“Because Brynn was standing there.”
The nurse stepped closer to Nora.
“Do you want me to keep that somewhere safe for tonight?”
Nora closed the journal.
“No.”
Her voice surprised her.
She held it tighter against the blanket.
It was damaged, but it was hers.
The director asked Leah to wait in the infirmary office while he called another counselor to supervise the cabin. Leah protested that she was being treated as if she had done something wrong.
The director looked at Nora, then at Mae’s bare feet.
“You were told a camper was being locked out and targeted before tonight. You reduced that to teasing and left the same group unsupervised. We will discuss exactly what you did and did not know. Until then, you are off cabin duty.”
Leah’s face reddened.
She looked at Nora.
“I was trying not to make things worse for you.”
Nora thought about the spare blanket, the stripped mattress, the reasonable tone Leah had used when telling the director she had wandered off.
“You did,” Nora said.
Leah looked away.
The director called Nora’s mother next.
This time Nora did not ask him to soften the story.
She took the telephone herself.
Her mother answered on the second ring.
“Nora?”
The sound of her voice broke something open.
Nora tried to begin with the canoe because it happened first. Then the door. Then the bedding. The facts came out in the wrong order.
Her mother did not interrupt.
When Nora started crying and apologized for crying, her mother said, “You don’t have to make this easy for me to hear.”
Nora pressed the receiver against her ear.
“I told you the cabin was great.”
“I know.”
“I lied.”
“You were trying to stay.”
Nora covered her face with one hand.
The director offered to arrange for her mother to pick her up that night. It was after ten, and the drive would take nearly two hours.
Nora expected her mother to say yes immediately.
Instead, her mother asked, “What do you want?”
Nora looked around the infirmary.
Mae stood near the door holding Nora’s pillow. The nurse was making tea. The director waited without pushing her.
Outside, camp was dark except for a few porch lights.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
“I want to go home.”
“Then I’ll come.”
Nora closed her eyes.
Then she thought of the money she had earned watering plants all June. She thought of the lake at sunrise, before the other girls woke. She thought of the climbing wall she had not tried yet because Brynn said the rental harness would probably not fit right over her cheap shorts.
“I also don’t want them to make me leave.”
Her mother was quiet.
“That makes sense too.”
Nora looked at the director.
“Can I decide in the morning?”
He nodded.
