by John Shors
The Westerner ordered a large Singha and continued to occasionally fondle the girl’s leg. Ian’s heart raced. He drank from his own beer to settle his nerves. Eating quickly, he tried to engage Mattie in conversation, even though he wasn’t really listening. She’d sense his indifference and be upset by it, but for the moment, he didn’t consider her feelings. Somehow he needed to help the girl.
Ian finished what remained of the fish and paid the bill. Mattie prepared to leave, but he wasn’t ready to go, and removed a deck of cards from his day pack and asked her if she’d like to challenge him to a game of blackjack. She looked annoyed but nodded and began to shuffle the cards. He watched the girl as they played, as Mattie beat him. A second and third antacid were consumed. He wiped sweat from his brow.
After about twenty minutes, the man handed the girl a set of keys. She got up from the table and started to make her way out of the restaurant. The man opened a fresh beer as Ian’s heart hammered away at his chest. “Let’s go, Roo,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“My stomach is throwing a bloody fit. We need to leave.”
“But, Daddy, I don’t—”
“Now, luv,” Ian said, sweeping the cards into a pile and dumping them into his pack. He took Mattie by the hand and led her from the restaurant, following the girl. She didn’t head toward the guesthouses along the beach, but toward the interior of the island, where the more worn-down bungalows resided. The girl walked with her head lowered, as if unaware of the beauty around her.
Ian glanced behind to make sure that the man wasn’t in sight. Seeing no one, he increased his speed and approached the girl, still holding Mattie’s hand. As the Thai walked past an intersection of paths, he caught up to her. “Please follow me,” he said, gesturing for her to turn to the right, toward the sea.
“What?”
“Please. Please follow me and my daughter.”
The girl glanced at Mattie, who looked back and forth between Ian and the local. Everyone was confused but Ian.
“Please,” Ian said again. “Just follow me for a moment. Just a tick.”
The girl nodded, turning to the right, away from her intended path. They walked another thirty feet and turned again.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” Mattie asked, tugging at his hand.
“Just trust me, luv. Please trust me. I’m doing what your mum would do.”
The trio proceeded for a few more minutes before Ian led the girls into a gathering of small bungalows. His heart thumped so hard it seemed to steal his strength. He understood that he was acting rashly, that his actions might lead to a confrontation that would scar Mattie. But he felt compelled to help the girl. If the man came and found them, Ian would have to deal with him. He wasn’t afraid of the stranger. Actually, he wouldn’t have minded confronting him, had they been alone. But Mattie mustn’t see or hear such an altercation.
Ian turned to the girl, feeling time rush past. “Do you miss your parents?” he asked, watching her eyes.
“What, mister?”
“Your parents? Do you want to go back to them?”
The girl shook her head. “Me have no money.”
“What if I gave you money? A heap of it. Would you go back to them?”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “Go back to them?”
“Right now. Would you hop on a longboat and buzz off this island? Then get on a train and go back to your family?”
The girl tried to speak but couldn’t, her tears dropping to the dirt path. She nodded, though, and Ian reached into his day pack and unzipped a secret compartment, pulling out three hundred-dollar bills and some large Thai notes. He handed the money to the girl, who still cried, but also smiled. Ian took off his Statue of Liberty baseball cap and placed it on her head. “Go to the far end of the beach,” he said, “away from where you ate dinner. Hire a longboat to take you to another island. And then tomorrow, jump on a ferry to Phuket. From there it should be no harder than hopscotch to get home. Just catch a bus or a train.”
“Why . . . why you help me?”
Ian smiled for the first time since he’d seen her. “Because I want you to be with your family. I have my beautiful daughter. I want your father to have his.”
The girl pursed her lips. “You think . . . you think he still love me?”
Ian put his hand on her shoulder. “I know he’ll still love you.”
“Thank you. Thank you, mister.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jaidee.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Jaidee. A real honor. Now go. Stay away from where that mongrel . . . Sorry . . . From where that man might walk. Go get a longboat and start the journey back to your parents.”
