mouth and looked nervously around the Zen garden—mindful not to disturb the other retreaters.
“The garden, the landscape, the topography—it’s all magical here,” Cain said. “It looks exactly like it does in the magazines.”
“I can’t wait to show you this place in March or April, when the sakura—the cherry blossoms—bloom.”
“Sakura,” he repeated. “I look forward to coming back with you.”
“Sakura also means to smile, because you always smile when you see the beauty of the cherry blossoms.”
Cain smiled. “Then your parents should have named you Sakura.”
Umiko blushed and turned away for a brief moment before looking back at Cain. “I’m sorry to be so nosy,” she said.
“No,” Cain replied. “Ask me anything.”
“I heard you speak to the monk.”
Cain sighed, embarrassed. “I’m sure I was rambling from the dehydration.”
“We have a popular saying in Japan: Au wa wakare no hajimari.”
“Does it mean to drink plenty of water before doing kendo for two hours in the wilderness with a stick-wielding sensei?” Cain asked, deflecting her question.
“It means ‘Meeting is the beginning of parting.’ We remember the past, but live for the present, because even the present will be the past someday.” After a moment, she said, “Would you like to tell me about what happened?”
Cain paused for a beat. “Normally, I would say no. But if there were ever a time and place”—he inhaled and exhaled slowly—“and a person to share this with, it’s now and with you.”
Umiko prepared him another cup of tea, and one for her. She sipped hers as she listened to him talk.
“Ever since I was a child, I have loved the water. Year-round, after school, friends and I would swim the lakes near my home. They were a lot like the lakes here, but our lakes had catfish instead of koi.” He smiled. “Instead of being lined with rocks, they were lined with dirt and mud.
“My freshman year at the university, I took a scuba diving class. My instructor, Mr. Terry, was a former Navy SEAL. He took a liking to me and became like a mentor. He would tell me exciting stories of scuba diving all over the world—and because he was in the military, the navy paid for it. His favorite spot to dive was off the coast of Thailand. He showed me pictures of him diving off the island of Krabi. The white sand beaches, the crystal clear waters—it all looked like paradise on earth.”
Umiko listened intently as Cain slowly continued his story.
“Truth be told, he was the reason I joined the navy. I wanted to be just like him. But the day I tested to be a diver, I had a head cold. My sinuses wouldn’t equalize. When I descended into the water, my ears burst and my goggles filled with my own blood.”
“That’s horrible!” Umiko closed her eyes and crinkled her face at the thought of blood flooding his mask.
“It was scary,” Cain confessed. “I didn’t know if I had lost my hearing, or what had really happened. But the navy was really good about it. They told me they had enough divers anyway, but what they really needed were pilots. I had already been flying for years. You see, my father is a pilot. Just like your family believes in tradition, mine does, too. My father believed that flying was a tradition that had to be passed down from generation to generation, or eventually it would become too expensive—a hobby just for the wealthy. When the navy learned about this, they sent me to flight school instead.”
“So you were a military pilot?”
“Yes.”
“Like Tom Cruise?”
Cain chuckled. “No. Not like Maverick at all. He flew fighter planes with jet engines. I flew airplanes with four propellers. I carried a crew of six people and we flew for long hours over the ocean looking for Russian submarines and ships carrying tons of drugs from Central America to our shores to poison our people.”
Umiko nodded in acknowledgment.
“But I could never get that paradise image out of my mind. I wanted to scuba dive in Thailand like my instructor had done. Claire Bear—” Cain smiled at the sound and memory of her name. “That was my wife. She was pretty adventurous, but she didn’t want to go. We had a one-year-old son, Christopher, and Claire thought it was too far to travel. I convinced her it would be a great getaway for the whole family. It was a resort and they had childcare services to help us enjoy the vacation. We spent Christmas of 2004 in Krabi.”