“Maybe that’s why she’s here.”

When they go back to her, Lin is asleep on the couch. Ruth covers her with one of the knitted afghans her mother made, then looks at Lin’s face. No matter what Ruth’s life has been, she can’t imagine the life of this girl, not even the country with its stone water-bowls in the streets, the many old bicycles, wheels blurring. She has traveled far. She has a hint of lip color. Ruth kisses the top of her head lightly. It has a human smell. It smells of hair that hasn’t been washed in a few days. It reminds her of Marco when he was young.

Ruth loves the girl already because she is the child of Thomas. She looks at her and sees him. She’s not the kind of woman who would be bothered by the other woman, the mother of Lin. Thomas, she realizes, was never her own. She tries to think of how to deal with Thomas and all of the pain that is about to hit him. Then she thinks, It is time. He has been protected too long.

Above them a night bird flies, calling out names, talking to the ocean and all the other currents moving within life: hope, need, desire, like being human.

The next day Ruth and Lin first go to the small gray house out on the rock. The trail there is steep, but it is beautiful. Lin looks at the black rocks protruding from the water like dragon teeth. Ruth clears her throat, then knocks on the door, announcing their presence. Usually people here whistle as they approach, or they hum. Sometimes the older men will drum. But Thomas knows Ruth’s voice and he is accustomed to her invasions.

Lin, who had been a girl afraid of nothing, then a woman with courage, is afraid when she arrives at her father’s small dark house on the black rocks. Will he remember her? She carries the fishbowl in her hands, worried she will drop it. She is now dressed in a pale pink American tee.

Ruth knocks first, then opens the door herself.

“Look who is here,” she says into the shadows. “It’s Lin.”

Thomas should reach out and pull Lin toward him right away. He should hold her and love her. He should say to the young woman fighting back tears, I’m so proud of you. Because she lived, if for no other reason. He’d spent years thinking of what he’d left her to. The boy-warriors from the Thai border. Cambodia. He stands up, but as soon as he sees her, Thomas thinks Lin looks like her mother. His chest aches, but he does not go to her. He says nothing to her except “Hello.” Even hello is a struggle for this man who should be so proud of this surviving girl. In one moment, he remembers too much. As the two women walk inside, he sits down on his unmade bed.

Lin looks at him and thinks, He is a small human being. All these years I thought so much of him, so large, so strong, but he’s only a man and we’re the same size.