The girl looked at Mattie. “You so lucky,” she said, smiling, wiping away her tears. “Your father, he have good heart.”
Mattie still didn’t understand what was happening but she nodded. “Thank you.”
“Good-bye.”
Ian and Mattie said farewell and watched the girl hurry down the trail. She disappeared within seconds, and Mattie turned to her father. “Daddy, why wasn’t she with her parents? Why was she crying?”
He dropped to his knees so that he could look into Mattie’s eyes. “She was working for that man. She was . . . his guide. And she didn’t have enough money to get home. So we gave her some. And in a day or two she’ll be back with her parents.”
“Why were you worried about the man?”
“Well, he was her boss. And I told her to leave him. To go straight home. So he might be vexed about that. But there’s nothing to worry about, luv. She’s leaving and he’ll never know what happened. I guess he’ll just have to find his own bloody way back to Bangkok.”
“I hope he gets lost.”
“Me too, Roo. Me too.”
“Daddy, maybe we should go back to the beach, and see if she gets away.”
Ian thought about the prudence of returning to the beach. “How about a game of soccer?”
“With those boys?”
“That’s right.”
“And we can keep our eye out for Jaidee?”
“I reckon so.”
Mattie squeezed his hand, leading him back toward the beach. She still didn’t understand exactly what had happened but knew that they’d helped Jaidee. And this knowledge made her feel warm. As they walked past backpackers and banyan trees she began to hum, skipping along the path.
Ian found himself hoping that he’d spoken the truth, that Jaidee would find her family and be welcomed back into it. He longed to ensure such an outcome but didn’t know how. No amount of money or advice from him would help Jaidee. Her father would have to look into her eyes and want her back, despite her history and the whispers of his neighbors. He would have to see the gift of her, not the prejudices of others.
A few minutes passed before Ian and Mattie reached the beach. The boys were still playing soccer with several foreigners. Most of those playing wore no shoes or shirts. One red-haired girl kept up with the boys, sending crisp passes to her teammates. Mattie had been on soccer teams for most of her life but couldn’t remember hearing players laugh as much as the Thais did. They shrieked as they slid for the ball, stumbled in the sand, and tripped their opponents. Two bamboo poles with fishnet between them composed each goal. The ball was often sent sailing into the water, which stretched along one side of the field.
A Thai boy in shorts scored a goal, did a cartwheel in celebration, and then laughed with his friends. During this break in the action, Ian asked the locals if he and Mattie could play. The boys clapped encouragingly, placing the two of them on opposite teams. Mattie and Ian took off their sandals and were soon chasing the ball, trying to remember which of the many Thais were their teammates. At first the locals were deferential to Mattie, but once they saw that she could pass and defend, they pressed her at almost full speed. Ian was given no leniency. The Thais rushed at him whenever he had the ball, sliding out in front of him, sending him stumbling across the san
d. Though Ian hadn’t played soccer for years, he had once been good, and long-discarded skills flooded back to him. And as he played, a sense of weightlessness seemed to fill him. His stomach no longer ached. He laughed along with Mattie, chasing the white bouncing ball through the sand. He collided with her and felt her push against him, giggling, trying to trip him.
Every so often, he glanced at a dozen or so distant longboats, which resembled brown bananas floating on the tranquil waters. He saw Mattie look as well, and his pride in her swelled. After fifteen or twenty minutes, just as he started to grow nervous about what might have happened to Jaidee, he saw her, wearing his green and black baseball cap, walking with a Thai man toward a longboat. He helped her into the boat, the bow of which rested at the water’s edge.
The soccer ball flew into the sea and Ian nudged Mattie, nodding toward the distant boat. She saw what he did, and a smile alighted on her face. They watched Jaidee settle near the bow. The captain proceeded to the stern, where he started the motor and began to back the vessel out into the glowing waters. The sun was setting behind the boat, and Ian tried to see which direction Jaidee was looking. He thought that she might glance toward the beach, out of fear for the man, but instead she stared toward the dropping shimmering sun. She might have been looking toward home, toward her future. Wherever her gaze traveled, it wasn’t backward, into the past.
