And I did start to cry.
I parked near the trucks and closed my eyes, hoping it was all a dream and when I opened them again, everything would be fine.
No such luck.
I wiped my tears and climbed out of my SUV. There were voices all around me, the painting crew getting ready to start their day. Chuck said they only needed one day, and I was sure they had other jobs to get to, and I was holding them up.
Chuck and two other men were out by the trailer. I made my way across the grass to where they were, my throat tightening with each step as I got closer and saw the damage more clearly.
“Wow,” I breathed when I reached them.
Chuck turned and nodded. “Sorry, Natalie.”
One of the other men came from the backside of the camper and walked right over to us. “Worst-case scenario,” he said, nodding to me. “The framework is snapped. It can be fixed, but it’ll be cheaper to buy something new than it will be to fix this thing.”
“Crap,” I said with a sigh.
“Johnny, this is Natalie. She’s the owner,” Chuck said in a stern tone.
“Shit, sorry,” Johnny said. “I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “I would have found out eventually. Nothing you can do about it.”
“Sucks, though. Boss, you want us to get those chainsaws?” Johnny asked.
Chuck nodded. “Yeah.”
Johnny and the other guy walked back toward their trucks and Chuck turned to me.
“We’re going to get the tree cut up and off the camper. I know it doesn’t help much, but I figured we could at least help with that. No charge, of course.”
“Chuck.”
He shook his head. “My grandson got one of the spots here. My daughter was so happy. He didn’t get in last year, and they had to go down to A-Bay for summer camp. Having it here is huge for her and my son-in-law. If I had a camper to give you, I would. If I had anything I could give you, I would do it. Getting that tree out of the way isn’t much, but it’s what I can do right now.”
“Thank you, Chuck,” I said, my eyes filling with tears and my words coming out as a whisper.
He nodded and squeezed my shoulder as he walked past, giving me a few minutes alone by the camper.
I stared at it through my tears and wondered what I was going to do. The only money I had left was for the pool repair. It wasn’t enough to buy a new trailer, not for a decent price. Anything I would buy would probably look about the same as the smashed one I was standing in front of.
Voices approached, and I knew I had to move so Chuck’s guys could cut the tree down. My mind raced with options, but I couldn’t come up with one. I couldn’t run a camp without a bathroom. Without the camper, I didn’t have one.
“Natalie,” Omar said from right behind me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Daisy called me. Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”
I scoffed. “You can say I told you so.”
“What? Why would I do that?” Omar asked.
“Because you told me not to put the camper here. You were right. I should have listened to you. If I had, then I’d still be able to open up camp this summer.”
“You’re opening camp. Why would you not open it?”
“That’s my one and only bathroom, Omar,” I shouted, throwing my arms wide at the broken camper. “I can’t have a summer camp without giving the kids and staff a place to use the bathroom.”