Page 59 of The Chaperones

Emmy, the park ranger

I turn on the desktop computer in the common hut to check my email before bed. It’s dark out, but the others haven’t returned yet. They’re probably at the adventure company’s campsite. The guides always have beer to share.

As I wait for Gmail to load, I retrieve my tea brewing on the counter and add enough honey to sting my teeth. Outside, the wind is roaring, slapping the thin walls of these cabins, punishing them for being here.

I sift through several emails, mostly spam, an e-vite to my friend’s engagement party, another asking if I’ll be around on Sunday for a girls’ brunch. When I’m on the mainland, I try to say yes to everything so I can maintain the friendships that have endured my schedule. I’ll be there, I write my friends. And boy do I have a story for you guys!!! My friends love hearing about the island. They’ll especially like tales of Raymond Zhao and Cassie Bent. Still, it’s hard not to feel like a visitor at these events, a friend dropping in from out of town.

Then I email my mother, which I do every night I’m away. We both pretend it’s to check in on her. She lives alone. San Jose had never felt like home, and after Dad died, she decided to move back to Santa Rosa. I don’t begrudge her this. She was forced to leave, too, even if this makes it hard for me to visit her. Instead of visits home, we meet in Santa Barbara and Monterey, neutral spaces without history.

Like my communications with my friends, my emails to my mom are controlled. Not inauthentic, just intentional. I write about hikers her age, the retirees who have spent a lifetime waiting to come to Limuw. I detail the ravens’ latest shenanigans, send photos of the foxes. I don’t divulge anything about Joaquin, even though it would relieve her to know I have a semblance of someone in my life. Instead, I update her on Sam, how when we’re both on the mainland, his wife makes me home-cooked meals. How when we’re both on the island, he looks after me, too, despite me being law enforcement, the person ostensibly in charge.

As I sit down to tell her about Raymond Zhao and the school trip—she won’t know or care about Cassie Bent—what comes out instead is the truth. There’s a man here. He makes me uncomfortable. He has this meanness that radiates from him. It’s bringing up feelings I don’t want to have— Before I put the period on that last sentence, I’m already erasing it. It’s been seventeen years. I wonder if I’d have an easier time moving on, whatever that means, if my mom wasn’t still hunting for signs of an impending breakdown. I’ve had episodes, most recently a year ago when I had to take two rotations off, but I’ve never let myself unravel completely. I wonder if I’d be able to move on if I had ever let myself fall apart entirely.

Instead, I write, You’ll Never Guess Who Cooked Me Lunch Today in the subject line. In the email’s body, I add, I’ll give you three clues: 1) He has a catch phrase. 2) While you’ve never eaten in his restaurants, you can name every single one. 3) When I left the campsite, he was making hand-pulled noodles.

A burst of wind carries laughter into the cabin. Sam and the researchers are headed back. I hit send, shut down the computer, and slip out of the communal hut into the biting cold. The familiar darkness descends around me. Over time, it’s become a comfort, that complete absence of light pollution, of shadows, of anything but the night.

I fight the wind as I step down the stairs. In the near distance, I see lights bob as they approach. I dart into the common bathroom, hoping to brush my teeth and wash my face before they arrive.

I’m not fast enough, so I wait in the bathroom until the doors to the common house shut. I should go see how their evening was and touch base with Sam about the morning. Fatigue overwhelms me, and I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone. When I peek outside, thanks to the wind, no one lingers, and I tiptoe to my cabin.

Inside my hut, I check that my firearm is double-locked in the safe, that my radio and body cam are charging. Then I collapse into bed, faintly aware, as I drift to sleep, that it has started to rain.