Seventeen

The next morning Mai poked her head through the opening of Ngoc and Lan’s section of the tent. “Did you hear that cry last night?”

Ngoc, her cheeks wrinkled with the lines of sleep, looked up. “No.”

It must have been a dream. Was Hiep haunting her now because she had left him?

“Where is Lan?” asked Mai, noticing Lan’s empty hammock.

“I don’t know. She must have risen before me.” Ngoc ran her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair and yawned. Mai slipped on her dép and gathered a pot and a small handful of rice. Little islands of smoke from cooking fires dotted the beach. She approached her fire pit, relieved to see it hadn’t been disturbed in the night. Who had cried out? Maybe it had only been a bird. She added a few twigs to the smoldering coals and a flame shot up.

A crackling sound, the woody smell of smoke. A cup of cold water and a handful of rice. She poured these into the cooking pot and balanced it over the fire, scanning the beach for Lan. Where could she be? A voice nagged at Mai: Go find her. As soon as the rice had cooked, she decided. The smell made her ravenous; her stomach rumbled. Then she felt a tap on the shoulder. Startled, she turned around. Kien, a bucket of sea cucumbers in his hand, gave her a broad-toothed grin.

“I’ve brought you a treat for your breakfast,” he said, pushing the bucket toward her.

“Kien, I’m so glad to see you. Have you seen Lan? Ngoc and I couldn’t find her this morning.”

Kien set the bucket on the sand. “She’s probably gone for water. Have you checked the well?”

Mai felt foolish as she realized that she and Ngoc hadn’t actually searched for Lan. Of course, Lan would be back. But the voice still harped at her. Go find her. Could the cry in the night have been Lan’s? No, Kim and Ngoc would have heard it, sleeping in the same tent with her.

“It’s just that she was so upset about Uncle Hiep. She loved him, you know.” Mai lowered her eyes and blushed.

Kien took Mai’s hand. “I’ll help you find her. You stay here, in case she comes this way, and I’ll go to the well.”

Mai smiled. “Thank you, Kien. I know I’m probably worrying for nothing.”

“I’m sure she’s all right.” He squeezed her hand and she watched the curve of his back through his T-shirt, the tight muscles in his calves, as he strode down the beach.

One morning a week earlier she and Lan had been sitting on the beach knitting as a Malaysian soldier with a wide grin on his pock-marked face emerged from a thicket of bamboo trees on the edge of the jungle, his long rifle slung over his shoulder, a belt of bullets shining against the dark green of his uniform. The girls cringed and followed him with their lowered eyes. His skin, much darker than theirs, and his eyes, large and deep and separated by a sharp nose, had added to their fright. His fingers fumbled with his belt buckle. Then he’d headed away from them, whistling to himself. Ten minutes later a young girl stumbled onto the beach crying, clutching her shoulders, her dark hair disheveled, her blouse torn.

“What’s the matter with her?” Mai had wondered aloud.

Lan had continued to knit, her head down. Mai watched the girl. She fell down in the shallow waves, scrubbing her legs as if trying to wash away a stubborn stain.

“She’s a bad girl.” Lan pointed her knitting needles at her and pursed her lips.

“Why?” Mai persisted.

“She and that soldier. She did something bad with him.”

“What?” Mai dropped her needles in her lap. Silence.

“You don’t want to know.” Lan turned her face away from Mai so that all she could see was her profile. “That’s how girls get extra food. I would rather starve.” Lan dropped a stitch and leaned close to her knitting to try to find it.

The girl turned from the waves and lurched her way up the beach to her tent.

“Stay away from girls like that,” Lan warned.

Mai had known better than to ask any more questions. The commanding tone of Lan’s voice told her this was all of the information she was going to give. Mai had looked up from her knitting out to sea, where a gull dove toward the glassy surface for a fish.

Something was bothering Lan. A sadness had replaced the sparkle in her eyes.

Ngoc came out of the tent, jolting Mai’s reverie. “Kien went to the well to find Lan,” Mai called.

Ngoc nodded, cupping her chin in her hands. “I thought she would be back by now.”

The girls looked at each other, mute. Mai squatted by the fire and stirred the rice. Almost done. She tasted a spoonful, hot on her tongue, the grains soft. Shifting the pot off the fire, she spooned the rice into her tin bowl and sat on her heels, watching the steam rise in the morning air. The rice stuck in her throat. Ngoc knelt beside her. Mai gestured toward the pot. Ngoc shook her head.

