Later, he bought me an ice cream sundae and a t-shirt from the monastery gift shop to commemorate the miraculous occasion. As an afterthought, he also bought me a small canteen, to remind me to hydrate properly in high places. He told everyone we met what had happened, squeezing my small shoulders, beaming down at me. They all thought it was amazing, simply amazing. I even received a bouquet of wildflowers and a kiss on the cheek from the dreadlocked boy. He had a large gap between his two front teeth, the kind that made you want to put something in there.

Luke liked this story, as I knew he would. He pressed me for details. He agreed that it was generous. He agreed that it was amazing. “There’s something special about you,” he said. “That much is clear.” He hugged me again, slipping his hand under my t-shirt in a way that might have been utterly unintentional and might have been a declaration. When he let go, I scanned his face for the answer, but he showed no sign, or the sign was too obscure, or I had invented it entirely.

I didn’t tell Luke that the fight my parents had after we returned from that trip was worse than any before. I remember it like this: I lost consciousness, and when I regained it, my father moved out. There must have been time between the two, but in my memory, he doesn’t even unpack. We drive away from the lap of the giant Buddha, and when we get to our house, he simply drops me off and keeps going. Still, I had thought that trip was the start of something, as well as the end. Our secret. I thought there was something we shared. But he never invited me along again.

Related, perhaps: once, I found my mother lying in her bed, fully clothed, alone, the sheets black with her hair. When I asked her what she was doing, she raised an arm into the air. “Your father,” she said, “is a beautiful vessel.” I waited. After a while, she raised the other arm, as if hoping to be lifted from the sheets by an enormous mother of her own. “But there’s a hole in the bottom,” she said.