Cajun Justice(70)

“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.” His thoughts seemed to trail off as he looked skyward. “It was the last Christmas our small family would spend together.”

Umiko’s eyes widened as the timeline started making sense to her. Cain could tell she now had an idea where this tragic story was going.

“I woke up super early on December twenty-sixth. I didn’t want to wake her or the baby. I hopped on a scuba boat at the hotel and went out. The sun was coming out by the time we arrived at our first dive location. During my second dive, I was about forty feet below when I saw the boat’s anchor dragging through the ocean floor. I knew something was wrong right away. I had never seen that before, and I couldn’t hear the boat’s motor. So I knew it wasn’t just a hungover captain trying to move his boat while anchored.

“I had to ascend, but I had to go up really slowly. Otherwise, I risked getting decompression sickness. My dive partner, a British traveler who was vacationing alone, surfaced with me. When we popped our heads out of the water, our boat was gone! We dropped our weight belts and inflated our BCDs. We swam for hours and hours to get back to the hotel. We eventually found the boat, but the hotel was practically gone. It looked like it had been bombed.”

Cain’s voice started to shake. “Dead bodies were floating in the water. Cars and roads were not visible anymore. Poisonous snakes were swimming in the water with us. I rushed to where our room had once been. I could barely move. My skin was wrinkled from being in the water for over five hours, and my muscles were failing me from swimming thousands of yards. I was operating on pure adrenaline to rescue my family. I went to our room—what was left of it. It was blocked by broken boards. I grabbed my scuba tank and banged it repeatedly until the boards broke and I was able to enter. Everything was gone.”

Umiko’s tears streamed down her soft face. “Did you find your wife and son?”

Cain lowered his head into his hand. He shook his head no. “Over the next several days, I saw relatives using cooking utensils to dig graves for their loved ones who had died. There were also some monks who were burning the bodies of those who had died. They didn’t even know the names of who they were cremating.”

Cain looked up into Umiko’s eyes. “I cling to the hope they died quickly—even better if it was while they slept together in the hotel bed.”

Umiko embraced Cain and they cried together.

“You will see them again,” she assured him. “On the other side, they will be waiting for you.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked.

“With all my heart.”





Chapter 55



Monday morning approached quickly, but it felt like no other Monday Cain had experienced. He felt different because he was different. He had come to grips with the reality that he could not change the past. He had finally found peace with the tragedy in Thailand. I will strive to live in the present, he promised himself. When it’s my time to die, then I’ll see my Claire Bear and little Christopher. But I will honor their deaths by living.