Chapter 24: Tent Number Three

In July, the lake at Northern Pines was so blue it hurt to look at.

I stood at the registration desk in shorts and a sunburn, holding a pen.

Beside me, Freja held a clipboard, and Eli, who was six now, hung off the counter by his elbows.

"Name?" the receptionist asked.

It was the same one.

Her smile held for one second too long, and then she laughed out loud.

"Oh, my goodness," she said. "Mr. Niskanen."

"Hi."

"You're not in Ridge Camp this time."

"No, ma'am. We'd like Tent Three. The whole family."

"Mr. and Mrs. Niskanen and son," she said, writing it, and Freja grinned at the ceiling.

We had married in May, in my mother's backyard, with nine farmers, a retired physics teacher and a dinosaur ring bearer.

Freja had kept her name for the clinic and taken mine for everything else.

"Here's the key," the receptionist said.

She handed it across, and she said the thing she had said to another man once, a long time ago.

"Tent Three. Same as every year."

I took it.

"Not yet," I said. "This is our first."

"Then it's a very good start."

The Lake Camp looked different in summer.

The tents were green and gold under the pines, and kids ran barefoot along the shore.

Tent Three sat at the edge of the clearing with its flap tied open and a wooden number nailed beside the door.

I stood in front of it for a long time.

"Dad?" Eli tugged my hand. "Why are you being weird?"

"I'm not being weird."

"You're being a statue."

Freja put a hand on my back.

"It's only a tent," she said.

"I know."

"It's ours now."

"I know."

I ducked inside, and the canvas smelled of sun and cedar.

On the floor lay three sleeping bags, one very small, with dinosaurs.

Eli dove onto it and rolled around.

"Is this where you saw the bad thing?" he asked from the floor.

I knelt by him.

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