I did not doubt that Janice blamed me for Kaitlin’s partial deafness. My only remaining hope was that Kait herself would not blame me. At least, not permanently. Not forever.

In the meantime what I wanted was to go home. Janice had retreated to her parents’ house in Minneapolis, from which she was very firmly not returning my calls. I was given to understand that a bill of divorcement was in the works.

All of this, ten thousand miles away.

At the end of a frustrating month I told Hitch I needed a ride back to the U.S. but that my funds had bottomed out.

We sat on a drift log by the bay. Windsurfers rolled out on the long blue, undeterred by the bacteria count. Funny how inviting the ocean can look, even when it’s poisoned.

The beach was busy. Chumphon had become a mecca for photojournalists and the idly curious. By day they competed for telephoto shots of the so-called Chumphon Object; by night they bid up the prices of liquor and lodging. All of them carried more money than I had seen for a year.

I didn’t much care for the journalists and I already hated the monument. I couldn’t blame Janice for what had happened, and I was understandably reluctant to blame myself, but I could without objection blame the mystery object that had come to fascinate much of the world.

The irony is that I hated the monument almost before anyone else did. Before very long the silhouette of that cool blue stone would become a symbol recognized and hated (or, perversely, loved) by the vast majority of the human race. But for the time being I had the field to myself.

The moral, I suppose, is that history doesn’t always put its finger on the nice folks.

And of course: There is no such thing as a coincidence.

“We both need a favor,” Hitch said, grinning that dangerous grin of his. “Maybe we can do one for each other. Maybe I can get you back home, Scotty. If you do something for me in return.”