SPRING SWAN SONG: Fear 6.19.13

We are masters of ourselves. Oh yes, this beach is ours!

Besides, they are not far away. They've gone just over that bridge, as a matter of fact; the one that leads to the other side of the lake where lines are cast into calmer waters. It doesn't seem far away in the sunshine. They'll come for us when they're done, they said, and we believe them. We're big girls. We've got this. Just look at how much we don't need anyone babysitting us.

It is mid-Summer. The heat is dry and intense, baking our skin to the point of pain, and so we run. Tag, you're it, and the shock of cool water is dulled almost immediately with the sweet relief it brings. For long moments, we know nothing but the sound of our laughter and the deep blue of the clear sky.

The clear sky and the blinding brightness. The holding of breath for handstands, and the eye-rubbing after exuberant splashing. It's all happening under the clear, blue sky. The children squealing, the sunblock-scented air. It's all perfect, really.

A shadow comes and goes, but we hardly notice and our games continue. We dive below the surface of the water, pretending we are synchronized swimmers in the Olympics. When we come up for air, the world has changed. The clear, blue sky has been replaced by a menacing roof of rumbling, grey-black clouds, just like that. The sun is obliterated and we find that we are shivering. What does it mean? It seems like more than could happen in one dive's time and suddenly all our grown-up feelings fall away and we are very, very small.

The beach is cleared in an instant. We watch parents hastily pack belongings, pulling their children by the hand as they run to the dry safety of their cars. There is nothing subtle or gentle about this summer storm. We don't have them like this back home. Must be a mountain thing, but this does not comfort us. We wonder when someone is going to take our hand and pull us along. We are just girls now, wanting our fathers, our mothers...anyone, please.

The rain drives down in hard, stinging spatters, and that's when we begin to cry, our vision doubly obliterated by raindrops and teardrops. We can see only well enough to discover the fear in each others eyes. Why haven't they come?

The beach is desolation now and there are few cars in the parking lot. Why haven't they come?
Lightening strikes, bringing down a tree. We run. We scream. Why haven't they come?

We are hysterical when we make our way to the kiosk by the bridge, the one that leads to the other side of the lake. It had not seemed so far away in the sunshine. We ask the man standing behind the counter if he has seen my father and his fishing companions. He shrugs. Oh! They must have come through so long ago he does not remember them! Oh!

It's been hours, we just know it. Why haven't they come?
We have to face the facts: we are alone, we will be struck by lightening soon and our campsite is all the way across the park.
A strange man asks us if we are okay. We cry harder. When one of us can speak, we explain that my father has left us behind to go back to the campsite. The strange man is very concerned. Are you sure, he asks. Yes, we nod. We are sure he has left us behind.
Do you know where your campsite is, he asks. I can drive you there.

Oh! Deliverance!
Two ten-year-old girls get into a strange man's car.
Some of the terror is immediately relieved simply by the act of sitting down somewhere dry, only to return a million-fold when the we realize, as we buckle in, that we have done the very thing we have been told not to do by every adult in our lives, ever since we can remember.
Never get into a car with a stranger. 

With quavering voices, we are able to direct him to the campground we belong to. We surprise ourselves by remembering some important names and landmarks, and soon find that we are parked right next to the family car. With thank-yous, we tumble out of his car and into the familiar station wagon. Everyone who had stayed at camp that morning was there, huddled in the car, playing a card game.

Where is Daddy, they all inquire.

We look at each other, and swallow hard.

Many hours later (and this time, it may really be hours), he returns. And when we see his face, we know that he has experienced a terror that we could never imagine. That the hardest thing in the world he has ever done was to come back to the campsite without us. We shrink until we feel like nothing, and I find myself wrapped in arms so tight around me, hot tears on my neck and I know I will never forget that he will always come for me.