Across the Deep

by Lisa McGuinness

  “I know but it’s hard to find the time to research them let alone write the applications.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Really?” Simone’s tone told the story of just how much she would appreciate it.

  “Yes, really. And you should check in with your church. I bet they have some sort of missions funds or something.”

  “Great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re too busy just trying to keep your head above water.”

  The whistle blew on the kettle, and Olivia poured a cup of tea for each of them. They both leaned over the steaming mugs and inhaled the fragrance of dried jasmine.

  “Cheers.” Olivia tapped her teacup against her friend’s.

  “Cheers is right,” Simone agreed, her mind already spinning with the thought of talking to the pastor.

  “We’ll tag team it,” Olivia told her, grabbed her laptop from her bag, and set it on the counter in front of her. She opened it and typed “charitable grants” into the search field.

  Olivia’s idea worked. Simone had thrown her monetary plight to her church and had been relieved to get a bit of help there. And together she and Olivia clicked away on their keyboards late into the night, working to get a grant and actual funding. Bleary eyed, hair stuffed into messy ponytails, the two often munched on the food Grace tried to cook as they filled out forms.

  “Sorry,” Grace often said before setting her barely edible meals in front of the two.

  “Are you kidding?” Simone said, gamely sticking a fork into the overcooked penne. “I’m so grateful you’re even trying.”

  “Seriously,” Olivia added, smiling through a mouthful of the too salty meal, “It’s delicious.”

  “Shut up. I know you’re just saying that.”

  “No, we’re not!”

  “I’ll get better,” Grace said, almost spitting out the food onto her own plate, but hiding her secret pride in the fact that she was learning her way around the kitchen.

  Their efforts had been labor intensive but fruitful. Then one day the fact that this was a ‘God thing,’ as Olivia called it, was confirmed when a man from Simone’s church—who conveniently happened to be a serious tech guy—decided more substantial funding was in order and wrote a check for more than she could have ever imagined. Once that ball got rolling, she quit her day job and never looked back.

  That’s when Simone and Grace had conceived of Hope House and its bakery filled with aromatic loaves, croissants, pastries, tea, and coffee. The top floors had been renovated to house Simone in a tiny apartment at the top; the middle flat comprising four bedrooms for Grace and the residents. Simone started before the crack of dawn each morning to get the bakery going; Grace cooked meals, coordinated group therapy sessions, and drove the girls to appointments. They often switched up the tasks so neither of them burned out, and Olivia—always upbeat and ready to pitch in—sometimes helped after work—but more often than not, she just hung out with everyone.

  “Hey,” she said in greeting when she popped by a few days after Suda arrived. “I’m Olivia,” she reached out her hand in greeting and did her best to mask the shock she felt when she saw the condition of the hollow-eyed, emaciated young woman.

  Suda

  Suda awoke with a start, the dream of being in the container again searing her sleep. She looked around, heartbeat racing. The dark was different here. Not so black. Ambient light shone on the bed at Simone’s.

  “I’m safe; I’m safe,” she whispered every night when she crawled into bed, repeating the mantra in her mind as she drifted off. But as soon as sleep found her, she was immediately back in the inky dark box, heart racing, feeling terrified and desperate to get out. Her eyes had flown around the metal space in the few seconds they’d given her before the heavy door creaked shut and she was engulfed in an impenetrable black.

  In her dream, the space was even smaller than it actually had been. Standing straight was impossible; her back had to be hunched over; her eyes were blind. Screaming to be let out and pounding until her hands were too sore to make contact with the metal walls, her cries gradually became a whisper. She was afraid she would suffocate.

  “I’m not there anymore,” she whispered to herself from the sanctuary of Simone’s warm bed. She wondered whether Aanwat had stood on the dock in Thailand and watched the container as it was lifted and secured in the stack of others on top of the deck, locked into place with containers of other goods. His eyes had been unreadable on the way to the port, but his agitation had been obvious. Had he known what was going to happen to her? She thought he must have.

