Dad left when I was seven years old.
Mom thinks I was too young to remember Dad living with us, that I am holding on to moments I heard about but don’t really know for myself. But I am seventeen years old now and I know what I know. Mom is much further from seven, so maybe she doesn’t understand that at seventeen years old a person can still remember being seven, because it wasn’t that long ago.
Seven was watching Saturday-morning cartoons and practicing counting by twos, fives, tens. I remember. Seven was fishing trips with Dad and Grandpa, and being crowned honorary fisherwoman because once I caught more than they did. Seven was family camping trips and looking up at the night sky with Dad, pointing to the stars that looked like polka dots decorating the sky. Mom mostly stayed in the RV, and one time—the time when a snake crawled into Mom’s bag—she made Dad end the trip early and we checked into a hotel.
Seven was Dad and Mom arguing more than laughing. Seven was staying at Grandma’s on weekends “so your parents can have some time together,” Grandma would say. At Grandma’s house there was no arguing or slamming doors. Only puzzle pieces spread across the dining room table, homemade everything, and Grandma’s gospel music filling the house.
Seven was Dad leaving Mom. Leaving me.
And now, seventeen is spending my spring break working at Oak Creek Campgrounds as a teen counselor for sixth-grade students, because I have to work, have to help out at home, because Mom can’t take care of the bills alone.
Seventeen is knowing what to pack for trips like this because I’ve done this before at fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen: allergy pills, bug spray, raincoat, Keens for the walking trails, and my silk scarf so that I can tie my hair up at night. I braided my hair before I left so that if it rains, my hair won’t stand on top of my head, making me look like I got electrocuted.
When I was in middle school, I was a camper at the Brown Girls Hike summit. That’s one of the requirements for becoming a counselor. The annual camp is for Black girls living in the Portland metro area. Mrs. Thompson started the camp because she felt Black teens in Portland needed to learn about and appreciate the nature all around us. Every year she tells us, “Our people worked in the fields, we come from farmers and folks who knew how to get what they needed from the earth. We’ve got to get back to some basics. We’ve got to reclaim our spaces.”
This is my last year working for the camp before leaving for college, so I want to make it the best one ever. But as soon as the bus full of sixth-grade girls pulls into the parking lot, I start having doubts that any good will come of this week. Out of all the girls on the bus, there’s one I recognize. She is sitting at the front, all by herself. She is a big girl with enough hair to give some away and still have plenty. As soon as I see her, my heart vibrates and my mind replays ages seven and eight and nine and ten, and eleven and twelve and all the years without my dad, because the girl on the bus sitting on a seat by herself is my dad’s daughter.
Brooke.