Page 188 of The Encore’s Crown

Kiri rolls his eyes.

Ma finds a smaller white album and opens it across her lap. A few pages in, she stops at their wedding photograph.

She stands outside what looks like a courthouse in a simple white dress that falls below her knees. Only a small bouquet clutched in both hands and white flowers pinned into her dark hair. Her smile is brilliant, but she looks so young. School-picture young. James stands beside her in a dark suit, one arm secured around her waist. Two other men flank them, both older, with close-cut hair and the rigid posture of men who spent years in uniform. One raises a bottle toward the camera. The other has a hand planted on the groom’s shoulder.

There’s no one standing on Mrs. Chhim’s side in any of the photographs. No mother fixing her hair or father beside her. No siblings crowding into the frame.

“You look so young,” I say.

Mrs. Chhim runs her fingertips over the plastic covering the photograph.

“Ah, I was young. Eighteen here.”

My gaze moves back to the man holding her. Kiri goes still beside me. Knowing who James is from his stories changes the picture. Mr. Drysdale’s smile no longer looks proud, and the arm around her waist doesn’t feel protective.

It feels possessive.

“He looks very distinguished,” I say carefully. “How old was he?”

“Thirty-nine.”

The number lands heavily. I study Mrs. Chhim’s small body tucked against his side.

“The other men are friends from military,” she says. “They served together.”

She points to each of them and gives me names I know I won’t remember. There’s fondness in her voice, softened by the ache of memories that belong to another lifetime.

“How did you meet?”

Kiri’s jaw tightens. Mrs. Chhim looks down at the photograph.

“He was stationed in Thailand when Americans had bases there. He liked it, so after he retired from military, he came back for work. Private company. He was contractor.”

Her fingertip settles over James’s face.

“After Khmer Rouge, many Cambodian people came to the border. He worked near camps on Thailand side. That is where we meet, two years before. Wedding like ours takes time, papers.”

Two years before?

Suddenly, what Kiri said on the rooftop about the gap between us means something different. I thought he was only afraid of what was happening between us. Meaningless sex is one thing, a relationship is something else. Now I understand there were other fears tangled inside it and one of them wore his father’s face.

I look at the wedding photograph again. At the simple white dress, his military friends and the much older man holding her firmly against him. At the empty space where her family should have been.

A car door slams outside and the front door opens. Both Kiri and Mrs. Chhim jump at exactly the same time. Her shoulders jerk toward her ears. Kiri’s hand clamps around mine hard enough to hurt before loosening immediately. His entire body turns toward the hallway, every muscle braced. Neither of them seems to realize they’ve done it. My heart drops. