I looked at the clue again. “It says we need to find the shop where Buddha’s peaceful smile guides travelers on their journey.”
“There are probably dozens of those in a Buddhist country,” Ray said, looking around in frustration.
“Wait,” I said, studying the clue more carefully. “There’s a symbol at the bottom that looks like an old-fashioned train.”
“The train station?” Ray suggested. “Maybe there’s a shop nearby.”
We rushed to the Ban Pong railway station, a small but busy transportation hub. Sure enough, across the street was a row of shops selling religious items, including several with Buddha statues of various sizes displayed in their windows.
“There are too many,” Ray said, starting to pace anxiously. “How do we know which one?”
We began checking the shops one by one, looking for anything that might distinguish one as our target. I was so tired when I noticed a small shop with a sign depicting a Buddha with a particularly serene smile and the English words “Safe Journey Buddha Shop” underneath.
I pulled him back as he started to charge ahead. "Look," I said. "There it is. That's the route marker."
"Good eye, babe," Ray said
The vendor at the shop gave us our next clue, and we headed for the Stop'n'Go at a temple complex the guidebook said was beautiful. But within minutes of leaving the shop, the sky opened up with the kind of torrential downpour that only exists in tropical climates. The dirt streets instantly turned to rivers of mud, making forward progress not just difficult but dangerous.
"This way!" Ray shouted over the thunder, pointing toward what looked like a small café with a covered porch. We splashed through ankle-deep water, Cody struggling behind us with his equipment.
The café was little more than a few plastic tables under a corrugated metal roof, but it was dry. An elderly woman gestured for us to sit, bringing us towels and steaming cups of tea without being asked. Through the drumming rain, we could barely see ten feet in any direction.
Ray paced the small space like a caged animal. "We have to keep moving. The other teams?—"
"Ray." I caught his arm. "Look outside. Nobody's moving in this."
He stopped, finally seeing what I saw: sheets of water cascading from the roof, the street transformed into a muddy river, palm fronds whipping in the wind. This wasn't weather you could push through with athletic determination.
"But we were doing so well," he said, sinking into the plastic chair across from me. "We actually had a shot."
I reached across the table for his hand. "We still do. When the rain stops."
"What if it doesn't? What if we're stuck here for hours and everyone else finds a way around it?"
For once, I didn't have a plan, a backup route, a solution researched in advance. We were at the mercy of forces completely beyond our control. And strangely, that felt liberating.
"Then we're stuck," I said simply. "Together."
Ray looked at me, really looked at me, perhaps seeing something in my face that surprised him. "You're not panicking."
"Should I be?"
"The Jeffrey I married would already be calculating alternate routes, asking the café owner about back roads, trying to control something."
I considered this, watching the rain create rivulets down the window. "Maybe I'm learning that some things can't be controlled. Maybe that's okay."
Ray leaned back in his chair, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. "I keep thinking I can just... push harder. Run faster. Force our way through."
"But we can't outrun ourselves.”
"No. And we can't outrun this storm either." He managed a small smile. "Guess we're both learning to sit still."
The elderly woman refilled our teacups, patting my shoulder gently. She said something to Cody, who had found a dry corner for his equipment.
"What did she say?" I asked.
Cody looked up from wiping down his camera. "Something about the rain being a blessing. That it washes things clean."
