Watch It Burn by Kristen Bird

Author:Kristen Bird [Bird, Kristen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-21T14:24:40+00:00

BEVERLY

ONE WEEK POSTMORTEM

THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE

George changed after the flood. I’m more certain of that fact than I am of anything else. But I suppose I should go ahead and admit the truth: so did I.

It was 1996. The night before the flash flood had been a perfect hill country summer evening, which is tough to come by at the end of August. We were in our fourth session of campers, ages six to fourteen.

Every Thursday was a sort of celebration because it was the last night that the kids would be together that summer. It had only been a week, but even the littlest ones could sense the impact of the friendships they’d made, of the confidence they’d built out on the ropes course, of the appreciation of nature that had crept into their souls as they hiked hills and swam laps and rode horses.

As the camp mother, I taught art classes in the day and oversaw evening activities until lights out. I asked the chef to prepare a favorite for dinner—enchiladas verde with Mexican rice and refried beans. Even the kiddos who traveled from different parts of the country and had never eaten Tex-Mex raved about that particular meal.

After dinner the campers had an hour to run around the grounds before making the short hike to our campfire spot and gathering for one last story. By 1996 several of our kids were on financial aid, which was intentional on George’s part. Each summer he would write articles and essays about what he observed and send off his findings not only to academic journals but also in his annual letter to philanthropists, who often reupped their donation for the following year.

George’s findings came from every moment of the camp experience. During the morning wake-up call, he watched to see which students were at breakfast first. During the afternoon on the ropes course, he observed how the children selected their team leader. At night he took notes as children received—or didn’t receive—a letter from home. I told him that withholding those letters seemed cruel, but he brushed aside my concern in the name of science.

On the last night of camp, I always selected a heartwarming story for our time around the campfire. Sometimes it was the one about the children lost in the woods who, through fortitude and teamwork, found their way back home. Occasionally, I’d go a different direction and detail the legend of the firefly, how they’d been gifted their light by God in order to shine the way to safety for the lost. That one was a bit religious for our camp, where we certainly taught Christian values—our family personally attended Sacred Heart every Sunday—but never explicitly proselytized our faith. George said we had to preserve our “nonsectarian” status to keep some of our donors happy.

That night, as the children sat around the crackling flames, George surprised me by asking if he could tell the story. I gave over one of my favorite events of the

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