“I’m not hungry. I think I’d better go look for Lan. She usually tells me when she’s going somewhere.”

Mai hesitated. “Did she tell you that she loved Uncle Hiep?”

Ngoc’s head jerked around. “She never said a word to me. Why do you say that?”

Mai could hear anger in Ngoc’s voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I must be mistaken.” She looked down at the rice in her chopsticks. Her hands shook and she dropped the rice in the sand. Why was Ngoc angry with her? What was wrong with loving Hiep?

By noon there was still no Lan. Kien and Mai had gone to the middle of the island to collect their rations. Mai had even stopped to ask Miss Cindy if she’d seen Lan. Cindy’s blue eyes narrowed in concern. She shook her head. No, she had not seen her.

When they returned, the bags of food over their shoulders, Ngoc was slumped on a rock in the shade of a palm tree, staring at a seashell in her hands.

“Well, was she there?” Ngoc asked, jumping up and running toward them. She stumbled on a branch in the ground and fell on her face at their feet. The shell skittered across the sand. Kien leaned over to help her up, but she pushed his hand away and stood up by herself. Drops of perspiration covered her face and her thick black hair fell over her eyes. She leaned over and retrieved the shell.

“We couldn’t find her,” Kien answered.

They unpacked the canned goods from the bags, stacked them in the tent on the bench, and then joined Kim in the shade of a palm eating leftover rice from breakfast. “She’ll be back by dinner, wherever she is. Don’t worry,” said Kien, brushing a fly from his bowl of rice.

But the sun began its afternoon descent toward the horizon and Lan did not return.

“We should have checked the clinic. Do you think she’s sick and didn’t tell us?” Kien asked.

“She would have told me if she wasn’t feeling well,” Ngoc said, frowning

Mai spent the sultry afternoon with Kien, trying to practice writing the English alphabet, her eyes popping up from the paper every minute to survey the beach. Then the foursome squatted around the fire pit for the evening meal, eating slowly in a depressed silence.

“When was the last time you saw her, Ngoc?” Kien asked.

Ngoc finished swallowing her mouthful of rice. “She was in the tent with me. She told me she was going out to look at the stars. I fell asleep before she came back. I never thought … ” Ngoc began to cry. “I should have stayed awake until she came back. I should have gone with her.”

“Something might have happened to her on the beach last night,” Mai said. “Does it look like she slept in her hammock?”

“No. Her blanket was folded,” Ngoc said.

“Were there any soldiers around here last evening?” asked Mai, remembering the Malaysian soldier she and Lan had seen coming out of the woods.

“No soldiers,” Kien said.

“We’ve got to find her.” Mai’s voice was insistent. “Before it’s too late.”

The three stared at Mai.

“You don’t think she’d harm herself, do you?”Kim asked.

Mai’s eyes gave the answer. Dying of love might not just be in operas, she thought.

“Maybe she has gone to the mainland to make sure Hiep’s body has been properly buried,” Kien said.

Mai brightened. “Let’s go to the pier and see if anyone has seen her leaving the island.”

“I’ll go with you, Mai. Kim and Ngoc, why don’t you stay here in case she returns?” Kien brushed the strands of dark hair from his eyes. Mai loved those eyes, blue as the sky. They made her feel safe. If anything happened to Kien, she would not know what to do. Would she run away? Would she die of sadness? Kien held her hand as they walked down the beach to the rock crossing. His hand, so solid, so strong. She tightened her grip. Kien turned and looked at her. He squeezed her hand and continued walking.

No one had seen Lan at the Red Cross tent. No one had seen Lan at the pier. No one had seen Lan at the market. They questioned children playing in the waves, women carrying water from the wells, men unloading cabbages by the food tent. They called Lan’s name from the edge of the jungle to the ocean’s waves, but there was no answer.

Where was she? How could she disappear on such a small island? Mai thought of the jungle, the dense undergrowth, the mountains, their steep cliffs. A place where no one ventured.

Discouraged, Mai and Kien picked up their canned food and returned to the camp.

“Maybe Lan has come back while we were gone,” Mai said, hoping that they had all been worried for nothing.

“Wouldn’t that be great?” Kien answered, his voice hoarse from calling Lan’s name.

