Wish You Were Here

2

My mom dropped a giant pile of mail onto the kitchen counter as she walked in from the garage. Her purse was next; it testing the strength of one of our kitchen chairs under its heavy weight. I was always both baffled and amazed at how much my mom's purse weighed. She would ask my dad to carry in heavy boxes or large packages, but could somehow toss her purse over her shoulder like it was nothing. For the first few years of my life, I'm pretty sure it weighed more than I did.

She dumped her keys into a small glass bowl near the phone that also rested on the counter and began flipping through the mail, casually tossing out random pieces into the recycling bin.

"Hey, Ryleigh!" she called loudly.

"I'm right here, mom," I said from behind her.

She jumped, startled, and then laughed.
"Oh, sorry, hon." She smiled and waved a piece of paper in the air. "Here, you might like this."

I took the paper from her hand as she continued going through the rest of the stack. I glanced at it quickly. It was a flyer for a summer camp that I hadn't heard of before.

"Camp Firestone?" I asked aloud.

My mom glanced up. "You've heard of it?"

I shook my head. "No. I think it's new."

I had done my fair share of online research of summer camps every year around the same time. I always went to a different camp each summer, and thought I knew of all of them. I hadn't recalled hearing about this new one.
The flyer didn't give much information. I folded it and shoved it in my pocket.

"The rain finally stopped," I said casually.

"Don't I know it!" my mom replied with a sigh. "I was getting a little nervous though. Some of the roads were slightly flooded and that was this morning!"

We lived in a suburb outside of Houston, Texas. The weather was the same every year, yet for some reason my mom always seemed utterly surprised by the amount of rain we got. I just laughed and shook my head.

"I brought the plants inside," I told her as I walked to the kitchen window and peered outside. "You think I can put them back out?"

"Yeah, it looks like the sun is coming out. Thanks, hon." She smiled.

My mom and I have always been close, but had grown even closer recently. I don't mean this to sound mean, but I think the reason for my mom and I becoming closer was due to my sister being gone.

My sister, Rachel, was away at college and wouldn't be coming home that summer. She had secured a job as an intern at a law firm and sounded ecstatic. Her dream was to become a lawyer and live in a high rise building in the heart of NYC. As much as I looked up to my older sister, we were total opposites. She liked being indoors, reading or on her laptop. I hated being confined to four walls. Put me in the open air with mountains to hike or a lake to swim in, and that was my paradise.