Tears for Vivian

You stand with your husband on the balcony of a hotel room in Ao Nang, Thailand. Together, you watch the sky turn from pre-dawn pink to blue. It rained during the night and the air smells like damp teakwood and salt. Your hotel sits at the edge of town on top of a steep hill. As the sun rises, you contemplate the serenity of the Indian Ocean—a sea without waves.

“I have an earache, I’m not diving today,” your husband says.

The date is December 26, 2004, you have been in Thailand for twelve-days out and Ao Nong for five. You are in Ao Nong to scuba dive.

“Go without me,” he says. Your husband likes to dive but he knows that you love it. A former scuba instructor, there are times you feel more at ease under the water than on land.

You don’t respond. Trying to decide, you think about the previous day’s diving.

The visibility was over a hundred feet. You descended onto a reef teaming with violet and red fish and flush with yellow coral. A few minutes into the dive, you found a baby octopus in a hole. The other divers, including your husband, were a few feet in front of you. Staying back, you hovered in front of the octopus. At first, it seemed agitated. Its pale blue skin darkened to purple, but after a few seconds it faded back to blue, as if it knew you would not cause it harm. Still hovering, you slowed your breath so your bubbles would not frighten it. You half-expected it to dart back into its hole but it reached for you. Extending two fingers, you let it wrap the tip of its arm around them. For the rest of the dive, you sat motionless, tears pooling into the bottom of your mask, as the octopus’s rubbery cups suckled your skin.

“What do you want to do?” Your husband pulls you out of your reflection.

“I want to spend the day together.”

You and your husband have been married for two and a-half-years. Five months before, you suffered a miscarriage. This trip is for both of you. A promise for your future.

*

One of two daughters born to an abusive, alcoholic father and a mother who turned a blind eye to anything he did, you told yourself you’d never have children. For over twenty years, you did everything in your power to avoid getting pregnant. It is not until you are engaged to your husband, that you decide that you want to have a baby. Unlike your father (or the other men you have dated) your husband is calm and patient. He will, you think, make a good father. You are forty-three and your husband is thirty-eight. He is ambivalent about having children but when you tell him you want to try, he agrees. You know it’s a long shot.

You take out your IUD, but nothing happens. You see a fertility specialist but nothing works. “Your eggs are too old,” the doctor says. He recommends a donor egg or adoption. You and your husband discuss it. “Let’s leave it to chance,” your husband says. This time you are the ambivalent one but you agree. “Not every door stays open forever,” you say, forcing a smile.

A year later, the door opens. You are pregnant. Your doctor cautions you that the pregnancy is high risk. You promise yourself you will keep your expectations low, but a week later you purchase every pregnancy book on the market. And, although you know it’s too soon, you shop for the baby: a stuffed elephant, a yellow blanket and an antique silver rattle. When you bring your bounty home your husband smiles. He tells you that he will build the baby a crib.

You reach your fourteenth week and think you are safe. You share your news with friends and relatives. A few days later, you are standing in front of the stove, scrambling an egg when you feel a knife-twisting cramp. Blood gushes between your legs as you run to the bathroom. The next day you will see that the grout between the white kitchen tiles has been permanently stained.

You stay in bed for a week, crying. Your empty uterus throbs. Your grief, which feels all encompassing, is made worse because your husband doesn’t share it. He is sad but he is not grieving. With time, you will realize that he lost the idea of a child but you lost a baby. You are mourning a death.

You return to life but grief shrouds you like a veil. At a nail salon you weep hysterically at the sight of another customer’s baby. Unable to stop and afraid they will throw you out, you leave in mid-pedicure. Three of your toes are painted a happy tangerine, the others are bare. As the holidays loom, you are filled with dread. Between your families, you have three nieces and two nephews. The fun Aunt, you adore them, but this year you don’t want to be near them. You feel like Cruella DeVille.

“Do you want to go to Thailand for Christmas?” your husband asks you one evening over dinner. His question surprises you. Your husband does not suggest trips. You are a traveler but he’d just as soon stay home and do crossword puzzles. You understand his suggestion to be both a gift and a request. He is asking you to move on. You don’t know if you can.