But Lan hadn’t returned and Mai wasn’t sure what else to do. Didn’t she know they were sad enough without having to worry about her? How selfish of her. She would tell Lan how angry she was when she returned. She watched the young men and women carrying water, washing dishes, building fires as if nothing had happened. Mai listened for Lan’s lilting voice above the singsong chatter, imagining her running down the beach laughing at them for worrying about her. Why had Lan disappeared?

When the darkness draped the island with a sequined stretch of velvet, Mai shivered even though the night air was warm. Lan was still gone. Kien, Kim, and Ngoc huddled together by the fire. Kien was the first to speak.

“Should we ask the soldiers? Maybe they’ve seen her. They’re supposed to be protecting us.”

“No. We can’t trust them. If she tried to sneak away from the island, they’ll just punish her.” Mai’s arm brushed against his.

“It’s so hard to wait,”Ngoc complained.

“Where might she have gone?” asked Kien. He looked at Kim, who sat silently regarding them. “What do you think, Kim? You haven’t spoken.”

“My heart is too sad,” whispered Kim, wringing her hands.

“I’m still thinking about that cry I heard last night. What if it was Lan? What if someone attacked her?” Mai clenched her hands. “We should search the beach.”

“But you’re the only one who heard it. No one else did,” said Ngoc.

“Maybe you were sleeping too soundly. I might have been dreaming, but maybe not. It’s worth a look.” Mai looked at Kien.

“I’ll go with you. We might find something,” Kien replied.

After a dinner of rice and sea cucumber prepared by Ngoc, Mai and Kien walked in the wet sand, watching the waves curl and crash while the horizon swallowed the egg-round sun.

“What’s that?” Mai asked. A wave had deposited a single dép on the beach. Kien walked over the picked it up, dangling it between his fingers.

“Look, there’s another one.” Mai pointed to a spot farther down the beach. She ran to pick it up before the waves came and reclaimed it. “They match,” she said holding the lone black dép next to the one Kien held. “And they’re both the same size.”

She held them sole to sole. Small, a woman’s. It wasn’t the first time she’d discovered objects on the beach. Fishing boats packed with refugees had been landing almost weekly. She knew that many didn’t make it. Tales of broken engines and men, women, and children adrift in the ocean with nothing to eat for days haunted her. Thai pirates often attacked, throwing refugees overboard to be eaten by sharks, remnants of their meager belongings washing upon the island’s shore.

Mai carried the dép back to their tent, followed by Kien. Was Kien thinking what she was thinking? I have to show these to Ngoc, just to make sure, she thought. Strange, she had spent so much time with Lan, but she couldn’t remember what her dép looked like. Ngoc would know.

Mai handed them to Ngoc. Ngoc held one in each hand and gingerly turned them over. She traced her finger around the edge of one, feeling the wetness of the rubber. A tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto the sole of the dép. She handed them back to Mai and nodded. “Where did you find them?” she asked.

“By the water’s edge. Down there.” Mai pointed toward the spot.

“They look like hers. The left one had a hole in the bottom.” Ngoc ran the tip of her finger around a small hole in the rubber sole.

“Maybe she went for a swim and forgot them,” Kien said, his arms folded across his chest.

“She doesn’t know how to swim.” Ngoc knelt and placed the dép carefully on the sand, next to each other.

Abandoned. Lost. Mai’s chest hurt looking at them.

“I’m tired. I need to lie down,” Ngoc whispered, slipping inside the tent.

“I’m going to go with her,” Mai said to Kien. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

She found Ngoc curled into a tight round ball on her sleeping mat, her eyes fixed on the tarp above her. “Ngoc, we’ll find her. She couldn’t have gone very far.”

Ngoc turned her head toward Mai, her eyes red and swollen from weeping. “It’s all my fault,” she cried.

“What is it, Ngoc? What are you talking about?” A prickling sensation ran up Mai’s arms as she leaned over.

Ngoc croaked, “There’s something I haven’t told you. I haven’t told anyone. It’s a secret.”

“Is it about Lan? Tell me.” Mai grabbed Ngoc’s arm and pulled it toward her. Ngoc yelped. Mai released her grip and saw her fingerprints on Ngoc’s flesh. Ngoc looked at her and then at her arm.

“You mustn’t tell. Our family honor would be ruined.” Ngoc’s voice was so quiet Mai had to move close, so close she could feel the soft wind of Ngoc’s breath on her cheek. “Before Hiep died … ”

“Yes?” Mai’s neck began to hurt.

