Page 187 of The Encore’s Crown

According to Kiri, it’s cake.

Mrs. Chhim said they should’ve bought one from the grocery store because spending that much money on something designed to disappear is stupid. She asked what it cost four times. Neither of them answered.

The moment Rithy’s car pulls away, Mrs. Chhim brings out the photo albums. There are six. Thick, heavy things with fabric covers and plastic pages that crackle beneath her fingers. She stacks them on the coffee table with the joy of a woman who has waited thirty-six years to embarrass her son in front of someone. Kiri stares at the pile.

“Ma. No.”

“You don’t know what I show.”

“I know exactly what you’re going to show.”

She opens the first album. A naked baby lies facedown on a blue blanket, his round little butt pointed directly at the camera. I slap both hands over my mouth.

“Oh my God.”

Kiri closes his eyes.

“Fantastic.”

Ma taps the photograph proudly.

“Very fat baby. Healthy. Such strong legs.”

I lean closer. He’s tiny with dark hair sticking straight up, one fist shoved into his mouth and rolls everywhere.

“You look like the most adorable steamed bun I've ever seen.”

Ma laughs so hard she has to steady the album. Kiri points at me.

“You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“This might be the best day of my life.”

“That’s insulting on several levels.”

She turns the page before he can stop her. There are pictures of both boys in matching sweaters. Rithy grinning with his front teeth missing while Kiri stands beside him looking suspicious of whoever is holding the camera. Halloween costumes made from cardboard and fabric. Rithy dressed as some kind of glittering wizard. Kiri in a black cape with plastic fangs, already scowling.

Mrs. Chhim flips to Christmas morning. Both boys are kneeling beside a tree drowning in colored lights and silver tinsel. Kiri holds up a toy truck. Rithy wears torn wrapping paper over his head like a crown. Their smiles are enormous.

You'd never know. That’s the thing about pictures. You can stage them, choose the perfect angle. You can wait until everyone is smiling and preserve that one moment as if it represents an entire life. The next minute, the world could be on fire outside the frame. No one looking later would ever know.

I did the same thing. I learned how to hold my face, find the light and post myself like I was someone grief couldn’t touch. Someone who didn’t wake up overwhelmed by the loss of all the small things Piotr used to do without being asked.

Oil changes. Picking up a bag of my favorite Polish sweets when he stopped at the shop while I was working, then leaving them on my bed for me to find when I got home. Sending me songs he’d heard on the radio while fixing cars because he knew they were exactly my style, then calling them garbage and saying only I would like something that terrible. Every joke had love wrapped around it.

After he was gone, none of those things felt small anymore. My photographs became armor. Proof that I was still beautiful and busy, living a life no one needed to worry about.

These pictures are armor too. Bright little moments preserved so carefully that no one looking later would ever guess what the people inside them had survived.

There are school concerts. Birthdays. Another of Rithy asleep with an inflatable plastic guitar hugged against his chest. Mrs. Chhim is in nearly every photograph. Always touching them. Always a hand resting on Kiri’s shoulder or her face buried in his hair. Rithy tucked beneath her arm. Kisses caught against their cheeks while they squirm and laugh.

Then I notice the man behind them. He stands at the edge of a photograph taken at what looks like a backyard birthday party. She has Kiri on one hip and her mouth pressed to his cheek. He can’t be more than three. Rithy sits in front of them wearing a paper crown that's too big for his tiny head. The man in the background is imposing. He holds a beer bottle loosely at his side, staring toward the camera with a neutral expression. Something about him makes my skin prickle.

“Is that your husband?” I ask.

Mrs. Chhim follows my gaze.

“Yes. James,” she says. “Their father. Isn’t he handsome? Just like both boys.” She reaches for another album. “I get the wedding pictures.”