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Chapter Five

Friday afternoon, 2:54 p.m., eleven hours earlier

Sofía, the single mom

Yoo-Jin reads names from her clipboard, separating us into six-person groups. I shuffle from foot to foot, watching as the families waiting to be assigned grow fewer. The odor of the mildewy blue life jacket the company provided stings my nostrils. I can’t stop thinking about Cassie. I hate leaving things unresolved, but as long as Cassie refuses to accept what her daughter said to my son, there’s nothing to discuss. Javi stands rigid at my side. He’s thinking about what happened at the campsite, too, unnerved by how easily I can take this trip away from him. I nudge him with my hip, and he smiles uneasily. The helmet itches my head, and I really hope that, after avoiding two rounds this year, this isn’t the day we get lice.

Yoo-Jin glows as she orders us to the right and the left, enjoying the power usually reserved for Mona. At her command, more families disperse until there are just six people left. The last group. Me and Javi. Charles and Lei. And Dave and Lily. “Okay, you all will be with George. Where’s George?” Javi and Lei race ahead toward a tanned white guy, one of many, who swings his paddle above his head in arcing swoops. I can’t get my legs to move. Yoo-Jin can’t have any idea what happened between me and Cassie, yet this feels like a cruel joke, being sent into open waters with her daughter.

Apparently I’m not the only one displeased with this arrangement.

“Why do we have to go with them?” Lily whines.

“Lil, don’t start.” Dave walks away, stopping when he realizes his daughter hasn’t followed him.

“Lily, sweetie”—the fake sympathy is practically dripping off Yoo-Jin—“the groups really don’t matter. Everyone is going to be in their own kayaks. And you’ll all be out on the ocean together. You won’t even notice.”

Dave and Lily ignore her, staring at each other until Lily storms past her father toward the guide, nearly hip checking my son in the process. It makes me so angry, I want to throw her into the cold ocean.

I startle. Where did this thought come from? I would never be mean to a child.

I’m still shocked by my cruel mind as the guide pushes our kayak away from the beach. The water is calm. That does little to prevent the panic that rises as we drift farther from the island. I want to feel relief at the growing distance between me and Cassie, all the other families lining the beach, but the ocean is dark and deep. It has plenty of its own dangers.

“Paddle,” the guide calls as he pantomimes the figure eight pattern he taught us.

Through the holes in the bottom of the kayak, water soaks my pants. It’s alarmingly cold.

“Paddle,” the guide commands again, performing the figure eight stroke even faster.

Javi tries to dig his oar into the water. It’s too big for him, and he barely slaps the surface. I dig in the right side of the paddle and pull the plastic oar through the ocean. Slowly, we glide in the direction of the pier. With every stroke, I will myself to let go of the anger, to not let Cassie ruin this adventure too. We cross under the pier to avoid the path of the ferry boat that waits to take visitors back to the mainland, a boat Javi and I could be on.

On the beach, Charles is helping Lei into the front of their kayak before he climbs into the back. The guide pushes them out to sea, and they make their way toward us.

“This is almost enough to make me an outdoorsman,” Charles says as their kayak naturally stops in the thick kelp beside us. He breathes in deeply, then sighs satisfactorily and tilts his face toward the sun, now fully exposed above us. There’s not a cloud in sight.

Our kayaks bob in the modest waves as we wait for Dave and Lily and our guide. Javi and Lei start talking excitedly about the junior park ranger training.

“When we get back, let’s look for foxes,” Lei says to Javi, who turns to me for approval.

I tell him that’s a good idea, even though I’m pretty sure they are the only ones who took the ranger up on her contest to see who could spot the most wildlife.

Dave and Lily paddle out from under the dock. I study Dave, trying to determine whether Cassie told him what their daughter said to Javi, if she denied it to him too.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Dave says, pulling back on the paddle to simultaneously stop and steer the kayak, like he’s reversing into the parking spot beside mine.

“You’re so embarrassing,” Lily says.

“I didn’t realize I was supposed to impress the fish,” Dave teases his daughter, flicking his oar to splash a little water at the back of her head. He does it a little more forcefully than he means to and drenches her hair.

“Dad!” she screams.

“Sorry, Lil. Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

“I’m soaked,” she cries.

Javi stifles a giggle, and I’m tempted to tell him it’s not nice to laugh until I remember the awful things she said to him. The awful things her mother denied. Laugh all you want, mi amor.

Lily’s head snaps, and she glares at Javi. It makes me flinch. I’ve always thought Lily looked like Dave. In this moment, she’s all Cassie.