*

On the day your husband has an earache, you and your husband take a boat to Railay Beach. Famous for rock climbing, the beach is surrounded by limestone cliffs. It sits alone on a peninsula, connected to the mainland by a thin strip of sand and rock. Arriving at Railay you stand for a moment in the warm water. Spreading your toes, you feel the wet sand squish between them. Tiny silver fish swim circles around your legs. Floating long-tail boats take on and discharge passengers. Couples in bright yellow kayaks paddle effortlessly through the glassy sea. It is only nine in the morning but the beach is busy. A group of children play catch with a bright red beach ball. Two mothers wade into the shallows holding hands with their water-winged toddlers. As you watch them you fight the familiar choke in your chest. Your husband walks over to a large teak map in the center of the beach. Behind the map, other tourists sip their coffee at a café, while Thai waitresses wearing jewel-colored sarongs scurry between their tables carrying trays of food.

You have planned to hike to a Buddhist temple “hidden” inside a cave. You are both studying the map when you hear a young man shout. “What the hell is that?” He is Asian but speaks English with a thick New York accent.

You and your husband turn. In the distance, a block of water rises out of the ocean. It looks like a square wave without a lip. A thin layer of foam forms across its top; it reminds you of icing on a slice of cake. You have never seen anything like it.

“It’s a Tsunami,” you blurt it out without thinking. You have had dreams of tidal waves for years and although the word Tsunami is not yet in the common lexicon, it is a word you know.

“It’s not a Tsunami. There wasn’t an earthquake.” Your husband pulls his camera out of his backpack.

After a minute or so, the block sinks back into the sea. You stare at the glassy water, wondering if anyone else noticed. You feel like you are waiting for something to happen, but you don’t know what. You count to ten, to twenty, to thirty. At sixty, the water rises again. This time the block becomes a wall. It expands, wider and wider, until it covers the entire horizon. Your body freezes, and although the beach is noisy the only thing you can hear is the sound of your beating heart.

You watch the ocean recede. All at once everyone else notices too. Children stop playing. Crying, they race into their mother’s arms. The floating long-tail boats run aground. The wet sand beneath them glistens with the flopping bodies of silver fish. A woman runs toward the wave, motioning to three teenaged boys who stand mesmerized. Your husband takes another picture. The wave is still far away but now there is a football field of sand where there once was water. Your chest tightens. You look behind you. The waitresses are running.

“Stop with the fucking camera.” You tug at your husband’s arm.

The wall moves forward, and the long-tail captains jump out of their beached boats. You and your husband run. Your husband stays a few inches behind you. Every so often, you turn to look at him. His usually calm face is tense and his black brows furrowed.

Hundreds of people run with you. The sound of women screaming fills the air. They scream in languages you don’t understand but you know they are yelling for their children. For the first time since your miscarriage, you feel grateful that you are childless; that you have nothing that precious to lose.

Water rushes in from the direction you are running towards. It hits just below your knees. Are you running away from or into the wave? You look back at your husband. He signals you to keep going. Is this how you are going to die?

A shirtless Thai man in shorts directs the crowd up a steep dirt path. The crowd follows his lead; everyone running together in an orderly pack. At fifty feet or so, the path levels off to a flat grassy area with a small restaurant. The area is surrounded by limestone cliffs and jungle. Your view of the ocean is blocked but looking up you can see rock climbers dangling in the air or perched on ledges. They are pointing to the horizon and then waving at the crowd below. “There are more coming,” they shout, “you need to go higher.”

People begin to run again. “Should we go?” You and your husband ask each other. Neither of you know what to do; together, you are making minute by minute decisions.

You climb a rocky hill leading into the jungle. There are spots where you have to use your hands to scale over the rocks. The sharp edges dig into your manicured fingers. All around you people slip and fall against the jagged limestone but you keep your balance. Your husband is strong and athletic, he climbs easily. He pulls you and two other women over several large boulders. A brown dog follows you. Later you will wonder if you followed it.

The jungle is dark and thick with foliage. The air smells dank and moldy. It is strangely quiet, as if the birds have taken flight and the animals have all climbed to higher ground. You stop at a small clearing. No longer moving, your body begins to shake and your knees buckle. Your husband grabs you. He holds you close. Pressing your face against his chest you feel his heart pounding. The brown dog sniffs and digs at a patch of dirt.

