Page 60

Mona, the PTA mom

It’s completely dark now. As I hear the crunch of reeds beneath my feet, I realize I’m veering off the trail. I cannot get lost. I’m too close. So I lilt in the other direction. When I feel the brush against my other leg, I course correct again. I do this strange weave and bob, giving myself a headache from concentrating so hard on staying on the trail.

Above me, the stars are bright in the clear night sky, but they cast no light onto the island. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in such absolute darkness, like the only thing in the entire universe that exists is those stars and the sliver of moon between them. I spot the North Star, the Big Dipper, and use my hand to map true north, feeling a little more at ease when I confirm I’m walking east toward the mainland. The trail is straight and flat. As I keep walking, the pain in my ankle continues to threaten me. I’m stronger than it is. Suddenly, a dull haze glows in the distance. The mainland. The lights of streets where people live, houses where they are all tucked safely in bed, having no idea that twenty miles away, a woman walks in their direction and feels hope for the first time since she arrived on Santa Cruz Island.

I keep staggering toward the lights on the mainland. At this point, it isn’t just my ankle but my knees, my thighs, my tailbone that have started to ache. I shut my eyes because it’s not like I can see anything anyway. My other senses grow stronger. The wind kisses rather than pummels me. The salt exfoliates my cheeks, and I swear I can smell the wildflowers around me. I feel the power of my tired legs until suddenly I am airborne. For a glorious, brief moment, it feels like I’m flying, until I ram into the unforgiving ground face first.

Immediately, something wet pours from my nose. It smells of iron, which right away lets me know it’s blood. I sit on the trail, too shocked to move, the tears streaming as forcefully as the blood. My nose feels like it’s been smashed with a bat, the pain somehow dull and sharp at once. I lean back, feeling the rock that tripped me against my tailbone, and clamp my nostrils as I wait for the blood to clot. I don’t need one of the doctors at camp to tell me my nose is broken. I can feel where the bone snapped. The wind assaults me like I’ve done something to it, and it takes all my energy to not lie down and quit.

I push my body off the ground, my legs wobbling once I’m upright. Every step is a threat. A threat to quit. A threat that I’ll never see my family again. A threat that when someone finds me, I’ll be nothing more than a body. My nose throbs, but at least I can’t feel the pain in my ankle anymore. One step after another, I careen toward the lights that have disappeared behind the clouds. Mainland is still ahead of me, and before that, the cliffs, the beach, the campgrounds, my family. The sky ignites in a flash of light, diffused by the clouds that have descended without me realizing. The lightning’s quickly followed by thunder, detonating across the dark sky. One fat raindrop hits my head, trickling down my neck, beneath my fleece jacket. I unzip the coat and pull it over my head, determined to keep walking as the sky cracks open in a downpour.