Cross Currents (33 page)

AFTER EATING LUNCH AND HELPING with the dishes, Suchin and Niran hurried to meet their father on the beach. By the time they arrived, he was already knee-deep in the water, holding Achara as he spoke to Yai. Though he wore only an old pair of shorts, Yai was dressed in loose-fitting pants, a white collared shirt, and a thatch sun hat. Niran pulled off his shirt as Suchin ran into the water, wearing everything but her sandals.

The siblings rushed toward their father, glad that he had taken a break from his work to play with them. Lek barely had time to hand Achara to Yai before his oldest children started splashing him. He fought back, moving toward the open sea, knowing that they would soon jump on him. The deeper water would allow him to lift and throw them while not putting too much pressure on his hip.

Suchin and Niran guessed his intentions and tried to drive him toward shore. Their laughter was nearly incessant as their splashes struck his face and he pretended to choke on the seawater. He stumbled, falling backward, and Suchin pounced on him. She pressed down on his chest, trying to force him underwater. After letting her briefly succeed, he stood up and threw her as far as possible.

Seeing her disappear into the water, Niran came at him. “My turn, my turn!”

Lek picked up his son, grimaced as pain shot through his hip, and then tossed Niran toward his sister. “Off with you!”

“Come here, you big sea slug,” Suchin said while splashing him.

“If I'm a big sea slug, then you're a little one.”

“But you're slimier. So, so much slimier.”

He dived at her, swimming underwater until he was able to pull her legs out from under her. She twisted, falling on top of him, pushing him down. Suddenly both children attacked him and he had to kick away.

A distant figure emerged from amid their bungalows. Lek was glad that Sarai had finished sweeping the floor and had come to join them. They both would work for most of the afternoon, preparing a Christmas feast for their guests and anyone else who might stop by. That morning Lek and Niran had caught several varieties of fish and turned over underwater boulders so that they could spear crabs. Then, as Sarai had given a massage to an Israeli, Lek and his children had gone into the village and bought fresh vegetables and fruit at the market. Though he spent three hundred baht, Lek hoped that they would profit ten times that amount before the evening ended.

Sarai hesitated at the water's edge and Lek waved her forward. “Help!” he shouted. “I need—”

“No, you don't, you slimiest of sea slugs,” Suchin interrupted, then laughed as he grabbed her wrists and tickled her.

Niran came swiftly to his sister's aid and tugged on his father's arms. The three of them went down together in a splash.

Fifty feet away, Sarai watched her loved ones play. She waded in up to her hips, holding her shirt out of the water. Though she wanted to join her family, so much work still needed to be done—fresh tapestries placed beneath the beachside tables, the sand raked free of debris, the food prepared. She would have help, of course, but still worried about getting everything finished on time. Based on previous Christmases, she knew that foreigners might show up at any moment expecting a big meal.

Sarai glanced from her restaurant to her family. Shaking her head, she plunged beneath the water, then surfaced and headed toward her mother. After taking Achara and kissing her naked body, Sarai smiled. “Isn't she beautiful?”

Yai lowered herself deeper into the water with a sigh. “Too beautiful to have come from us. There must have been a mix-up at the clinic.”

“She was the only baby there. Don't you remember?”

“I remember how you didn't want to share her with me, your own mother.”

Sarai grinned, then kissed Achara's ear. “That's true. I don't deny it.”

“Suchin is calling for you. I think she needs your help.”

“And she'll have it. In a minute.” Sarai lowered Achara into the water and began to clean her bottom.

“I already did that,” Yai said. “You want to make her rash worse? Please don't take care of me when I'm old. I don't want that kind of help. Just set me adrift.”

“It's going to be a good year, isn't it?” Sarai asked.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we've worked too hard for it to be anything but a good year.”

“You deserve a good year.”

Lek started to call for Sarai's help. Laughing at her normally quiet husband, she handed Achara back to Yai and hurried into the deeper water. The day was perfect, she reflected, full of sunlight and a gentle breeze. Tourists and Thais swam in the bay. Longboats drifted on tranquil waters. And laughter came to her from a dozen sources.

Her hands soon met with her husband's, but instead of helping him, she held him in place so that Suchin and Niran could do as they pleased. As he called her a traitor and tried to escape, she grinned, then found herself giggling much as her children were. And as they laughed together, she felt the strength of the bond among them, a strength more powerful than steel or stone.

Still smiling, Sarai whispered her thanks, then picked up her son and threw him into the air.

A FEW CLOUDS HAD DRIFTED over the island by the time Brooke and Patch sat down at one of Sarai's beachside tables. The bamboo table, placed on a green tapestry, had a glass top and a centerpiece fashioned out of coral and orchids. Half of the other tables were occupied—two with small groups of tourists and one with a pair of Thais. People snacked on plates of vegetable fried rice, spring rolls, and garlic shrimp. Sweating glasses held watermelon smoothies, Singha beers, Thai whiskey, and various sodas.

Brooke and Patch had ordered two beers and sat at the same side of the table, facing the water. She wore her swimsuit and a full-length yellow cover-up. He was barefoot and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt that he'd bought in Phuket. The shirt was white and featured a faded blue map of Thailand.