“Before Hiep died she told me why she was no longer able to eat in the morning.” Ngoc interlaced her fingers as if she were holding the secret inside them.

Mai had no idea what Ngoc was talking about. Was Lan sick? If she was sick, she would have gone to the clinic, not run away.

“She stopped her kinh, her monthly bleeding.” Ngoc gave Mai a knowing look, but Mai still didn’t understand what Ngoc was saying. She had heard the girls talking, saying their kinh didn’t come some months because of lack of food. But there was another reason to skip your kinh … An ominous reason. Mai bit the inside of her lip.

“She’s going to have a baby,” Ngoc gulped, her cheeks blushing pink as the sky at sunset. She averted her eyes from Mai’s.

“No, that can’t be,” said Mai. “You must be mistaken. Who? How?”

Then she remembered Small Auntie’s words when she’d explained the blood between Mai’s legs. Some day you will have babies. But didn’t you have to be married to have babies?

“Lan wasn’t married. How could she have a baby?” Mai asked.

Ngoc frowned at her. “You don’t have to be married to have a baby.”

“Not Lan, not Lan. She’s not a bad girl,” Mai cried, sinking to her knees, her hands tearing at her blouse. Ngoc stroked Mai’s hair.

“No, Mai, she’s not a bad girl. She just made a mistake, but it’s a mistake that could ruin her honor and our family’s. She was very upset. I’m afraid of what she might do.”

Mai turned her head and pulled Ngoc’s face to hers. “Who is the father? Who would have done this terrible thing?” she demanded.

“She told me,” breathed Ngoc. “It was Hiep.”

Mai dropped her hands and dug her nails into her bare legs. “But I thought … I thought …”

“I know. They were very careful to keep their love a secret. But Lan couldn’t keep it a secret from me. She had to tell someone she was going to have a baby. She doesn’t want to have the baby without Hiep.”

“We have to find her,” said Mai, tugging at Ngoc’s wrist. “We can’t let her do anything to herself or the baby. Uncle Hiep’s baby.”

How happy they could all have been, with Lan and Hiep married and a baby to take care of. A little miracle out of all this sadness. A baby to hold and love and remind them that despite all the killing, there was still some beauty in life, some innocence. If they found Lan, Mai could help her with the baby, and they could make up a story about it. The baby’s parents had died and they had offered to care for it, raise it. Mai knew many refugee families who had taken in orphaned children. That was it: the baby was an orphan. It wouldn’t be easy. The doctor, maybe he would help. When she told Ngoc her plan, Ngoc just stared at her, unblinking.

“I need to talk to the doctor. Maybe Lan told him her secret. Maybe he can help us.”

“But I asked you not to tell anyone. Please, Mai. Our family’s honor … ”

Mai remembered her father reminding her to always uphold their family’s honor. Sometimes that’s all you had left. “Maybe I could just ask the American doctor if he has seen Lan. That wouldn’t give away her secret.”

“All right,” Ngoc conceded, “but please don’t tell him she’s pregnant.”

“You’re right. I won’t go. I don’t think he would know anything. She would have been too ashamed to go to him. But where could she be?” Mai wondered.

Just then Kim and Kien returned from gathering firewood, their arms laden with twigs from the jungle. Mai turned away from them and went into her tent. She didn’t want them to see her now. She needed to sit by herself and pray for Lan, for the baby. She would have been happy to have Lan in their family. She pictured Lan and Hiep in their beautiful clothes on their wedding day, Hiep in a handsome dark suit, Lan in a red áo dai, her face radiant with happiness, marrying for love.

If only, if only … there were too many “if onlys” on this island. If only Small Auntie’s husband had not died in the well cave-in, Hiep might be alive. If only Mai had held onto the gold bracelet, their luck would not have run out. If only Lan had told them she was pregnant, they could have helped her. If only, if only she could tell Kien about Lan. But she had to keep the secret for Lan’s sake.

Mai wondered about getting pregnant. She knew it had something to do with touching a boy, and she had been frightened the first time Kien tried to hold her hand. She had pulled away, embarrassed, and he had looked hurt. When she’d told Kim about it, Kim laughed and assured her that was not how babies were made. Kim had not elaborated, and Mai had not asked her although she was very curious. It had something to do with that blood between her legs. How she hated that monthly stream. Especially having to wear that rag, hot and bothersome, and smelly.

