Creative Nonfiction Piece #1

Mind the Gap

You grew up loving nights like this, your Khun Yai, your maternal grandmother, lying in bed next to you and your favorite cousin close by to talk and giggle. But you are now in your teens and so is he, your Nong (term of endearment for younger person) Bom growing tall and quiet and out of that nickname. You will never call him anything but Bom to his face. It would be too much of a break from the children you were, nestling in a cave under Grandma's desk with a pillow barrier and a blanket stuffed partially into the drawers to hold the makeshift curtain in place, chasing one another with Super Soakers to celebrate the Thai New Near where everyone splashes and pours on each other, nationwide all-out water fight for three days. You still call him Bom, an initially meaningless syllable, combining his parents' nicknames of "Burm" and "Om" into a portmanteau that is for you a symbol of fitful communication but slow and steady love. He is getting to be Jakrapon Sanguansook, though, on university entrance exams and military draft forms and a driver's license. You are not sure how you feel about that.

The hotel room is clean and chilled by overly aggressive air conditioning, you and Khun Yai on the large bed and Bom on the unfolded wheeled cot. There was a time when it was acceptable (and realistic) for all three of you to lie in bed together, or just you and Bom, poking each other and whispering jokes long after you were supposed to be asleep. You remember the last time you took a bath together, like the fall of Paradise and coming of original sin: suddenly, the naked bodies that had been so comfortable and easy, even if they were slightly different shape, had become shameful, and you had to hide from one another under bubbles and foam, fig leaves being in short supply in a Bangkok bathtub. American kids mocked you for innocently sharing such memories, differences in culture another reason why you have generally measured your social life in amounts of isolation, but that does not take away from your wishing sometimes that you and he were small again and could fit under the desk, in the bathtub, in the bed.

He's awake. You don't know why you didn't see it before. Khun Yai is doing her usual impression of a gentle chainsaw, so you shouldn't speak; she gets up at three each morning for some bizarre reason and needs her sleep now. It was always her job to reprimand you for telling riddles and stories too late into the night. Not much of a problem anymore.

You have so little time together these days. You live in America now, instead of closer like Laos or China. Your school holidays never synchronize, and his schedule is crammed with tutoring, special lessons, the army reserve training mandatory for all Thai boys and optional for all Thai girls. He is so quiet, now, too, reserved in his smiles. He might even have a girlfriend - he certainly does look appropriately hip with his skinny jeans and graphic tees, fingernails on his right hand grown long so he can strum the guitar with them. You don't know how much you mean to him anymore. He's one of the most important people to you in all your life and you spend perhaps twenty days out of the year with even a chance at glimpsing him.

So you reach across the gap between your beds with a tentative hand. He reaches also and takes it. The air conditioning tries to punish you for going beyond the crisp linens and fluffy comforter, but this is not important. The time is not important. You were allies against his parents and sister - she was always their favorite - and you were each other's anomaly, someone so far removed from everything else in your life and yet a great constant. A friend. His hand is warm. The fingernails press lightly into your palm, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind you that they are there.

Finally, you whisper, "You know you are my brother, right?"

And he says, "You are my big sister."

You are not sure how long you hold hands. The crickets and geckos continue their noise, but you do not say anything else. In the morning your hand is back by your side. You never speak of this to each other.