Page 15 of The Staircase in the Woods

Hamish filled in the rest: “And instead, we helped him buy weed from some freak show in Glenside?”

Nick shrugged. “Whatever. I needed you guys for backup, and it was a dicey situation. It was fun! The weed was good.”

“It was cut with something,” Hamish muttered.

“Like I said, it was good. Anyway, whatever. Relax. We’re going camping, you dicks.”

“The fuck we are,” Lore said.

She expected Owen to jump in and agree. Even in college, he was a sensitive sleeper—needed the room dark, a noise machine, all that crap. But instead he said, “Hey, guys, if Nick said we’re camping…”

Coward,she thought.

“We didn’t sign up for this,” Lore said.

Nick rolled his eyes. “Listen to you. You show up here not ready for an adventure? Come on. We used to camp all the time. It was ourthing.”

“Not because welikedcamping!” Lore said, protesting. “We camped because we needed a place to go and drink beer, smoke up, and trip balls, and we had no money but we all had camping gear and, and—”And you remember what happened the last time we went camping,she wanted to say, but she undertook the considerable effort necessary to hold her tongue and choke those words back down into her roiling belly. “We’re adults now. We don’t have to camp. Owen. Jesus. Come on. Back me up.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t hate a hotel,” Owen said, shrugging.

Hamish erupted.

“You fucking assholes, Nick has cancer!”

And then, quiet.

No cars on the road, no wind, no birds, nothing but the distant roar of a plane somewhere. The air was still and filled with the tragedy of reality.

“I mean, fuck,” Hamish said, now more quiet. “Nick asked us here, and we’re here. It’s not going to kill us to hang out with him on his terms. Besides, he’s right. We used to camp out all the time. It could be pretty great.”

Now, Nick looked a littlereduced. Like something had been taken out of him. Again, the image of the older fox, scratched and scraped and scarred. Humbled by the hardships of simply existing, and surely weighed down by—

Don’t even think about it.

Don’t think about that day.

Don’t put his name in your mind.

(Matty.)

Nick shrugged, said, “Don’t do it for pity.” He smirked. “You can do it for the guilt, though. Listen. I set up a campsite. Nice tents. Little grill. There’s food. It’s not a far walk. Oh, hey, I got beer—good beer, too, not like the piss-in-a-can we used to drink, not Natty Light or, fuck, what else did we used to drink—”

“Coors Light, Keystone, Yuengling if we had money,” Hamish said.

“Worst was Hamm’s,” Owen said. “I hated that stuff. PBR—”

“Fuck that, Istilldrink PBR,” Nick said.

“I don’t know what you all are talking about,” Lore said. “I didn’t drink any of that swill. It was all Boone’s Farm for me. Kiwi Strawberry. Makes for the tastiest hangover chunks to blow the next morning, if I may say.” She did a chef’s kiss gesture.

At that, they laughed, and then laughed even harder when Nick said, “Don’t worry, I remember, and that’s why I fuckin’ bought a bottle for you.”

“You did not!”

“I did. I swear to Christ, they still make that shit.”

And Lore laughed, and they all were suddenly having a good time, but through it came the cutting realization that she would be spending a night in the woods, and the last time that happened, they lost a friend, and she did not want to be reminded of that, not now, certainly not all night long. But she, as noted, was a master of compartmentalization. She would go through that door and slam it shut behind her, letting no ghosts—

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