“Mai, are you all right?” Kien stood on the other side of the rice bag partition. Mai wiped her eyes with the edge of her blouse and pinched her cheeks.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I have some news about Lan.” Kien’s voice was solemn.

“Come in. What is it?” Mai sat up on the bench, her legs folded beneath her.

“Some fishermen … early this morning … ”

“Tell me. You have to tell me.” Mai scrambled off the bench and stood facing Kien.

“They found a young girl’s body floating in the water.” Kien raked his hand through his hair.

“Is it Lan? Where is she?”

“The body is at the clinic. No one has identified it yet. I just heard from some women who were getting food. We should go see if it’s her.”

“Does Ngoc know?” Mai could feel the soft ocean breeze as it blew through the tent and tossed the hanging rice bags aside.

“Yes, Kim is telling her now. It might not be Lan. Many bodies are found out there when fishing boats hit the coral reefs and break up.”

Mai remembered the bodies lying in the sand behind the clinic. Mothers and fathers with children, who had braved the ocean to escape to freedom. Not the freedom the Communists offered, of re-education camps and killing, but the freedom they’d had before the Americans left and the Communists had taken over South Vietnam. Only to die in the sea. But Lan was brave. Lan was strong. And Lan was lucky. Oh, Lan, you have traveled so far. Please, please, don’t let this be you.

The four friends trudged in the twilight down the beach to the clinic, crossing at the rocks with ease because of the low water level. The blood-red sun hovered on the horizon, slowly dying to the night while the waves moaned beneath it. Mai dragged her feet in the sand, her depleted body no longer a part of her, merely a puppet that she manipulated.

She remembered the pregnant woman who had died on the fishing boat. She remembered her husband’s wails and how she had covered her ears. She remembered the splash as the body slipped into the sea. Please Buddha, please. Don’t let it be her. Did she want it to be someone else? Yes, she did.

She remembered the first time she’d met Lan. The mole on her cheek, the way her hair fell over her eyes. The gentle touch of her hand as she proclaimed them family. The offer of her mother’s ring. She’d been more of a sister than her own sister.

Lan had helped her survive life on the island, where the days dragged by with a dreary sameness she had not anticipated, a dreamlike existence of work-filled mornings drawing water and standing in line for food and hotter-than-she-could-bear afternoons spent languishing in her hammock, even the flies too hot to circle above her.

Hiep, the playboy. She had heard these words in laughing asides from her cousins, their hands cupped to their mouths, but without understanding what they meant. Hiep had had a gentle, easy manner that the girls had always liked. If Lan was dead, it was his fault. His fault. No one else’s. Maybe that was why he had died. Guilty of two deaths, Lan’s and Sang’s. Oh, Uncle Hiep, you’re not who I thought you were.

Her lungs expanded, gasping for air, thinking of Lan walking into the sea, swallowing the salt water, the sea swallowing her and her unborn baby. Conscious of each breath she took, Mai wondered what it felt like to struggle for air as the salt water seeped into your lungs until you could do nothing but surrender

Shadows danced on tent walls illuminated by homemade candles. A baby’s hungry whimper, the clucking sound of a mother’s voice somewhere in the night: no, no, not now. Behind the Red Cross tent, a young man lifted the blanket off the figure prone in the sand. He knelt next to her holding a candle near her face, rotating it so that the dark did not mask her features, and through the wavering light Mai could see the dried salt crystals flecking the black hair matted against the hollow cheeks, the thin line of her nose, the arch of her brow and the lips, dark and swollen. And the mole. Where was the mole? She needed the mole.

“Move the candle.” Mai knelt next to the body, brushed the matted hair aside, and touched the waxen cheek. Smooth and unmarked as a perfect pearl. The candle wick sputtered and the light dimmed.

“No mole,” she said the words out loud to Ngoc, Kim, and Kien, who were circled around the corpse. “No mole.” Leaning over the body, she pointed with her index finger at the unmarked cheek. Then she stood up and smiled slightly at the others, digging her hands into her pockets.

“We have another body over here,” said the young man, pointing to a shape in the shadows. “She was found along the shore this morning. Do you want to look?” He held the candle suspended above the second corpse.

Mai peered down at a gray-haired woman, her face a forest of wrinkles. She shook her head and walked back to the first corpse.

“We’ve got to bury them in the morning. The heat,” the young man added apologetically, covering the dead girl’s face with the blanket as if he were tucking in a child at bedtime.