  He’d warned her. She couldn’t deny that. He’d whispered that she was getting skinny, ugly, and undesirable and told her Gan had threatened to ship her off to the United States where things would be much worse for her. He had told her to eat. Had told her to smile. He had told her to stop fighting. She hadn’t.

  At the time, she’d thought, “How much worse could my life be?” and brushed off his threats with a defiant lift of her chin and a dream of escape.

  But when the container door closed and she was sealed in, she realized that her life could in fact get worse. Or could at least become a different kind of horrible.

  “It’s over now,” she told herself again and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. But at night, even in a warm, clean bed, it all came flooding back. The stench, the pain, the terror. Her rage at Gan was constant and palpable, but it felt even more inescapable in the dark. Just one more reason to use the night-light Simone had given her when she realized Suda was terrified of the dark.

  “But it isn’t over,” the small voice reminded herself.

  Chai had broken the news to Suda earlier in the day: He had managed to get to her before the smuggling ring he’d infiltrated had, but there were unexpected repercussions. Gan, the man who ran Suda’s brothel back in Thailand, wasn’t happy that his cargo had escaped, so he was sending his right hand—Aanwat—to find her. The local affiliate didn’t know what she looked like, but Aanwat did, and he was charged with getting her back.

  Aanwat

  “I see tall buildings,” Aanwat’s young seat companion intoned excitedly to his exhausted mother as she gathered the detritus of a fourteen-hour trip into a large straw bag. The boy clutched his stuffed elephant and held him to the window so he too could see the view.

  Aanwat also looked out the window of the plane and saw the expanse of the city as they made their descent. The topography of San Francisco was very different than that of Thailand. There was no lush green to be seen. Just a sprawl of buildings, roads, houses and then the bay beyond.

  When the plane doors opened, he was expelled into a cacophony of foreign languages spoken by the tapestry of humanity found at San Francisco International Airport. It had been his first plane trip and, if he didn’t figure out what had happened to Suda, it would be his last. And beyond that, he was pretty sure he would end up in something worse than a shipping container. He would find her. He was determined. Gan had saved his life when he was a boy, so he would do what it took to make things right for him now.

  The only information they’d received was that, upon arrival, she was not inside the closed and locked container. The food and water were gone, shit covered the floor, but Suda was nowhere to be seen. The door had been shut and locked when she’d left; he’d seen to that himself. And from the description, she’d been in the container for the entire trip. So what had happened to her? There was no evidence of tampering; how had she gotten out? And once free, where had she gone? That’s what he had been sent here to learn, but he was completely out of his depth. This wasn’t just arranging a price for an hour of pleasure with a karaoke girl. It was organized. International. He hadn’t even wanted in initially, but Gan had, and now here he was: searching for Suda in San Francisco, California. He had thought California was supposed to be full of surfers and hot weather,
but this city was cold and foggy. Just his luck.

  Although his English wasn’t at all fluent, he had picked up enough from tourists over the years to help him get by in basic conversations, but he didn’t know how to read a word of it, and the alphabet was indecipherable. In addition, it appeared that there were no tuk tuks for hire to get him to his hotel.

  Claire

  “Claire,” Simone called up the stairs to the whip-thin, damaged young woman who, until Suda had appeared in the night almost two weeks ago, had been the newest resident of Hope House. Both Simone and Grace despaired that this beautiful girl, whose rare smiles never reached her eyes, wouldn’t be able to heal until the impenetrable shield she had erected around herself softened. For almost four months, she had stonewalled kindness and eschewed the advice of her therapist.

  “You’re late for the bakery.” Simone was careful to keep her tone soft. She climbed the stairs to see what was keeping her. She peeked into Claire’s room and saw her standing in front of the mirror above her dresser, dragging fingers through her straggly blond hair. She twisted it into a knot on her head and secured it with a pencil because she couldn’t find a hair elastic in the chaos that was her room. That morning, Claire didn’t have the energy to wash her hair—or even comb it if she was honest with herself. Or maybe she just didn’t feel like it. Either way, Simone made her keep it pulled back when she worked in the bakery, and it was her shift, so up it went.

