Fireside

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"Daddy? Did you like to go camping when you were little?"

Mike chuckled. "Well, I wouldn't really call this camping," he answered, glancing back maybe twenty feet at the house. "But yeah, I loved camping. I wanted to be in the Scouts, but I never did get to join, so most of the time it was just me and your uncle Steve."

Angie was sitting on a rock by the fire he had built for them, swinging her legs back and forth. The marshmallow on the end of her stick was looking pretty blackened by this point, but she looked more interested in his stories than in marshmallows. "Did you get to go far away from your house, daddy?"

"Oh yeah." He sat down next to her on the rock and stirred the fire with a branch. "Steve's house was right by some woods that his parents owned, and we would go out there and set up our tent and tell each other ghost stories. The woods weren't too big, but once or twice we probably went nearly a half-mile before finding a good spot." He gazed into the fire for a few seconds. "It made us feel grown-up, being out there all alone like that."

"Weren't your mommies worried you'd get hurt?" Angie asked. "Mommy won't let me go where she can't watch me, ever!"

Mike smiled. "They were worried some, I guess. But I think it's different with little boys. They're meant to go play rough and get scratched up a little bit sometimes."

Angie put down her stick (the marshmallow at the end now reduced to a lump of carbon) and looked at him with wide eyes. "But I like going out in the backyard and playing and camping, too! I don't want to stop just because I'm not a boy!"

"Well, sweetie, I don't know," he answered slowly. "I guess when you get older you'll just... kind of stop wanting to play in the woods."

She pouted. "But you never did. You still like playing in the woods with me, even if you do tell mommy that you're just here to make sure I'm okay." Mike laughed at that, and she frowned. "It's true!"

"It is true, and that's why it's funny. And," he added in a lower voice, "you probably shouldn't tell your mom about it, okay, Angie?" She looked confused for a second, then understanding flashed across her face and she giggled. "Most little girls just stop wanting to sit around campfires with their dads when they get older. That's just how it is, I think."

"Well, I'm never going to stop. I'm going to play camping with you in the backyard forever, daddy. Right?"

He smiled again, but much more briefly this time. "Sure, honey. Forever."