“I get to steer!” Abby yelled as she climbed in.

“Then you have to let us get in first,” Steve said.

“I can’t push the canoe in with you guys in it.”

“Okay, then we’ll do a little shuffle once you’re in.”

I got in after Carin, and then Abby stepped into the rocking canoe.  Steve tossed his sandals into the canoe and waded into the water.  Cord held it against the dock so Steve could get in without tipping us. Then he and Abby switched places so she was at the back.  Cord did a good job holding the canoe, so it only rocked a little.

As we cleared the swimming area and headed out into deeper (I think it is about ten feet deep or so) water I heard Cord yell for a buddy check.

“This is so cool,” Carin said.  The girls were good at paddling the canoe and gave us a fairly smooth ride to the middle of the lake.

“Remember the first canoe ride we took?” I asked.

Steve snickered and the girls giggled.  “We stunk,” Abby said.

It had been a small camp that year, and Steve and I each had three campers.  We took two canoes out, and Carin had begged to be able to steer.  I let her, and we ended up going in circles the majority of the time.  Steve and the boys just sat in their canoe and laughed at us.

Now, two years later, Carin and Abby had the hang of paddling the canoe, and we went pretty fast.  It only took about a minute to pass Cord’s cabin.  Steve and I sat in the middle of the canoe facing each other.  This was the luxury of being a junior high counselor.  If it were elementary camp, we’d both be paddling and keeping track of about ten things at once.  I thought about how Abby used to be so tiny and could barely row once without dropping the paddle in the lake.  Now she was almost as tall as I was.

I turned around to check out the action at the beach.  Okay, I guess it would be more honest to say I was checking out the action sitting in the lifeguard chair.  Cord still stood with his whistle in his mouth counting campers for the buddy check.  All the kids with three buddies in their group (triples) had their hands down and the doubles/partners had their hands up.  Julie looked confused as she deciphered the buddy board.  Some kid had messed up the buddy board probably.

“Hey, Kate,” Carin said.  “Is Cord your boyfriend?”  Yet more proof they weren’t our little campers anymore.

I didn’t know what to say to her.  “Kind of.”

“It’s a camp thing,” Abby said knowingly, as if she were an expert.  “Those always mean ‘kind of.’”

“If you get married at camp can I be your maid-of-honor?” Carin asked.  I didn’t know what to say to that.  I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I also didn’t want to lie to her.  Then I noticed she was laughing, so I knew it was a joke.

“Maybe we can be hoppers at the reception,” Abby said.

“That would be hilarious,” Steve said.

“What about you, Steve?” Carin asked.  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Abby’s cheeks flushed.  I’m sure she was glad I was the one facing her, and Steve had his back to her.  Abby’s had a crush on Steve since the summer we were her counselors.  She’s told me I’m her favorite counselor, but I know I’m second to Steve.  I don’t blame her.  If I were twelve and Steve was my counselor, I’d probably have a crush on him, too.  He’s good-looking and funny and a great counselor.

Steve turned around to see how far out we were and saw Abby’s pink cheeks.  “You tired, Abbers?” he asked.     “Looks like you’re working hard.  I can take it for a while if you want.”

She agreed.  Abby loved paddling the canoe, but giving up her oar was better than letting him know her pink  cheeks were due to her crush on him rather than the exercise of paddling the canoe.  He knew already though.  It was very obvious.

I snuck a peek at the beach area, and the kids were swimming again.  The buddy check problem must have gotten worked out fairly quickly.

Steve and Abby switched places in the canoe and almost tipped us over.  “Good thing we have our lifejackets,” Carin said.

“Good thing the water’s three feet deep,” Steve said.  “I don’t think we could drown if we tried.”

Once Steve started steering, we made some crazy patterns in the lake—a figure eight and a couple circles.  We went fast, too, and close to the shore.

“Don’t tip us,” I warned.

“I won’t,” he said, as he made a deep stroke towards the middle of the lake with the paddle.  We soared forward and then,  “Oops.”

“Oops?” I asked.  “Oops what?”

“Um…”  He held up his paddle.  Or rather, he held up the top half of the paddle.

My first instinct was to panic.  After all, we were stuck in the middle of the lake and had just lost one of our paddles.  Then I realized how funny it was that Steve had just busted the paddle because the water was so low that it could scrape the bottom of the lake, and I burst out laughing.  Once Abby and Carin heard me laughing and realized we’d be okay without the paddle, they laughed too.

“This is funnier than Pierre the Grasshead’s funeral,” Abby said of our favorite craft project guy which was ‘slaughtered’ by Dane two summers ago.

“Awwwww,” Steve said, pretending to be nostalgic for a grasshead.  “Pierre.”  He took off his hat in reverence for our lost craft project and looked up.  “God bless good old Pierre.”

Since we were in the middle of the lake we stopped for a while and just sat there, letting the canoe slow down.  It was a beautiful day for a canoe ride.  I was glad the girls had asked.

“Hey,” Steve said, “you guys feel that?”
“What?” Carin asked.

“God’s canoeing with us this afternoon, ya think?”

“Yeah,” Abby said.  “He gave us such a pretty day.”

“Wanna hear something funny?” Carin asked.  “Sometimes when we’re at camp and it’s perfect like it is now, I think we’re a family.  Like you guys are our parents and we’re the kids or something.”

“I gotta be married to Kate?” Steve asked, pretending it was a bad thing.  “I don’t know about that.”

“You know what I mean,” Carin said.

“Yeah, I do,” Steve said, being serious for once.  “I’m glad Dean Ron put us in the same group that year.”

“I think God put us in the same group and told Dean Ron,” Abby said.

I thought she was right.  The four of us had such a special bond.  Both Steve and I have had a dozen campers since that week, but none have held such big pieces of our hearts.  Steve and I would have done anything for those girls.

That was why it was so hard that we couldn’t do anything about Angela.  We would have if we could.  It was frustrating to be willing but not able to take Abby’s sadness away.  I would give anything to make her sister better.  I’d give up being a counselor for it.  If someone came up to me and said, “I’ll cure Angela if you never counsel again,” I’d do it with no regrets.  I knew Steve would too.

Not being a counselor is the worst thing I can think of—worse than not getting into college, worse than not having a boyfriend, worse than getting into an accident, worse than losing all your pictures and favorite things in a fire.  There are very few people I’d give it up for.  Mark, Ben, and Abby or Carin.  That’s it.

I wondered if Steve felt any deeper for Abby than I did, if it hurt him even more than it hurt me because he knew what it would be like for her to lose her sister.  I could only imagine the anguish of hearing the words, “I’m sorry.  We lost your sister.”  Steve knew.  Steve had felt it.  He had been there.  So was it worse for him, knowing how Abby would feel?  I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to upset him or make him think about Scott if he wasn’t.

I knew what it was like to worry about losing an older sibling I loved dearly, but I didn’t know what it was like to actually lose one.

I was inadequate for this counseling job.  I was glad Steve was her counselor, too.  When Scott died, Mark said God must have had a reason.  Maybe His reason was for Steve to be able to help Abby if her sister died.