1 15-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes, crushed
1 stick of butter
1 onion about the size of your fist, cut up
Parmesan cheese
1 pound of spaghetti, cooked al dente
Simmer the first three ingredients together for 45 minutes, and then blend with an immersion blender or food processor. Pour over hot spaghetti and pass the parm.
[Source: San Marzano tomato label]
Logan O’Donnell stood on a platform one hundred feet in the air, preparing to shove his ten-year-old son off the edge. A light breeze shimmered through the canopy of trees, scattering leaves on the forest floor far below. A zip line cable, slender as a thread in a spider’s web, hung between the tree platforms, waiting. Below, Meerskill Falls crashed down a rocky gorge.
“There’s no way I’m going off this.” Logan’s son, Charlie, drew his shoulders up until they practically touched the edge of his helmet.
“Come on,” Logan said. “You told me you’d do it. The other kids had a ball. They’re all waiting for you on the other side, and I heard a rumor about a bag of Cheetos being passed around.”
“I changed my mind.” Charlie set his jaw in a way that was all too familiar to Logan. “No way. No W-A-Y- F.”
Logan knew the shtick, but he went along with it. “There’s no
“That’s right. There’s no effin’ way I’m going off this thing.”
“Aw, Charlie. It’s almost like flying. You like to fly, right?” Of course he did. Charlie’s stepfather was a pilot, after all. Logan crushed the thought. There were few things more depressing than thinking about the fact that your kid had a stepfather, even if the stepfather was an okay guy. Fortunately for Charlie, he’d ended up with a good one. But it was still depressing.
Charlie spent every summer with Logan. During the school year, he lived with his mom and stepfather in Oklahoma, a million miles away from Logan’s home in upstate New York. It sucked, living that far from his kid. Being without Charlie was like missing a limb.
When he did have his son with him, Logan tried to make the most of their time together. He planned the entire season around Charlie, and that included working as a volunteer counselor at Camp Kioga, helping out with the summer program for local kids and inner-city kids on scholarship. The zip line over Meerskill Falls was a new installation, and had already become everyone’s favorite feature. Nearly everyone.
“Hey, it’s the last day of camp. Your last chance to try the zip line.”
Charlie dragged in a shaky breath. He eyed the harness, made of stout webbing and metal buckles. “It looked really fun until I started thinking about actually doing it.”
“Remember how you used to be scared to jump off the dock into Willow Lake? And then you did it and it was awesome.”
“Hel-
“You’re going to love it. Trust me on this.” Logan patted the top of Charlie’s helmet. “Look at all the safety features on this thing. The harness, the clips, the secondary ropes. There’s not one thing that can go wrong.”
“Yo, Charlie,” shouted a kid on the opposite platform. “Go for it!”
The encouragement came from Andre, Charlie’s best friend. The two had been inseparable all summer long, and if anyone could talk Charlie into something, it was Andre. He was one of the city kids in the program. He lived in a low-income project in the Bronx, and for Andre, it had been a summer of firsts—his first train trip, his first visit upstate to Ulster County, where Camp Kioga nestled on the north shore of Willow Lake. His first time to sleep in a cabin, see wildlife up close, swim and paddle in a pristine lake...and tell ghost stories around a campfire with his buddies. Logan liked the fact that at camp, all the kids were equal, no matter what their background.
“I kind of want to do it,” Charlie said.
“Up to you, buddy. You saw how it’s done. You just stand on the edge and take one step forward.”
Charlie fell silent. He stared at the waterfall cascading down the rocky gorge. The fine spray from the rushing cataract cooled the air.
“Hey, buddy,” Logan said, wondering about his son’s faraway expression. “What’s on your mind?”
“I miss Blake,” he said, his voice barely audible over the rush of the falls. “When I go back to Mom’s, Blake won’t be there anymore.”
Logan’s heart went out to the kid. Blake had been Charlie’s beloved dog, a little brown terrier who had lived to a ripe old age. At the start of summer, she’d passed away. Apparently Charlie was dreading his return to his mom’s dogless house.
“I don’t blame you,” Logan said, “but you were lucky to have Blake as your best friend for a long time.”
Charlie stared at the planks of the platform. “Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“It sucks, losing a dog,” Logan admitted. “No way around it. That’s why we’re not getting one. Hurts too bad when you have to say goodbye.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said again. “But I still like having a dog.”
“Tell me something nice about Blake,” Logan said.
“I never needed an alarm to get up for school in the morning. She’d just come into my room and burrow under the covers, like a rabbit, and she’d squirm until I got up.” He smiled, just a little. “She got old and quiet and gentle. And then she couldn’t jump up on the bed anymore, so I had to lift her.”
“I bet you were really gentle with her.”
He nodded. After another silence, he said, “Dad?”
“Yeah, bud?”
“I kinda want another dog.”
“Okay,” said Charlie. “But, Dad?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Kids were telling ghost stories in the cabin last night,” he said, picking at a thread in the webbing of his harness.
“You’re at summer camp. Kids are supposed to tell ghost stories.”
“Andre told the one about these people who committed suicide by jumping off a cliff above the falls.”
“I’ve heard that story. Goes way back to the 1920s.”
“Yeah, well, the ghosts are still around.”
“They won’t mess with the zip line.”
“How do you know?”
Logan pointed to the group of kids and counselors on the distant platform. “They all got across, no problem. You saw them.” The other campers appeared to be having the time of their lives, eating Cheetos and acting like Tarzan.
“Show me again, Dad,” said Charlie. “I want to see you do it.”
“Sure, buddy.” Logan clipped Charlie to the safety cable and himself to the pulleys. “You’re gonna love it.” With a grin, he stepped off the platform into thin air, giving Charlie the thumbs-up sign with his free hand.
