They came for him when night had fallen, when the sea and the sky were one black spread, broken only by the light of a squid boat somewhere far out.

Over the soft reggae playing behind the bar we could hear the half‑hearted collapse of tiny wavelets, exhausted after the storm. Lingering smells of briny seaweed, meat cooked in galangal and chili. It felt as if we were the only people in Thailand, me and him and our handful of ad‑hoc wedding guests. There was a well‑being retreat further down the beach, but their lights had gone out hours ago.

A short while before they came for him, someone started playing “Something About the Way You Look Tonight,” and although neither of us really loved the song—knew the words, even—we knew it to be the cue for our first dance. We walked down the wooden steps onto the sand and swayed slowly on the beach like the couple in that picture on my wall at university. Johan and me, a rain‑puddled beach, Kulap and Than holding umbrellas over our heads, even though the storm had long passed.

In the years that followed I would wonder about that storm. What might have been if it hadn’t come; if we’d married earlier in the day like we’d planned. Might we have taken a ride to the nearest town for some drinks at sundown? Gone to a remote beach for a twilight swim? What if they’d come looking for him, found nobody, and given up?

Perhaps we’d have managed to take the boat back to the mainland a few days later. Perhaps we’d have gotten back safely to Bangkok—home to Europe, even.