  Claire knew she had to work with the new girl that morning. She couldn’t figure that chick out; aside from the language barrier, Suda kept to herself, and Claire found it boring.

  Claire could tell that Simone was becoming frustrated with her, especially when Simone closed her eyes for a long moment after Claire instigated something or another. She breathed deeply and then purposefully redirected Claire as if it wasn’t obvious what Simone was doing. Claire’s therapist had told her to focus on her own healing and not interfere with the mechanisms others use to cope, but whatever. She needed to keep things interesting in one way or another.

  Grace was the only one here who really understood her moody behavior because she had been in the same situation. Now she constantly hugged Claire, encouraged her to just hang on, and told her that things would get better. That had better happen soon, Claire thought, because she missed the content feeling that she got when she was taking the Percocet. She missed it a lot. In fact, she could really use one now.

  “Yeah, I’m coming,” she muttered to Simone, as she slouched past her and went down the stairs into the bakery’s kitchen.

  “Great,” Simone followed her downstairs and then handed her the cappuccino she’d made before she’d come upstairs to track her down. It was just the way Claire liked it; milky and sweet.

  Claire grunted her thanks but made sure Simone didn’t think she felt all warm and fuzzy toward her just because she gave her a coffee.

  She saw Suda tying on her apron, her long black hair twisted into a tight braid at the back of her head. She was still too skinny and small, but she was looking healthier these days, Claire had to admit, although her eyes still got a weird vacant look sometimes.

  Simone passed Suda a Thai tea, and Suda pressed her palms together.

  “Kap khun kha,” she said.

  “Fuck,” Claire mumbled under her breath and shook her head. She hated it when people were all gracious to each other.

  “Hey, no swearing,” Simone reminded her.

  “Sorry,” Claire said half-heartedly. She knew the rule just fine, but swearing was one of her ways of keeping things lively around here.

  “So, what’s on the list this morning?” she asked with a dry, subtly snarky tone.

  “Croissants. Lots of croissants.” Simone answered.

  “Ah f …,” she started to say again.

  “Claire!” Simone gave her a look.

  “I know; I know,” she answered. “But I hate making croissants. They’re so labor intensive.”

  “You can hate something and still be polite,” Simone said. “Besides, it’s a good skill to have,” she countered. “If you can make the perfect buttery, flaky croissant, you’ll be set for life.”

  “If you live in France, maybe.”

  “Ha,” Simone countered. “Croissant makers are a dime a dozen there. Here’s where the skill comes in handy.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Claire said, downed her cappuccino, and tied on her apron.

  Even though she missed the Percocet and hated getting up early, she did appreciate the feeling of safety and having her own room that she knew wouldn’t be breached. She was sheltered, secure, and getting three square meals a day without having to put out—at least not sexually—she told herself as she reached for the flour. Baking bread was a better deal than that, she had to admit. And now Simone and Grace were starting to prattle on about her going back to school so she could earn her high school equivalency. She hated the idea of being stuck in night school with a bunch of losers whom she had run academic circles around before everything happened, but on the other hand, books and learning were her bag, so to speak.

  “Simone, when do I get to work in the front of the house again?”

  For now, Claire was still working in the back of the house, as Simone called it. Baking bread, croissants, scones, tarts. It wasn’t Claire’s favorite way to spend the wee hours of the morning.

  “When I feel confident that you won’t yell at some poor schmo who just wants to compliment you on your gorgeous blonde hair.”

  “My hair is no one’s business.”

  “I get it, Claire. I absolutely do, but you can’t call a customer an ‘asshole’ because he tells you you’re pretty.”

