At first I don’t recognize the girl with very short hair. But when I see her grin at the driver, I know. It is the same face I saw a few nights ago, hair soaking wet, face bright under fluorescent light, grinning that grin at a perfect naked girl who was returning a bar of soap. Now that girl is headed home. Home to Butner. Desperately, I study her face, hoping to see something I didn’t see before. I search for signs of mental retardation, autism, anything to make her different from me. But the only difference I see is the institutional haircut.

I watch her get good-bye hugs and speak to the driver, one careful syllable at a time. She takes his strong arm and steps up to the front seat and plops down. The driver closes the door. The aide collapses her chair and flings it in back with Dolly, then climbs in. The driver cranks the engine of the bus from Butner.

I would have gone to Butner, too, if my parents had listened to that doctor. Is that how it happens? I look through the bus windows at the people inside. How old were they when it happened? Will they be there when they’re old? Will they die there? I watch the bus leave, and I want to scream.

But I don’t scream. Screaming would do no good. Instead, I look at Sara. The bus from Butner doesn’t seem to bother her. I guess she’s seen it every year since she was a young child; maybe she’s used to it. Or maybe Butner is one thing she can’t talk about, can’t explain, has no answer for. Maybe the whole crippled world lives with its fear of Butner, and places like Butner, by pretending not to notice.

Finally I manage to speak. “Hey, next year, write on your doc-tor’s or-ders that you have to be in my ca-bin again.” My voice sounds almost natural.

“Well, I would, but—I’m not coming back.”

My body registers a jolt of surprise. “What?”

“I’m not coming back.” She carefully folds the newspaper. “You got me thinking, when you asked why I keep coming if I don’t like the activities. I gave you an answer, but it wasn’t really true. There is no good reason.

“The truth is, when I came this time, I harbored a little impossible dream of my own. I—well, I thought I’d change things. I’d organize the campers and make this camp our own. I figured it wouldn’t happen this year, but I could, sort of, plant the seed. But I realized it simply won’t happen. Not ever. This is their place, not ours. Certainly not mine.

“So of course I came up with Plan B. If I couldn’t fix it, I thought, well, I’ll be like Samson—”

My surprise makes me snort.