home?”

“Yes!” I said. Ricky threw his arms around my mother and buried his head in her stomach.

“Yes!”

“OK, then,” my father said. “Let’s go. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be home.”

Ricky fell asleep. My mother turned the radio on to the classical music station she loved. My father drove carefully, like he always did, leaving space between our car and the car in front. That was one of the things he knew and told me—not to drive too close to the car in front. He also held the wheel in the “10 and 2” position. I felt comforted watching him and thinking of things he and my mother knew. There were questions I wanted to ask my parents, but I couldn’t find the words. My thoughts spun without end.

—Mom and Dad sent us to a bad camp. They wouldn’t do that on purpose. They must have thought it was a good camp. Why did they think it was a good camp? Did someone tell them it was a good camp? Someone must have told them it was a good camp. Maybe the owner of the camp told them. Why did they believe him? He lied. Children aren’t supposed to lie, so why can adults lie? Does he feel bad he lied? I don’t think he feels bad. Why doesn’t he feel bad?—

I looked at the back of my mother’s and father’s heads. They knew a lot of things, but they didn’t know everything. They didn’t know that Camp Beginnings wasn’t like Camp Dahlia.

“You’re grown-ups, but you don’t know everything,” I muttered. “I wanted to go to Camp Dahlia again. Harriet probably made a new best friend.” My mother turned around.

“What, honey? Did you say something?”

I crossed my arms and glared at her. My mother sighed.

“Rest now,” she said. “We’ll be home soon. Next summer, you can go to Camp Dahlia. But only if you want to go to camp at all.”

I didn’t answer. I turned my head to the window.

Now I sit next to my mother’s hospital bed, holding her hand and listening to her talk. Some of what she is saying makes sense. I tell her everyone is fine, her granddaughters are doing well in college, my husband works remotely most days, they all will visit her soon. I remind her that Ricky will visit tomorrow. I play classical music for her from my phone.

“There are twenty-six hours of music on this phone,” I tell her. She marvels that so much music can be stored on a phone. She asks me if I remember her records and the stereo.

“So many records,” she says. “So heavy to move.” I tell her I remember them. She dozes and wakes. A phone rings in the hall and awakens her.

“There’s the phone! You called from the camp! I shouldn’t have sent you and Ricky there! There’s the phone. You called me on the phone. You said we had to pick you up right away. What was the name?”

“Camp Beginnings.”

“That was a grown-up thing you did. I was so proud of you.”

I blink back tears. My mother never said she was proud of me for calling. I didn’t want to call her. I wanted to be a child at Camp Dahlia. When we got home from camp that day, my mother took our dirty clothes down to the apartment building’s laundry room. Then she and I walked to the library for books. I was still angry and wouldn’t talk to her. Later I went down to the playground, and when I came up for dinner, I wasn’t angry anymore. We ate dinner. I listened to her play my favorite music on the piano. We never talked about Camp Beginnings.

“It’s OK, Mom,” I say gently. “You didn’t send us there on purpose. You and Dad must have thought it was a good camp. It’s fine. I’m fine. Ricky’s fine. You know what’s funny? I thought that becoming an adult just happened, like walking through a door. At Camp Beginnings, I had to be an adult to call you, and I didn’t want to be an adult. I wanted to be a child. But there’s no door. There are only roads that go back and forth forever.” I look at my mother. She’s dozing again. I stop talking. I sit there, holding her hand, which is light and pale as cotton candy. How much time does she have left? After my father died, I reminded myself that my mother was alive. As I sit by her bed, I watch that door finally open. It’s not a door between childhood and adulthood. It’s a door between having a parent and being an orphan. Why did I think I’d get older and my parents would stay the same? We sit there, my mother and I, her hand in mine, while Rachmaninoff plays his Elegie on my phone. I listen to my mother breathe.