  “I know. I know,” Claire held up her hands in surrender, but Simone knew if she let Claire work in the front at this juncture, it would happen again. It had happened the last two times Claire had sweet-talked Simone into letting her try working the register. For now, Claire couldn’t help it. One questionable comment from someone she didn’t like the looks of, and that was it. Simone didn’t blame her. She had been subjected to too many comments by too many johns over the years. She’d lost the ability to differentiate between a suggestive comment and a simple compliment. And her pretty face and blonde hair were compliment magnets, as much as she tried to hide them behind her baseball cap and large, black-framed glasses.

  She was getting more patient, though. Claire could feel it when she was in group therapy and some annoying chick was blathering on. She used to storm out, but now she sat there and listened. She sometimes even threw in a helpful comment or two if she was feeling generous.

  And now here was Suda who looked as if she’d been through the ringer worse than any of them. She was so skinny that she looked like she could have been blown away by the slightest breeze those first few days. Claire had done her best to overhear as much as she could from the snippets of conversation circulating. Although she didn’t have the whole story, the words she had encountered most were “storage container” and “hiding,” and surviving that, she must admit, did instill a certain amount of respect for the young Thai woman in their midst.

  When Simone showed Suda around after she was strong enough to get a tour, the young woman had paused at the threshold of Claire’s room, taking in the shelves and piles of books, and Claire clearly detected a hunger in her gaze. Maybe she was a kindred spirit when it came to reading, Claire thought. She would have to wait to find out, because as of now, they couldn’t say two words to each other.

  Suda

  When she was first unloaded like a sack of dry goods onto Simone’s couch, Suda was alert enough to be terrified, but her body wouldn’t get up and run as she was instructing it to do. She laid there, limp. After that, she didn’t remember being asleep or waking up, exactly. It was more like floating in a warm sea. She was weak and famished, and either she was hallucinating it, or someone was gently spooning chicken bro
th into her mouth. It tasted nourishing and slightly salty, and she felt her body respond to each small amount. Some of it dripped down her chin, and even that felt good. It warmed her for an instant before someone wiped her face with a cloth. She couldn’t remember being treated delicately since she was a small girl, back when her parents were alive. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but at some point, the voice of one woman was joined by another, and she felt their arms lifting her and placing her in warm water, all the while talking to her in smooth, calm voices in a language she couldn’t understand. The water felt silky and primal. Floating, floating—just living and nothing else. Breathing in; breathing out. Neutral.

  Although she wasn’t sure why, she trusted the women. Eyes closed in the warm bath, she felt gentle hands shampoo her hair; their fingertips tentatively scrubbing her scalp clean. They used a bath sponge to rub off layers of dirt, gently cleansing her skin, bruised from rough encounters with ridged metal, having been tossed against the floor and container walls by surging waves. Her body had long ceased being her own, so any sense of modesty she’d had was long gone. Her nudity was inconsequential to her, so she simply embraced the cocoon of warmth.

  As the water became tepid, she was helped out of the tub and into warm pajamas, then tucked into a bed—the blankets unusually heavy on her delicate frame. Her fatigue was so deep she felt it down to her bones. She hoped more broth would be spooned into her mouth again soon. She would figure out a way to escape later, she decided, and allowed herself to sleep.

  Hushed voices inside, street noises outside, and another language being spoken entered Suda’s consciousness. Car horns and the distant wailing of a siren jarred her further to the surface. For weeks she had heard only the wind’s shrill call and the creaking of the ship; now this. She sensed that she was in the midst of a city at night; there was that certain undercurrent—a muted symphony of sounds that indicated being surrounded by vast, yet mostly sleep-quieted humanity and the strum of their machines. She remembered the sensation she’d experienced when she arrived in Chiang Rai in contrast to the quiet hillside where she had grown up. The sounds and smells had overwhelmed her at first, but then they had gradually dulled—like an overloud auntie whom one learned to tune out. She turned over and allowed sleep to envelop her once more.