Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend

The Wednesday afternoon that it all started, I was thinking about how great my life was going.

Actually, to be totally truthful, it didn’t start that Wednesday. It started earlier than that— five years earlier. But I didn’t know that then. I was just wandering around the aisles of the Putnam, Connecticut, Target with no idea what was coming, like the blond girl heading down to the basement in horror movies. I was blissfully unaware that disaster was looming, and thrilled with the way everything was working out.

After all, I had made it through my sophomore year with decent grades— including a passing grade in Chemistry, which was in itself a minor miracle. (I’d been against Chemistry since the first class, when I noticed the safety station at the back, complete with chemical shower and eye-wash station. These things didn’t seem to be necessary in Algebra.) School was over for the year, and the whole summer was stretched out in front of me. I had a wonderful best friend. And most important of all, I had an amazing boyfriend. Everything was perfect.

Well, except for the fact that I’d made the very grave mistake of wearing, to Target, a red tank and khaki skirt. I’d forgotten that all the employees there wear red shirts and khakis. And so every few minutes people were coming up to me and asking where they could find the toothpaste, because they thought I worked there.

“Okay!” I said, tracing my finger down the items on the list. “Let’s get started.” I smiled across the aisle at Teddy Callaway, my boyfriend. Of all the things that were currently good in my life, Teddy was number one. We had started dating my second week of ninth grade at Putnam High School and had been together for the past two years. Teddy was older—eighteen to my sixteen—and would be starting his senior year in the fall. He’d been sophomore and junior class president, and had been elected senior class president for the coming year. He was consistently being featured on the front page of the local paper, the Putnam Post, looking serious and humble, as a result of all the service groups he had started and all the good he was always doing for the community. And Teddy’s altruism was actually the reason we were at Target together. We were leaving in a week to do volunteer work in Colombia, and we needed supplies.

Teddy swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and said, “Gemma?”

“Yes?” I asked as I looked down at the list and tried not to wince. When Teddy had first told me about this volunteering program, I had assumed it would mean doing things like planting gardens and maybe teaching children to sing, until my best friend, Sophie Curtis, pointed out that I was actually thinking of The Sound of Music. I hadn’t realized until I got the application forms that this program involved things like building houses and digging latrines. The five- page list of supplies included items like work gloves and first-aid kits (extra gauze) and antimalarial pills. But I wasn’t going to let that dissuade me. I had been on board to go on this trip ever since Teddy told me about HELPP (Humanitarian Education Learning through Progressive Programs).

Well, technically, I had been on board once it was clear he was going with or without me. My parents had only agreed to let me go after I’d shown them the literature, proving that there would be supervision and that guys and girls stayed in separate cabins. I needed them to agree, because it seemed there were actually a lot of costs involved with volunteering. We’d had to pay for the program, something my dad hadn’t been too thrilled about. He said that if I really wanted to learn about construction, he would happily let me work on the addition to his house, and for free.

But I pressed hard to be able to go, because this way Teddy and I wouldn’t have to spend three weeks apart, even if we were staying in separate cabins and digging separate latrines. We hadn’t been apart for that long since we got together, and I didn’t see any reason for us to start now.