Page 78 of The Chaperones

Mona, the PTA mom

I lean my full weight against Cassie as she half carries me toward the pier. My backpack is thrown over her shoulder, and in the absolute dark, with only Cassie’s flashlight to guide the way, I’m not sure any of this is real, that my subconscious isn’t playing a cruel joke on me.

Her arm grips my waist, holding me higher.

“Less than a mile now.” Even as I hear her encouraging voice, I’m not ready to believe that I’ve been found. By her.

“Do you have any water,” I croak, tripping on one of my feet. Cassie catches me. Cassie. Catches. Me.

“No. I didn’t think I’d be out here this long.”

“What were you doing out here?”

“Javi and Lei went missing. We all split up to look for them.”

“Did you find them?”

“I’m hoping one of the other parents did. I heard the boys talking about Smuggler’s Cove, so I headed this way. Instead I found you.” She stops walking, still holding me against her side. “What are you doing up here, Mona? When did you get on the island? Why didn’t you come to the camp?”

Now’s my chance. I can tell her why I was delayed, who’s on the island, what’s in my backpack, the story she can’t avoid any longer.

What comes out instead is “Why do you hate me?”

The wind fills the silence that follows this pathetic question, blasting us with its cold force. Since I can’t see her face, I can only imagine the disgusted expression she’s shooting me.

When the gust stops, she says, “I don’t hate you. I just don’t agree with how you do things.”

She hoists my arm higher over her shoulder and nudges me to keep walking.

We continue to lumber across the wide plain, its outline becoming visible in the predawn glow. At intervals, the wind whips through the grass, nearly barreling us over. Each time it stops, Cassie says, “A little farther,” hoisting me up whenever my body threatens to collapse.

The sky has started to lighten, and I can see how close we are to the ocean. The trail angles down slightly, enough for me to feel like I’m falling with every step. Cassie keeps holding me tightly at her side. As my head grows clearer, the pain sets in—my knee, my ankle, my nose, the full force of this completely insane walk and my pathetic plan to make her understand.

“Please don’t take PO from me,” I say, a little more desperately than I intend.

“It’s not about you, Mona. I know it must feel that way, but I’m not trying to take anything from you.” Cassie kicks her foot against a rock to dislodge a thick layer of mud from the bottom of her shoe. I feel how cakey the mud is on my soles, too, like glue. I don’t have the energy to remove it. When both of her boots are cleared, she hoists my hand up on her shoulder and begins walking again. “When I started coming to school for the sneaker project, I don’t know, it made me realize how much I was missing. I don’t want to miss any more of my daughter’s life.”

“So join us,” I argue. “Don’t take over.”

Cassie remains silent as we limp along. That’s not her way. It isn’t my way either.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’ve done a good job with the Parents Organization. You’ve implemented some good changes. It’s time for someone else to have a turn. I have so many ideas.”

We continue to plod down the trail toward the water, Cassie holding me tight as she details her ideas. Not a book fair but a book festival. Not a clothing drive but regular community service outings. A mentor-family program. The wind carries her ideas out to sea, across the ocean to the mainland, where they will stop being ideas and start being plans to enact. It doesn’t matter what the file in my backpack says, what truth I reveal. This isn’t about revenge for her.

I can see now that I’ve already lost. She will be PO president. She’ll realize what Brady did, what, on paper, I have done too.

We keep hobbling toward the coast, stopping occasionally when the wind forces us to or the mud on Cassie’s boots is so thick she needs to clear it off.

“I saw your brother,” I finally say.

Cassie stops walking. She lets go of me, and I wobble, yet manage to stay standing.

“What do you mean?”

“In my backpack, there’s—” I take a step toward Cassie and my bag, hanging from Cassie’s shoulder, wincing as pain radiates up my leg. My ankle gives, and I almost fall. Cassie catches me, holds me close. I focus all my energy on telling her the story. Through the pain, it comes out in fits and starts. Fragments. “I needed to go back to get . . . and then your brother, so I took the boat to Prisoner’s Harbor . . . other side of the island . . . I have the file, I walked all this way to show you—”

“Mona, where did you see Travis?” She’s singularly focused on this detail.