“But what if someone is looking for her?” Mai edged away from the dead girl. Whose daughter was she? Was there someone out there missing her? Or had they all drowned?

“We get so many bodies. They have to be buried.” The young man shrugged his shoulders. Not his decision. Not his responsibility, thought Mai. What if it were his sister, dead and unidentified?

“We do keep photos so that relatives can identify them. But there are so many. So many no one knows. The boats sink and the ocean casts them on our shore. Some dead. Some alive. Luck. You’ve got to be lucky.” He wiped his hands on his shorts and cleared his throat. “You could always put your sister’s name on the Red Cross bulletin board as a missing
person.”

Mai eyed Ngoc, who stared at the ground, her hands clasped.

“That’s a good idea,” Kien said.

“No,” Ngoc said, her jaw tense. “No. We’ll find her.” The wick on the candle had burned down to the oil, shrinking the flame to a pinpoint. “Thank you for your help,” Ngoc said to the young man, backing away from the bodies.

Mai reached for her hand and Ngoc let her take it. The four followed the ocean’s edge, the roar of the waves crescendoing against the darkness.

If you wanted to run away on an island, where would you go? You couldn’t go far. But you could hide if someone helped you. The pregnancy would become a problem once Lan started to show. How would she explain it? She would be an outcast. Mai’s head throbbed.

“She could have gone to the mainland,” Kim said.

“Impossible,” countered Ngoc. “You can’t just get on a boat. You have to have permission.”

Mai shook her head. She was certain Lan was dead. The image of the drowned girl wouldn’t leave her. In her mind, she could see Lan’s face on the body.

Kien brushed some sand off his leg and looked at Mai. “We’ll find her.” He touched her chin. She stared into his eyes. “Let’s sleep. Tomorrow we can start again.”

They slept on the beach that night, under a palm tree curled up in a circle, too tired to go back to camp, and it was too late anyway. The mournful pounding of the waves was their lullaby. Mai dreamed of Lan’s ghost gliding along the beach, holding a baby in her arms. The baby made no sound and did not move.

Hunger pangs woke her. The sun sat on the horizon, staring at her. She woke the others and they stood in line for their breakfast rations, cream-filled rolls and canned goods.

“I think I’ll stay down here and look around,” Ngoc said, licking her fingers after stuffing the roll in her mouth.

“Me too,” Mai offered, her stomach satisfied.

Kim and Kien wanted to stay too, but Ngoc shook her head. “Go back to camp. Maybe Lan has returned. We’ll be there in a little while.”

Kim hesitated, but Ngoc turned and walked away from her. Kim picked up the bag of canned food she had collected and frowned. Kien reached for Mai’s bag of food.

“Here, let me carry this back for you. It’s heavy, and it will be easier to search for Lan if you don’t have to carry this.”

Mai handed him the bag, their fingers touching and lingering together for a moment. How she wanted to tell him. She hated keeping a secret from him.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

Kien ambled down the beach with Kim, swinging the bags as he took long strides to Kim’s short mincing steps.

A throng of people crowded the pier, bags in their hands, waiting to board a small ship. Mai could hear their excited chatter. A woman with four children—one in her arms, another clinging to her blouse, and two holding hands behind her—stood in the back of the line. Mai could see the woman’s profile as she turned her head. Small Auntie.

Mai inhaled. They were leaving. This was the day. She wished she could say goodbye to the children. What would Small Auntie say if she went over to them? Did she know Minh had given her the bracelet? It was too late for her to try to take the bracelet away again. Mai wanted to say goodbye. She might never see them again.

“Wait for me here. I have something to do,” she said to Ngoc. She moved across the beach, where she could hear a man in uniform with a clipboard calling out names. The line started to move. Mai worked her short legs faster, faster. The passengers were boarding. She stepped out of her dép and barreled through the sand in her bare feet. “Minh, Minh, wait!”

Minh turned his head, but Small Auntie jerked him ahead of her onto the boat. Mai ran up on the pier as the captain gunned the engine. She could see Minh staring at her, his dark eyes searching under a shock of dark, shaggy hair. She waved, but he just stared at her.

As the boat turned to head out to the mainland, she saw a familiar figure crouched in the bow. She squinted in the sun. Their eyes met, and Mai waved and called to her. The girl’s hand moved in reply, as if in slow motion, and then she disappeared from sight. It was Lan.