Page 45 of The Chaperones

Chapter Seven

Friday afternoon, 4:17 p.m., nine and three-quarters hours earlier

Sofía, the single mom

Without Dave and Lily, the remainder of the kayak trip was uneventful. We followed George through several caves beneath the island’s steep and rocky cliffs. George called the first cave “technical,” which meant narrow and claustrophobic, with sharp twists. We had to go through one kayak at a time. Javi and I went first, winding through the ninety-degree turns silently, like it was a punishment. As we waited in the open waters for Charles and Lei to follow, I felt the burning shame of what I did to Lily, knowing that Cassie would hear about it, and the quiet tension of my son, who tried his best to ignore me.

Despite the thrill of the trip and the beauty of our surroundings, Javi remained sullen. We gathered at the mouth of an enormous cave, which George called “the amphitheater.” Inside, sea lions lounged on a rocky stage twenty feet from us. When a sea lion lifted his head and barked, Lei screamed, “Javi, look,” but Javi was staring down at the dark water.

“Mi amor?” I asked. “Do you see the sea lions?”

The boat rocked as Javi shifted his torso toward me. I couldn’t see his expression in the dim light of the cave, but I could feel the disappointment coming off him.

“Why’d you do that?” His voice shook, and I wanted to hug him—only, if I reached out, I would have made us fall over too. “It’s going to make everything worse.”

Javi started paddling like he could get away from me. His strokes barely moved our boat. After a few tries, I helped him, and we glided into the bright afternoon. I wanted to apologize again, but I knew it wouldn’t help.

We spent the rest of the trip in silence, paddling into cave after cave. In one that George nicknamed “the Highway,” he recited facts about the Chumash, whose descendants return to the island each summer solstice, in their ancestral canoes, to honor the dead. The cave was so long and deep that we couldn’t see the back walls. Javi shivered from the lower temperature, so I suggested to George that we head back into the sun’s warmth. When we got out, the light was blinding. I locked eyes with Charles. He gave me an encouraging gesture signaling that this would blow over. This was the first time that I’d embarrassed Javi. It felt like an irreversible shift into adolescence, where everything I do will humiliate him. At the Chester School, I assumed it would be money, all the things I couldn’t provide for him that the other families offered their children without thinking. Instead, it was me that he was ashamed of. Me who was failing him.

When we return to dry land, we follow the guides back to the kayak huts to drop off the blue windbreakers, helmets, and life jackets the company provided. The families buzz around us with excitement from their adventures, a guide who fell in as he was demonstrating how to navigate a cave, the brown pelican with a fish in its mouth, and the whale in the distance that may have been a wave. I notice Brady, who sits quietly as everyone skips around him. For the first time in my life, I wish Mona were here, so I could ask her about the sneaker incident. I’d never considered believing her over Cassie. Until now.

“Hey, Yoo-Jin?” Brady says, standing.

Yoo-Jin turns to Brady with an overly sympathetic smile that’s so pitiful I can feel it across the way. They’re different races, Mona, Yoo-Jin, all the PO moms. Still, with their perky ponytails and condescending smirks, they are as interchangeable as light bulbs. When Cassie takes over PO—because let’s face it, if she wants it, it’s hers, and there’s nothing Mona can do about it—she’ll be indistinguishable from them too. She always has been the same as these women, I realize. I just didn’t see it before.

“Any chance I can borrow your phone?” Brady asks Yoo-Jin. He doesn’t need to explain why, and Yoo-Jin doesn’t ask. She whips it out of her backpack and hands it to him. He wanders off, and Yoo-Jin calls to him that she’ll escort Wyatt and Sawyer back to camp.

Javi still won’t talk to me, but he stays at my side, which I take as a win. From the stand at the kayak site, Charles buys the boys a candy bar to share. He breaks it, offering each of them a section.

“If you tell your father,” he says as he gives half to his son, “I will deny, deny, deny.”

Javi wordlessly takes the other half, forcing me to say, “What do you say, Javi?”

“Thank you,” he whispers to the ground.

“Can we go find foxes?” Lei asks as Charles removes his son’s wet shirt. Bare chested, he’s as skinny as Javi. Each of his ribs juts out like it might pierce his skin. I forgot to bring Javi a spare shirt from our tent, so he zips up his hooded sweatshirt over his bare torso. It feels like another way I’ve failed him.

“Maybe later, kiddo. I have to run to the Visitor Center to send a quick email.”