“A blister on my toe,” Liz said.

“Missed my parents like hell this morning,” Billy said.

Lee leaned forward. “That thing happened to me again. I got scared in my throat and stomach.”

I wondered why he would say it now, so clearly, when he hadn’t said it then. I wanted to be someone he trusted.

“That was mine, too,” I said. “Seeing you feel that way.”

He gave me a smile. When I was his age, I had my grandparents. I had my mother. It wasn’t until later that all of it changed. Lee, I thought, as the freshly bathed children filed in, as Emma and Hunter and Jackson took the far end of the table, as he chewed small bites of bread, swallowed his careful spoonfuls of soup. I’ll do whatever I need to earn your trust.

And once the four loaves were eaten along with all the butter, once everyone’s bowls were empty, and the preschoolers had practiced the songs they’d been learning, and we’d moved into the living room for a round of charades, Julia stood and said, “It’s warm tonight. Anyone up for a moon romp?”

“Yes!” the children all yelled, and out they went with their lanterns into the night while the high schoolers settled on the back porch, two of them with guitars, and Billy and Liz and I cleaned up in the kitchen.

___

“Lee’s gone through a lot,” Billy said to me, later. “He gets panic attacks. He knows how to work through them. Just give him some time and he’ll be okay.”

We were walking back to our cabins, the three of us, each of us holding a lantern.

“Do you know what happened to Lee’s parents?” I asked.

Liz said, “His dad’s in jail. Probably forever. His mom OD’d a little over a year ago and died. He doesn’t like talking about it, but he ended up telling Samantha the whole story.”

“Samantha?”

“The intern who was here before you.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.”

Billy shook his head. “Poor Lee.” I nodded and thought of his broken finger, his moment of fear. “Night, Mila,” Billy said.

“Good night,” I said.

And then he opened his door and Liz followed him in. I remembered the laughter from the night before. I wondered if they were together or if they were only friends. It didn’t matter. Either way I was not one of them, despite the kind things they had said.

I continued a few paces toward my cabin but soon stopped again. A glow appeared in the distance, beyond the house. The dancing ghost, I thought. But as it came closer I saw it wasn’t one ghost, but several.

They assembled in the center of the field. They clasped hands, formed a circle. One of them darted into its center and then back out again. They broke into a line.