Anne Hutchison.

It was my first experience at camp, which was somehow unusual for a thirteen year old. I packed my old worn out army canvas bag with a copy of the Catcher in the Rye, some swimming gear, and the usual paraphenelia associated with a two week vacation at a summer crew camp. My father dropped me at the train station by St. Louis avenue. He was kind enough to wave me goodbye as the train left towards the Empire state. Once the train stopped in Ithaca, two counsellors were waiting for about 6 or 7 of us and drove us to the Cornell Campus, in remote camp like facilities right by Cayuga Lake.

Among the vast offering my parents unfolded in front of me back  that March, I picked the rowing camp as I did fairly good in some trials in Montreal back when I was in the boy scouts. Crew was never really part of the culture back home, making it easy to be the bigger fish in the pond. We settled in our residences. After the meet and greet and the usual safety instructions, we retreated in our dorms for the night.

I was not surprised to be the only kid from my home province, let alone my hometown of Quebec City. I did not notice the presence of a camp counsellor we did not meet the night prior. Her name was Anne. It was obvious she had a french accent. She spoke english in a simple but effortless way, managing graciously with the gaps in her vocabulary.

Like all the other instructors we met that day,  I found out she was on a scolarship at Cornell and joined the rowing team. The most dedicated (and desperate) of them were offered every  year a job at the camp working with kids like us. The counsellors had the same kind of authority over us as the coaches who only attended the actual rowing part of camp. Twice a day we'd get on the lake with our own respective teams.

Anne was working with the two girl teams, each composed of girls ranging from 13 to 18. There were much more boys, which allowed us to train and compete against kids our age. Our days were intersperced with a lot of time allotted for ourselves around the lake. Anne happened to share a schedule similar to mine and she rapidly introduced herself, as she somehow picked up I was from her neck of the  northern woods. She was 19 and was studying med at Cornell. Both her older brothers were into rowing and she naturally made the women's team on her first year. Turns out she was also from Quebec City.

Our families were actually well aquainted together as we quickly found out. Anne and I formed an island. Both speaking what might as well have been Italian to the others, who by then were calling us "Canada". Maybe she needed to find a little bit of home though our conversations. She was a sophomore and did not cross the border since the holidays.

Anne told me about her mother, who married an old pro golfer who was friends with my father. I knew her. Since then, she passed away of cancer. She was a  kind woman, who could read the lines on the palm of your hand. Sometimes she was scared of what she'd find out. I remember feeling unusually sad when she passed away. Anne somehow reminded me of her in some ways. They both had a strong upper brow and piercing grey eyes. I remember going to their house when I was a kid. Even back in the 80's, the whole place was sort of streamlined and gave this Apple Store vibe.

The rowing coaches were merciless. Twice a day, for two hours straight, we'd slice through Cayuga Lake's shallow waters. The first session was at 6:30 am. Kids who were late were thrown into the lake by their peers. I loved getting to the lake early and watch the fog dance above the lake. By the time the sun was fully up, it was already dissipated. I always wished it rised as high as possible, but it irreversibly stagnated above the lake only to die with the heat of the sun peeking through the mountains. The morning sessions were all about drills. On rainy mornings, we'd waste away on indoor rowing tanks. The actual racing only happened in the afternoon.  Blue team did fairly well at first but we were soon outpaced by Yellow and Red squads. I was usually one to want to compete, especially in team sports. This became frustrating and really tiring.

After four days of these pseudo impromptu meetings Anne and I had, I got to give the shitty details on my parent's divorce, which she heard about through her respective family. She learned of my first year in high school, the friends and even the Chase. Med school was killing her but there was no way she'd give up rowing for it. What I found in Anne was more than a french speaking sanctuary. More than a great way to vent off against the coaching staff. I could go on forever about  Crimes and Misdemeanor, Saturday Night Live, RW Emerson, or the Kids In The Hall and she would always provide back something eerily insightful. Eons away from the dead stares I would usually get back home in suburbia. There was no one in sight. Our skin touched that day.

Anne was out of a relationship with her high school sweetheart as she eventlully told me while laying in the sun by the lake. He was her first and last. I know her heart was broken, much more than she'd ever let on. The second time she mentionned this break up she suddenly got up and started to run in an unknown direction.

I ran behind her as fast as I could. I ignored why she was running like there was some sense of danger. Just like I couldn't really tell why I was running after her. This afternoon pursuit in the woods, then on to the campus, lasted maybe 2 or 3 minutes. I was just running silent, leaving the surronding green areas form one single blur, as if the only thing I could focus on were the back of her calves and the small fushia swoosh on the back of her Air Maxes.

I finally saw her reach a pay phone. This was the first time I saw her cry. She cocked her tiny hands into fists and banged on the booth's plexiglass. It's as if something pure was being taken away from her. One day you realize that there is no god, then you find out all men are not born equal. For Anne, it was the notion that a love that was meant to be forever true has now come to an irreversible end of existence.

That night she came by my cabin and grabbed my hand. She took me to the lake and we quickly slipped into a training shell. Without a word I rowed towards the center of the lake. At one point I had to fend off a couple of stray bats with an oar. This didn't phase her out one bit. The Cayuga was otherwise calm. In a misguided attempt to capture the innocence that just escaped her existence, she leaned over and pressed my scalp against her forehead. She made me swore I would never change and pressed her lips against mine.

***

I met Anne again a few months ago at the hospital while visiting my dying grandmother. As I expected, she plowed through Cornell with Honors. Years added details to her face. She was as magnificient as ever. It took us painful minutes to go back to a decent level of comfort. She recounted her marriage which ended the year before with the death of her husband in an accident. She had two kids with him. Anne wasn't sure what to do with the relief his passing away caused in her. Turns out he was a selfish asshole.

We sat next to each other on a bench outside the hospital. for her lunch break. She wolfed her lobster salad in mere minutes as I recounted what led me there that day, going over the 15 odd years between that cloudy Sunday afternoon and what turned out to be our farewells back at Cayuga Lake. We reflected on that period with soft spoken words and fleeting glances. We let the silence permeate the moment only to realize we were both ripe to recapture the purity that we could seemingly only find in each other at that exact place and time. It was the second time I saw her cry.