“Do we need to go higher?” you ask.

“How high is high enough?”

The brown dog flops down at your feet. You both decide to stay.

People huddle together in other small clearings. You notice a mother, father and an infant. The mother holds her baby so tightly, you worry she’ll crush it. She looks like she is a teenager, twenty at most, young enough to be your daughter. You have an urge to hug her and tell her you are all safe. But you think that may be a lie.

You and your husband are always prepared, but that morning, afraid they would get wet or stolen, you both left your Blackberrys in your room. What little news you get comes from other tourists. Some of it is fact (a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia) but most is fiction (a hundred foot wave will hit exactly at three in the afternoon). At the time, it is impossible to distinguish.

You stay in the jungle for six hours. You watch people climb up and down the jagged path. Some speak in hushed tones while others shatter the silence with frantic screams. Everyone seems to be searching for someone.

Late in the afternoon, you hear it’s safe to go lower. The restaurant at the fifty-foot flat has a working generator. They are handing out fresh water and rice. The brown dog guides you down the path but as soon as you reach the flat he vanishes into the crowd.

You spend the night outside. Laying on your beach towel, you lean against your sleeping husband and inhale the scent of his sweat. Your fingers are wrapped around his wrist and you can feel the steady beat of his pulse. Unable to sleep, you stare up at the starry sky. The moon is full and you can see the silhouettes of helicopters. All night, you lay listening to the whirling sound of their propellers. The next day you will learn they were transporting the injured to hospitals in Krabi or Bangkok.

In the morning you are told that the Thai government is sending evacuation ferries. For hours, you (and hundreds of others) roam the beach as you wait. The once pristine sand is littered with the splintered teak boat hulls. The beach café has been swallowed by the sea. Empty yellow kayaks hang off of palm trees like tattered Christmas decorations. You think of the kayaking couples, the mesmerized teenagers, and the water-winged toddlers. Are they dead or alive?

It is late evening by the time your ferry docks at the Port of Krabi. Your boat is met by dozens of women wearing long dresses and hijabs. “Phi Phi?” They ask as you walk past them. They want to know if you are coming from Phi Phi Island. Their voices sound like a funeral wail, and you squeeze your husband’s hand tightly. He squeezes back. For the first time in many hours, you feel safe.

You get back to your hotel just after ten. You have been gone for almost forty hours. Untouched, the hotel has running water and electricity. Ao Nong was spared the brunt of the wave. Some streets were flooded and the windows of several stores smashed but no one died. Phi Phi Island, Khao Lak and Phuket were not so fortunate. Over the next few days, you and the rest of the world will learn that two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people in Asia and Africa were killed—over six thousand in southern Thailand.

You have five days until your scheduled flight to Bangkok and then home. You and your husband discuss leaving early, but there are limited flights, and many people searching for lost loved ones. You are together. You stay put.

Every day more survivors are transported to Ao Nong from the surrounding islands. Injured people wander the street: some have their arms in makeshift slings, others hobble on ill-fitting crutches and many are bandaged or covered in road rash. You and your husband walk among them. Neither of you have so much as a scratch. You feel simultaneously grateful and guilty.

People have posted flyers with pictures of the missing on every wall in town. Your eyes fall on a xeroxed photograph of a little girl with a pixie cut and bangs. She has a pointy chin and eyes that are so big they take up most of her face. Transfixed by the photograph, you stand frozen. Vivian, age four, blonde hair, blue eyes. Last seen at Chicken Island. You say her name out loud and begin to cry. For the first time in months, your tears are not for yourself or the baby you lost. Your tears are for Vivian. And for her mother. A woman whose pain you will never fully know.

-Andrea Leeb

Andrea Leeb lives in Venice, California with her husband, Paul and their St. Bernard, Anna. She has an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has been published in several journals including Litro Magazine, the Potomac Review, The Readers Post Journal and TPT Magazine. Andrea has worked as an attorney, a registered nurse and a scuba instructor. She currently spends her time writing, practicing yoga and mentoring young women from climate challenged and post-conflict countries. Her memoir, (working title) Silenced will be published by She Writes Price in October 2025.