Finding Mattie’s hand, Ian held it tight. The boat picked up speed, sent spray into the air, rose and fell on gentle swells. It headed almost directly at the sun, which was now touching the horizon, spreading its soul across the sea and sky.
Ian waved at the disappearing boat with his free hand, and Mattie waved with him. The soccer ball was kicked again to the sand. The game resumed. But Ian stood still with Mattie, holding her, watching the boat and the girl vanish into the growing darkness, into a world void of light, but not of hope.
KATE LOOKED AT HIM FROM HER BED. Her eyes, once so blue and vibrant, were bloodshot and watery. He didn’t recognize them and failed to understand how they had changed so much. They weren’t the eyes of his wife, of the woman he had fallen in love with. No, the eyes he looked at now were those of a stranger, of someone who had been wandering in a desert and finally fell into the shade.
Her body mimicked her eyes. She’d once been strong and athletic. Her legs and arms, defined by subtle muscle and smooth skin, had carried little fat. Now she appeared withered, like fruit left too long on a branch. Her skin was wrinkled from her loss of weight. Her legs and arms looked like those of an old woman. Even her hair seemed to have aged, falling from her dying body, covering her pillow and sheets.
Only her mind remained intact. Her memory lingered, as did her ability to focus under most any circumstance. Sometimes she didn’t fight her illness as much as he wanted her to, but this change had come near the end, when she was so exhausted that not even the thought of her daughter could prompt her to battle on.
Ian leaned closer, kissing a freckle on her cheek, the same sort of freckle that Mattie had inherited. Kate sought to smile, but strength seemed to have fled even from her lips. When Ian saw her try to smile, and fail, his tears began anew. No matter how much he loved her, how strong the bond between them, she was being taken from him, and he could do nothing about it. He was utterly bereft of power, of hope. Though she was the one dying, he was also being ground to dust. With her gone, he knew, a part of him would go as well. One could not strip his world of color and expect that world to look the same.
“Once . . . I go,” she said, tears welling beneath her long lashes, “give all your love to her.”
He felt faint, as if he’d just run a race that he hadn’t trained for. Nodding, he turned and watched Mattie as she slept on a nearby couch. Midnight approached, and Mattie had finally closed her eyes an hour earlier. She’d cried herself to sleep in Kate’s arms, and Ian had later carried her to the couch. He had suffered such pain when lifting her from her mother, knowing that her mother would soon be stolen from her, and that she would grow up with only one parent, the parent she loved less.
“I think . . . I think I’m dying,” Kate said, her voice weaker than a whisper.
“No, my luv. Don’t tell me that. Please don’t tell me that.”
“I can’t . . . open my eyes. And it’s hard . . . to talk.”
“That’s not right,” he sputtered. “That can’t be right. You’re just knackered.”
“I can’t feel anything.”
His tears fell to her face and he carefully wiped them off. “The medicine . . . it’s too bloody strong. That’s why you can’t feel anything.”
“I’m going.”
“No, you’re not. That’s impossible.”
“I love you.”
He began to breathe too fast, causing the room to twist, his thoughts and vision to blur. “I’ll fetch a doctor.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I want . . . you to be happy.”
“I can’t be.”
Her brow furrowed as tears tumbled down her cheeks. “You have to be. For Mattie. For yourself.”
“Please don’t go.”
“Promise me . . . that you’ll make her happy. No matter what. Promise me, Ian. Please.”
“I can’t pr—”
“Please.”
He nodded, his forehead touching her chest. “I promise.”
“She’s been sad . . . for too long.” Kate paused, trying to fill her lungs, to be strong for her family’s sake. “Maybe . . . maybe you could remarry, give her a little sister. She’s always wanted one.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“It would be good . . . for her . . . and for you.”
“No.”
She nodded, perhaps to herself, perhaps to him. “Will you . . . tell me the story?”
“The story?”
“Of how you proposed.”
