Summer Camp Debate

Liam sits at the kitchen table, absently stirring his cereal. He can hear them in the other room, voices hushed but sharp-edged, the way people whisper when they don’t want to be heard but want their words to cut all the same.

“It’s just a summer,” Dad says. “It’s not like we’re sending him away forever.”

“He’s eleven, John.” Mom’s voice is thinner, pulled tight. “Eleven. He doesn’t need to be ‘sent away’ at all.”

“We can still take a trip later in the year,” Dad says. “He needs… I mean, you’ve seen how he is. He doesn’t like any of the stuff boys his age should like. And now—” A pause, a breath. “Now he’s calling that Mitchell boy his ‘best friend in the world.’”

Mom exhales, slow and controlled. “So what? I thought you wanted him to have friends.”

Dad’s voice lowers further, but Liam can still hear it. “I want him to have the right ones.”

The way he says it drops Liam’s stomach, like missing a step on the stairs. He presses his spoon into the slush of his cereal, staring at it.

“I’m not punishing him for being different,” Mom says, her voice growing sharper.

“Nipped in the bud,” Dad says. “Before it gets any worse.”

Mom’s silence is thick. Then, a quieter voice: “We promised him Disneyland.”

Dad sighs, heavy and impatient. “There’s still time to change his path, Carol.”

Mom’s voice is softened steel. “You’re not changing anything about him.”

The house stays silent for a long moment after that. Liam doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe too loudly. His cereal has turned into a soggy mess.