Robyn Carr - What We Find

“You can let go of that pretty soon. Aside from being a little ornery and sick of salmon and chicken, he’s doing great.”

“I know. But I don’t know if I want to go back to that grind. Check with me after I’ve actually had some time to think. But one thing I’m not crazy about is being a caretaker the rest of my life.”

“Maybe another residency? A different specialty?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Right now I just want to escape. Have you ever felt like that?”

He chuckled. “I’ve been in your campground for five weeks. Through rain and mud and heart attacks. What do you think?”

“You’re traumatized by the aftershock of screwing a princess?”

“It takes a lot more than that to traumatize me,” he said. He put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay to take a break, Maggie. I’m not sure it’s good for you to obsess about Sully, though. It might be misplaced anxiety. Really, he’s going to be fine.”

“You didn’t see what I saw,” she said.

“No one saw what you saw, honey,” he said very sweetly. “I was right there when they loaded him into the ambulance. You saw your father slipping away. Everyone else saw a cardiac episode. I think you’re a little terrified.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Guilty. I’m not very close to my mother and I have no siblings. And it was Sully. Maybe it’s because I always felt deprived of him when I was growing up—my mother and stepfather lived in Chicago and it wasn’t easy to see Sully. Or it could be that he’s as special as I think he is. You don’t know him that well yet. He’s one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever known. If you were going to be around here longer, like through summer, you’d see...”

“Tell me,” he said.

“Oh hell, where to start. I’ve seen him break up fights, rescue drowning kids and dogs! You didn’t think a dog could drown, did you? He was tangled in fishing line. He’s given refuge to the lost, tracked and killed a bad cat, a mountain lion who attacked a hiker. That almost never happens and Sully got in so much trouble! Took him forever to work through that. But maybe the most important thing he does—he creates relationships with people. Unforgettable relationships. They write him, send him pictures, mention him in their writing, their blogs, long after they’ve gone. They hang out at the store and he listens to their tales from the trails. He gives them tips, does little favors, lets them charge up their phones and stuff so they can make contact with friends and family. He tells jokes, encourages people, praises them, and most of that without anyone knowing that’s what he’s doing. He lets kids’ organizations come out and camp for free—he’s partial to the autistic kids. Sully relates to a lot of them and I have no idea why. He doesn’t know why, either. He plows in winter—he clears our road and then he goes out to the neighbors who are snowed in and clears theirs. He’s the third generation—his grandfather built the store and Sully didn’t get a son to run it. All he’s got is me. What’s going to happen to this place when Sully can’t run it anymore? Will the next owner carry on that legacy? You have no idea how much Sully is loved. Needed.”

It was still and quiet for a moment. The sound of night birds and crickets and the occasional splash of a fish was all she heard.

He tightened his arm slightly, pulling her a bit closer. “What a lucky man,” he said softly.

“I never looked at it that way, as Sully being the lucky one. I always thought it was the rest of us who were lucky.”

“It’s the rest of you, too. One of the things I think about a lot when I’m alone is what makes a life well spent? It sounds like you described one.”

“Yeah, Sully is very happy. I’d say he’s good at making relationships with everyone. Well, except maybe me. He never tried very hard to make a relationship with me.”

“You? I thought you two were very close.”

“We are, I guess. Except my mother took me away from him. And of course he never came after me. He said I was better off.” She shrugged. “I guess I should get over it by now. Huh?”

He gave her shoulders another squeeze. “Some things stay with us a long time,” he said. “No one knows that better than me, the boy raised on the road by Jed ‘Looney Tunes’ Jones.”

* * *

Maggie had a new friend. The days around the store and grounds were busy but in the evenings, when things were quiet, she wandered down to the lakefront or over to Cal’s campsite. One night she invited him to meet her on her front porch at the house. They talked about their lives, even though she wasn’t sure how much of his was true.

“Did I mention I’m being sued?” she said.

“No. No wonder you don’t want to go back to work!”

“Oh, I’ve been sued before. It might settle or just go away but if it doesn’t it could drag on. There was no malpractice. We did everything humanly possible. It really took its toll on me—it was a hard one. A terrible accident involving teenagers. We all did what we could, but were so helpless. I’ve lost patients before—in my business it happens too often. It was awful.”

“I’m so sorry. Are you worried about the lawsuit?” he asked.

“I worry about everything,” she admitted. “But when I’m in the moment, in surgery, I’m not worrying, I’m performing and thinking hard. Before and after, I worry too much.”

* * *

On the weekend, the park began to fill up with campers. The weather was outstanding—sunny and warm spring weather. Tom and his oldest son, Jackson, came to the property to help Maggie finish putting in the garden. She had several flats of flowers and vegetable starters. Cal dug in and helped while Beau did his job chasing the rabbits into the woods, and Sully watched over everyone, giving plenty of advice.

“Like I’ve never put in a garden before,” Tom said.

“What haven’t you done, Tom?” Maggie asked.

“Never did surgery,” he said. “Yet.”

Tom Canaday was a big, happy guy whose wife divorced him years ago. At first she wanted to take the girls, Nikki and Brenda, to her new home in Aurora, but that didn’t last long. The girls were miserable away from the home and school they knew and Tom convinced his ex-wife to give them back to him, that he was in a better position to take care of them and see they were doing well in school. Nikki was now seventeen and Brenda, fourteen. His ex visited from time to time and, as far as Maggie knew from the gossip, they were amicable and got along better divorced than they had as a married couple.

Tom had indeed had a million jobs and on top of that was a volunteer on the search-and-rescue team.

The campground welcomed a lot of what Maggie referred to as weekend warriors. They began to pull in on Thursday and Friday afternoons. A few planned to stay a few days but most would pack up on Sunday night. During school breaks, whole families or large groups of young people would stay through two weekends. And school breaks came at various times all over the country.

“We’re going to do some hiring for the spring and summer. Interested, Jackson?” Maggie asked.

“Doing what?” he asked.

“Everything,” she said. “From spring till August this place will be busy. I’m still trying to hold Sully down. Do you have any time?”

“I can take on a little work,” Jackson said, smiling handsomely. “This is not a bad place to be in summer. Girls everywhere.”

“Thanks, Maggie. As if college isn’t hard enough on my nerves,” Tom said, staking the tomato plants.

“I have an idea. Why don’t you ask Nikki if she wants a summer job, too. Maybe they can spy on each other and tattle?”

“Oh, much better, Maggie,” Tom said, one knee in the dirt. He looked up at her and shook his head. “You’re just looking for ways to make my life easier, aren’t you? Now I have to worry about two of them. Schoolwork is a priority.”