Cross Currents (3 page)

“We have to work harder,” she said. “Somehow we have to work harder.”

“I know.”

“The children don't want to move either. We have to work harder for them.”

“And we will.”

“And you think Patch can make that much of a difference? He's helping you that much?”

“He is making a difference.”

A voice emerged from below, the voice of their older daughter. “Then he can stay,” Sarai said, standing up. “For a few more weeks. Until you've finished the repairs. But then he has to go. Whatever he's running from, he'll have to run somewhere else.”

“Three weeks. Give us three weeks.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “Don't let the children see your worry. I see it. My mother sees it.”

“I'll do better.”

“Your face . . . I love it more than my own, but it's still the face of a child, so easy to read. And Suchin and Niran, they need to hear us laugh and see us smile. That's what we must always do for them.”

Lek grinned, rising slowly, painfully. “So you still see me as a child? After all these years?”

“I'll always see you as a child,” she replied, the corners of her mouth rising, deepening the laugh lines that he so loved. “Why else do you think I married you? For your looks? No. For your money? Definitely not. It's a good thing for you that I've always seen you as a child. Because if I hadn't, I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't be thinking about what breakfast you'd like most or about how I'm going to let Patch stay, against my better judgment, because he'll make your life easier. So thank Buddha for giving you that boyish face. Because without it, your problems would be yours alone. I certainly wouldn't be sharing them with you.”

“Thank you, Buddha.”

“Thank him again. A hundred times. If I were you, I'd thank him every day. That way, he won't decide to change his mind.”

“No!” Patch shouted, leaping out of bed, becoming entangled in his mosquito net as he fell to the floor. The lions and alley disappeared, replaced by the familiar thatch walls of his bungalow. Dripping sweat, Patch lay on the floor, his fists balled, his eyes tearing. He trembled, recalling the dream, a replay of what had actually happened to him five months earlier. He remembered running down the alley, the two thousand baht still in his hand, twisting through a labyrinth of buildings and warehouses until the cries of his pursuers were overcome by the beating of his heart.

Patch glanced at the ceiling, worried that he'd pulled the mosquito net from its moorings. Fortunately, he hadn't. Rising to his knees and then to his feet, he stepped out from under the net and put on a T-shirt and some shorts, feeling a need to get outside. The light of dawn had come and gone, replaced by an amber blanket that seemed to have been draped over Ko Phi Phi. Trying to take deep and measured breaths, Patch moved toward the beach, eyeing his surroundings, grateful that such beauty would help pull him from his misery.

Looking to his right, Patch studied the limestone cliff that rose five hundred feet straight above the turquoise bay. The side of the cliff was partly covered in green foliage but was otherwise a slate gray. On the other side of the curving, half-moon beach, about a mile away, a similar cliff soared above the white sand and emerald waters. Between the two wonders of stone, palm trees swayed in a low stretch of connecting land. The sound of miniature waves lapping at the shore was all he heard.

Stepping into the warm water, Patch continued to breathe deeply, thinking about his prospects. He'd spent most of his two thousand baht fleeing to Ko Phi Phi. The rest of his money, as well as his passport, credit cards, and clothes, had been left behind with the police. Without his passport, he had no legal way of leaving the country without alerting the authorities. And so he had only two choices—he could turn himself in and be charged with assaulting a police officer and likely spend a year in a Thai prison, or he could try to sneak out of the country.

For five months, Patch had been hiding in Ko Phi Phi, trying to formulate a plan. He didn't want to turn himself in, but escaping Thailand presented a series of problems so severe that thinking about them often sent him hurrying off for a swim. In the water, his problems seemed to flee, at least to an arm's length away, to a place where they were manageable.

During the first few weeks of his time on the island, he'd borrowed money from fellow travelers and kept a low profile. Then he'd been lucky enough to start doing odd jobs for the Thai family who owned a group of dilapidated bungalows at the far end of the beach. In return, they fed him, let him stay in their smallest bungalow, and didn't ask questions.

As long as he kept Lek and Sarai happy, Patch had reasoned, he could stay and develop a plan. He could avoid the police. So he'd worked hard, helping whenever possible, and taking the initiative to fix whatever needed fixing.

Mulling over how a coconut had fallen the previous day and damaged a roof, Patch looked up, studying the trees above the bungalows. One tree had a cluster of green coconuts and leaned over the path that ran between all the bungalows and the restaurant. Though made of sand, the path was lined with piles of brown bricks that Lek had asked Patch to use to pave it. Patch wanted to begin work on the path right away, but he worried about the coconuts, which often fell during storms. Afraid that someone would get hurt, he walked toward the tree and was pleased to see that it didn't rise straight up, but was curved like a giant longbow.

Patch had watched local children climb such trees and knew, in theory, how to get from the ground to where the coconuts hung. He put his bare feet on either side of the trunk, reached around the tree as if he were hugging it, and pulled up with his hands while pushing down with his feet. The bark scraped against his thighs and forearms, but he smiled as he lurched higher. His progress reminded him of the inchworms he'd watched as a child. He climbed about as fast, lifting his hands, then feet, hugging the tree. Though his exposed skin continued to get scraped, he climbed until he reached the long, knifelike fronds and the nest of coconuts, about thirty feet off the ground. Holding on to one of the fronds, Patch hoisted himself on top of the tree, resting on the other fronds and the coconuts.

“What are you doing up there, you crazy man?”

Patch looked down through the fronds and spied Suchin. The daughter of Lek and Sarai, Suchin was eight years old, with a round, pleasing face like her mother's and long hair that she wore in a braided ponytail. Her hair was pulled far enough back to reveal her pierced ears, which held her first pair of earrings—matching yellow seahorses. She was almost always smiling, seemingly proud of her adult front teeth. Though Patch was used to seeing Suchin in her school uniform, since it was Saturday she wore a faded blue Hello Kitty T-shirt and black shorts.

“Be careful, Patch,” she added, moving directly beneath him, her English nearly flawless. “You'll fall on your head. And you don't want to do that any more than you already have.”

“You be careful. I'm going to drop these coconuts.”

“Good. Then Mother can sell their milk.”

“Could you please step back?”

Suchin did as he asked, watching as he twisted off one of the highest coconuts. Her brother, Niran, appeared, eating a handful of sticky rice. A year younger than Suchin, he had straight black hair and was small for his age. As usual, at least when he wasn't in school, Niran went shirtless and carried a bamboo pole with a net on one end. “What's Patch doing?” he asked in Thai, plucking the last few grains of rice from his fingers.

“Getting us coconuts.”

“For what?”

“To sell, silly.”

“Oh.”

Patch listened to the children talk, made sure that they were a safe distance from the tree, and dropped the first coconut. It landed with a thud, rolled a few feet, and was snatched up by Suchin. “Here comes another one,” Patch said, wrestling with a bigger coconut, surprised by the strength of its bond to the tree.

The coconut finally lost the battle and rolled across the sand. Niran hurried forward, then set it next to his sister's. “Don't fall, Patch,” he called.