Life-moving moments

Chapter 12

At the camp, our team seem to be finding our stride and the smaller committees are working well together. The senior facilitator says we're doing so well that next year we might be able to run the camps on our own and even assist with the training.

We've only had one drop out on our team and I was relieved when his replacement was not one of the girls that didn't complete the workshop with us. Terence and I barely fought this camp and James and I are growing closer.

At the bonfire, which is quickly becoming our thing, he confided in me about his parent's divorce and his dad's adultery, how it ruined his childhood and is the reason why infidelity of any kind is a huge trigger for him.

"This is what got me through that time," he says, pulling a small brown leather pouch out of his pocket.

"A wallet?" I ask confused.

James smiles. "It's a rosary pouch. My granny gave it to me. She'd had it since her confirmation. My granny was my rock during that time because she became like my mother. I rarely see my mother now and it still hurts."

James takes the rosary out of the pouch and shows it to me. It is old but beautiful. It has dark red beads which are strung on a chain that looks untarnished, so it must be high quality silver or stainless steel.

"It's beautiful," I say.

James goes on to tell me about the difficult relationship he has with his step mother and how that has impacted his relationship with his father. This time we sit late into the night, even after the embers are long dead and we talk for hours and not once does Matt come up in conversation, and I'm glad.

The next day, when Emily and I are packing our bags into Tweetie's boot, we see James in the distance frantically searching the bonfire area.

"What's wrong," I ask, when we go to him.

"My rosary pouch," he says. "It's gone. I can't find it anywhere."

We help him look and soon all the facilitators have joined the search and are scouring the empty campsite but we don't find it. James is devastated.

Belatedly, we realise that one of the campers must have picked it up but they are all long gone.

"I'll tell Phumlisa to send a message to their parishes so that the youth leaders can ask if anyone has picked it up." Leroy, our team leader, says.

James nods, his mouth pinched, but we all know it is a lost cause. Whoever picked it up intended to keep it or they would have handed it in at the lost and found.

James is dejected when we leave. I give him a longer than normal hug and he holds me tighter but I don't have his superpower of soul-healing hugs.

When I get home, my mom says that Matt has phoned multiple times throughout the day but I don't call him back. I tell her I'm going to bed early and after I'm in a bed a while, trying to sleep but thinking of James and feeling bad about the rosary that he lost, I hear the phone ring and pretend to be asleep when my mother looks in the room to check on me.

"Yes, I did tell her that you called," I hear her say when she is back in the passageway. "But she seems really tired. She came home much later than normal."

I lay in bed wondering how much longer it will be before Matt gets the letter.

A week after I've sent the letter, Matt is still phoning me everyday.

"So, you don't have camping stuff for a few months again right? How did last week's one go?"

"It was okay."

I don't want to tell him about James and what happened. James had told me earlier in the week that Phumlisa had sent the messages to the youth leaders but no one had replied with good news.