CAMP NESAWATAMACK
The coffee tastes like shit. Ariel adds a touch more cream until the cup’s elixir is a light beige with streaks of white; almost more white than brown. But still bitter. The waitress brings out the pancakes that she ordered out of obligation, but Ariel isn’t much hungry. She moves the pancakes around on her plate, and puts a thin layer of high-fructose maple-flavored syrup on them, but she doesn’t eat.
The diner was the agreed-upon locale. Ariel keeps laser-focused on the front door to the diner. She studies the comings and goings of the rest of the patrons. She is wondering if she will recognize her daughter when she sees her again.
It hasn’t been long, probably 3 weeks at most. But Ariel feels as if it has been 3 years. She never contemplated after almost 9 hours of labor that she would ever be separated from her daughter for more than a night or two. The past month slipped away like molasses down a snail’s shell.
Ariel recognizes the red Honda CR-V that pulls into the parking lot. The spot in the back bumper where the driver had accidentally hit a signpost after one too many brunch mimosas. Her daughter pops out, awkward limbs still trying to find their footing in the world. She bounds across the parking lot with endless energy. Her kinetic ferocity infectious at the sight of a wide smile plastered across her face. When her daughter sees Ariel, her mouth widens somehow even more. It looks as if her entire face might break, but Ariel knows it won’t. She has too much joy in her.
HOW WAS CAMP? Ariels asks.
GREAT. I FOUND THIS TURTLE AT THE SIDE OF THE LAKE. I NAMED HIM BORIS, YOU KNOW, AFTER SPASKY, AND WE HAD A LOT OF ADVENTURES TOGETHER AND SOLVED CRIME AND WENT TO WAR AND DISCOVERED NEW PLANETS AND—
ARE YOU HUNGRY?
STARVING!
Ariel slides over the plate of now mushy discs of carbohydrates with sticky pools of fructose weighing them down. Ariel’s daughter inhales and the pancakes disappear.
Fred Aiken Writing 