March 22nd 2023

Chapter 81
We Shine At Sunset

Everyone had their favorite thing about the Sullivan Stables camp. It never took away from everything else they did, but that one thing would be theirs, and for Lucas it was the camping trip at the end of the summer. He had always loved camping growing up, with his family, then with his friends… Nowadays, he had started getting to go with Maya and the girls, and it was just what he had always wanted it to be. The campers' camping trip was its own thing.

He'd get to get to know them over the days and weeks they'd be among them, especially those who returned from year to year, but not nearly in the same way as when they'd all be at the camping site, around the fire… There were so many more of them now, each year, that it would get very crowded, and they couldn't all be as close to the fire at the same time as they might have wanted to be, but they made it work. If they got to telling stories, or singing songs, it would get even better, and it usually did.

This year, exceptionally, they were heading to the camping site in late July. It hadn't been decided yet whether they would go there for a second time, nearer to their usual time, but seeing as it was their tradition… and he liked it so much… There was a reasonable chance. Until then, there was this trip, and the reason they were going now was so that Mila and Misha Makovetsky got to go. They were heading home in just a couple of days, and they had heard so much about the camping trip from the returning campers that they'd looked disappointed about not getting to go with them. Lucas still had the urge to chuckle when he recalled how everyone had rallied to come and convince him to move the trip up, as though they had to work that hard to get him to say yes. The moment they'd said 'they want to go,' he was ready to book the bus.

Just as amusing to him had been the very predictable envy that Marianne felt when she heard that her father was going camping, and she wasn't. Maya had been the one to swoop in with the fix here. She suggested that, while he was gone with his campers, Marianne could have her own version of it with her friends. It would be behind their house, but there was the lake nearby, and the campfire, too, not too far from the house, which she'd gladly assist them with. She didn't need to go any further and Marianne was already hurrying to the phone. She'd almost gone right to dig out the camping gear, right then and there, but they'd convinced her to wait.

It wouldn't be the first time she went camping with Winnie, Lily, Harper, and June. It was a first with Mosi, but he would do alright, probably better than alright. As he'd grown up in the time since they'd known of him, he'd always been a kid fascinated with nature. That love was a bit harder to put into practice at first, like he could only stomach certain things when they were on a screen or in a book, in a museum, and less so when he could touch them, or they could touch him. He'd gotten a lot better about that by now, so a night out in a tent, especially right outside his friend's house, would be a breeze.

Already to no surprise, a couple of weeks into his summer with his aunt and uncle, Haru Matsuoka would be in attendance as well. It had been so important to Marianne for the boy to have a group of friends around him when he was at camp, especially as he was not in his hometown where he could probably expect to have other kids there that he knew. Sure, he had family at the end of the day, had his aunt and uncle, and his cousin Max, but he was a kid, and they were grown, his cousin starting high school in September, so it wouldn't be the same thing. Plus, they were making fast friends, so even before that first week of camp had ended, she was being invited out to the Farrell house as he was being received at the Friar house.

"Hey, I'm heading out now," Lucas called up the stairs, unsure whether he'd be heard when he could hear very little aside from the running feet of children overhead. They must have had sharper ears than he gave them credit for though, because in no time the rumble was redirected toward the stairs, and down came Marianne and Haru, closely followed by Remy, Lucy, Mackenzie, Kacey, and Aubrey. The girls were quick to come and get their hugs in before he left, while their visitor hung back and waited until he was about to head toward the door before holding up his hand with a smile and a 'Bye, Mister.'

They'd had a regular morning at the ranch, after which everyone had been sent off to get their things packed for camping and to go check in with their horses if they had them there, while Lucas had gone home to have lunch and time with the family. Now he was returning to drive through the arch, park his car, grab his things, and get everyone to board the bus that would take them to the camping site.