Ian closed his eyes, the memory of that day like a bag over his head, suffocating him. He didn’t want to relive the event but knew that Kate was desperate to. And so he gathered his reeling thoughts, focusing on the task at hand. “We . . . we’d been in Indonesia for a week,” he said quietly, stroking the side of her face. “In the Gili Islands. We . . .”
“Go on, Ian. Please.”
“I should get a doctor.”
“Please don’t stop.”
He felt the warmth between them, was afraid of the looming cold. “We had that bungalow with the wobbly ceiling fan. Right on the beach. Right in paradise.”
“I remember.”
“One morning . . . when you were knackered and reading, I went down to the water, near the reef. I had my mask and snorkel, a secret bottle of wine, and a ring. I swam out to where the water was calm, to a sandy place between the reef and shore.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head, longing to turn back the clock to that day, to relive that day a thousand times over. “I had tied the ring, and a weight, to the bottle. I dove down, maybe three meters, and set the bottle on the bottom. And then . . . then I took stones and shells and pieces of dead coral, and I spelled out, ‘Will you marry me?’ in the sand.”
“I remember . . . swimming out with you, hand in hand.”
“Me too.”
“I was so happy . . . to see what you’d done. I’d never been . . . so happy.”
Ian kissed her eyes, her lips. “Don’t go, luv. Stay with me. Please stay with me. We’ll . . . we’ll go back to that reef. Just like we planned.”
“I’ll stay. But not like before. My body . . . it’s shutting down. But something else . . . is opening.”
“Oh, Kate. Please don’t . . . shut down. Not now. I need more time. A heap more time.”
She tried to kiss him but could barely stir. “Would you . . . put Mattie next to me? Please? But don’t . . . don’t wake her. I don’t want her . . . to see me like this.”
Ian struggled to stand up. His vision remained blurry. His legs didn’t work properly
. Still, he lifted Mattie and laid her down next to Kate. He took Kate’s arm and put it around Mattie’s sleeping form. More tears emerged from Kate’s eyes, trickling down her face. Ian caught them with his forefinger as he stroked her cheek. He leaned over the bed, one hand on Kate, the other on Mattie. He tried to keep his family together, even as it was pulled apart, as he felt Kate growing weaker beside him. “Stay,” he whispered. “Please stay.”
“I will.”
His tears fell faster as finally, at the very end, he admitted to himself that she was dying. Once he understood the finality of the moment, he no longer tried to keep her from departing. Instead he thought about how he might make her journey better. “You don’t ever have to fret about Roo,” he said, touching Kate’s face, her hair, her hands. “I’ll give her everything possible. And she’ll smile. And laugh.”
“No one . . . can make her laugh like you.”
“And she will. Not next week . . . or next month. But we’ll get there, I reckon.”
“I love you,” she said, trying to squeeze his fingers.
Ian kissed her again. “Will you . . . take a part of us with you?” he asked, his voice strained and cracking. “Of each of us?”
“Yes. And . . . I’ll be with you . . . wherever you go.”
“I know.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m so tired, my love,” she whispered as he cried quietly, the beeps of various monitors interrupting her. “Will you tell . . . tell me another story? Of the day Mattie was born?”
He nodded, glancing at their sleeping girl, seeing Kate in her face. But instead of telling Kate the story of Mattie’s birth, he told her what he saw in their little girl, for he saw so many beautiful things. He saw Kate’s eyes, her mouth, her nose, her freckles. Even better, Kate had somehow infused her best qualities into Mattie, who was generous and loving, artistic and bold.
Ian continued to whisper as Kate’s breathing weakened. From time to time, the trace of a smile alighted on her face. Ian kissed these smiles, holding them with his lips until they left. He spoke about Mattie’s birth, their first family trip, and his love for them both. He told Kate a story about a boy from the Australian Outback who fell in love with a girl from Manhattan, whose soul merged with his. They began their life together with no money or power or wisdom, but they hadn’t needed such things. They were content having nothing but each other. Nothing else had mattered, he said, not when their love prompted them to write poetry, talk about creating a life together, feel each other’s pain.