Though they sat beside each other, they didn't touch, only their words mingling, their expressions hinting of their connection. An hour earlier, Patch, desperate to hear word from his brother, had gone to an Internet café to check his email. To his delight, a message from Ryan had awaited him, saying that he'd decided to remain on the island for a few more days. He wouldn't return to Rainbow Resort but would stay somewhere else. No reference was made to Brooke other than to say that Ryan would find them the following day, at which point they could discuss when and where Patch would turn himself in.

Patch's relief at hearing from Ryan had washed over him like waves, and he and Brooke had ordered the beers, wished each other a merry Christmas, and made a toast to Dao. Without Dao, they both knew, Ryan would have left.

“What was she like?” Brooke asked, and then sipped her drink.

Patch watched a group of Thai children far down the beach chase a falling kite. “Funny. She seemed really funny. And smart. Pretty, too.”

“And you think she likes him?”

“Yeah. Otherwise she never would have left her work. When she came back she kept asking me if anyone had stopped by. She was really nervous.”

Brooke nodded. “I'm glad you like her.”

“She could be just what he needs. And that makes me really happy.”

“But I'm worried about you. I wish you hadn't agreed to turn yourself in. I think our other plan was smarter.”

His gaze swung from the kite to her. “I don't want to go to the police. I don't trust them. But I'm doing it for him. Because if I don't do it, he's going to stay mad at me. And that'll mess everything up.”

“Define everything.”

“My relationship with him. With . . . with you.”

“With me?”

“I need him to trust me again. If he trusts me, he'll let me be with you.”

“You don't need his permission for anything, Patch.”

“I know. But I want his support. It's important to me.”

She started to talk him out of his decision but stopped herself. “I want to meet with people. With embassy people. With Thai officials. I'll go with Ryan and we'll make sure that you'll be safe.”

“Thanks,” Patch replied, knowing that he would never be safe in jail. “But then . . . when you get back to America, I need you to forget about me. At least for a while.”

“What? What do you mean?”

He took her hand, moving his thumb back and forth against her palm. “You know I care about you, right?”

“I know.”

“I wish . . . I wish we were here in other circumstances. Just the two of us. That would be so amazing. In so many ways.”

“How can you say I should forget about you, and then say that? It's a complete contradiction.”

“Because I'm going to be gone for a while. Six months. A year. Eighteen months. Who knows? And it will be harder for me in there; my guilt will be even worse if I know that you're waiting around for me, that my mistakes are making you miss out on opportunities.”

She shifted on the tapestry, squinting against the glare of the sun. “Miss out on opportunities? You think I'm some weak-kneed girl who won't be able to function without you around? And that life is just going to pass me by?”

“I don't mean that.”

“What do you mean then?”

“It's just that . . . I've already hurt enough people. I hurt my parents, Ryan, myself. And I don't want to hurt you. I'll do worse, in jail, if I think I'm hurting you.”

She felt his thumb moving against her, which seemed to release her tension. She tried to see things from his perspective and understood that he was just trying to protect her. Though his words weren't right, he had her best interests at heart. Watching his thumb, she thought about kissing him, remembered how his fingers had briefly explored her body. “What did you feel . . . in the water?”

“At the boat?”

“After the Jolly Green Giant.”

He glanced toward the bay. Some women were lying topless on the nearby beach, but his gaze didn't linger on them. “I need a second for that,” he replied, looking at Brooke once again. “Because it's hard to explain something . . . that I experienced for the first time.”

“Try.”

Still stroking her palm with his thumb, he recalled the sensation of her lips against his, the overwhelming desire to caress every part of her. “When you kissed me,” he said quietly, “it felt more sensual, more exciting than anything I'd ever felt.”

“Why?”

“Because there wasn't some sort of gradual buildup. You kissed me, and bam, we were there. Wherever we were going, we'd already arrived. And that place . . . in it . . . all I wanted was you.”

A child's shrill laugh interrupted her thoughts. She squeezed his hand, wanting to kiss him again. “You know, that night when you told me that my soul wasn't hurt, that's when you first really touched me, when I first felt intimate with you. Our skin might not have come in contact, but you still touched me, just in a different way. You told me what I'd tried to tell myself. With only me saying it, I could never believe it. But when you said it, it felt true.”

“It is true.”

She bit her bottom lip, then smiled. “I wish you'd let me help you escape. Ryan doesn't have to get his way. He gets it enough, believe me.”

“I know.”

“If you escaped, we could see each other in a month or two. Instead of a year or two. Shouldn't that count for something?”

“It does count. But he stayed here because I asked him to, because he loves me, and he thinks he can help me. So I need to stay. If I run now, I'll be turning my back on him. And he's never done that to me.”

“Never?”

He nodded. “And I've been thinking about something else.”

“What?”

“After I get out of jail, I want to do something good. I want to help people who've made mistakes, who just need a second chance. That's what I've learned from this whole disaster—that sometimes people need a second chance.”

“And sometimes people just need a chance. Period. Like Sarai and Lek.”

“Actually, I'd like to help them. I told Lek that I'd try to sponsor Suchin and Niran if they wanted to go to college in America.”

“That's a wonderful idea.”

“I hope it works out.”

A breeze brought the smell of burning coconut shells to them. Not far out in the bay, a group of Thai children were having some sort of swimming contest.

Brooke's gaze swung from one end of the beach to the other. “Can you wait another few days to turn yourself in? I just want a little more time.”

“With me?”