He had a good idea that, because this was all for the benefit of the Makovetsky siblings, the campers had gone and decided to make this the most camping trip-y camping trip they'd ever had, which started with loud singing all through the bus ride to the site. They navigated through anything from classic bus songs to really out of left field choices, which only made it that much funnier. When they arrived and unloaded the bus, they set off to find their spot, the campers still singing, and Lucas didn't know if anyone else camping out there that day was amused or annoyed by it, but he absolutely loved it. It reminded him of his days as a summer camp counselor, when his groups had been made up of much smaller but no less enthusiastic kids.

He would usually make it one of the very few rules for these trips that, upon arrival, they would get the site set up, get the tents assembled and whatnot, before they went and did anything else, which was usually 'go jump in the lake' after the bus ride. He'd been willing to waive it for once, to go ahead and do the setting up for everyone, so they could go and have fun, the departing exchange campers especially, but as soon as they arrived, the campers got to work without prompt. They got it all done in record time, and they got changed just as quickly, all the better to make that mad run for the water.

With the setup all taken care of already, Lucas decided to go ahead and make sure that everything was ready for dinner. It'd be getting close to that time once everyone got back from the lake, dried up, changed… So, that all worked out for the best in the end.

"Alright, everyone grab a plate. Anyone wants to serve?" he called out as the kids started coming back from their tents again, hair in the process of drying, clothes thrown on over their swimsuits after getting as much of the water out as they could…

"I'll do it," Misha volunteered, only to have all the boys who'd been sharing his room back at the ranch insisting that they do it for him. His tenure as their counselor may have been short compared to the others', but they had all gotten along so well that they were sad to see him go. In the end, it was a boy named Devon who saw to the serving, taking up his place as Misha's replacement once he'd be gone.

The brother and sister really were the guests of honor for this trip, and it was felt right here, as they shared their meal, all the campers together. While they ate, everyone ended up talking about what they missed most from home and what they most looked forward to getting back to once they returned, knowing that the two of them would have been away from their home and their families for about a year now. When the two XCs took their turn, they were given as much space to talk and share as they wanted to, and that right there was one of the things that made Lucas love the camping trips the most. Whoever these kids were when they were back home, it might not have been exactly who they were here, but who they were here felt really close to their hearts, and when they'd be here, camping, he didn't know that they would have ever been much more open and honest than this.

Misha told them that the thing he had missed most was his cat, which made the others laugh as they sympathized with him. He had this old cat named Maple, who had originally been the neighbor's cat, when he and his family had moved to Virginia, three years ago now. Maple would always sneak out of his house and end up hiding behind the shed in their yard. Misha had first found him there the second day after they'd moved in, and for several weeks afterward, he'd gone out and found him there again. At first, he'd tried to get him back to his house, but he wouldn't go. After a while, he'd started bringing him food, and that he'd been receptive to. It wasn't that his owner mistreated him, or couldn't take care of him, no. Instead, it was that Maple had first belonged to a family living in the Makovetsky house. When they'd gone away, they had been unable to take him with them, so the neighbor had offered to take him. Now, with the way that the cat had bonded to Misha, it had only been too natural for him to become his cat, and so he had been.

Mila looked forward to returning home, she did. The sixteen-year-old had struggled at first, adjusting to the move from France to the US at the age of thirteen, but in time she had found her footing, in great part thanks to the circle of friends she had developed, all ballroom dancers like she and her brother were. She may have been in a whole new place, but she'd found people who shared one of her two great loves – horses being the other – and they had made the new and unfamiliar feel a whole lot friendlier, not scary at all. She was eager to return to them, to maybe get back into competing, her and Misha together or with another partner, who was to say? The way she talked about it, she didn't sound too keen on finding one of those, much more comfortable with just keeping on with Misha, as she'd always done. If anyone wondered why, they didn't ask her, but then maybe they didn't have to. Maybe they only had to catch on to the way she and Kimiko Matsuoka sat, next to one another, arms looped together and giving off an edge of distress, the kind that came with an imminent separation they couldn't bear.

Well, they weren't separated yet. They had the whole night and morning ahead of them, and it was going to be as the campers had set out for it all to be: it was going to be one great camping trip, complete with campfire spooks, and marshmallows, whispers in the dark, and sunrises and birdsong… Everything that came after that was back in the real world, and they were nowhere near it.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners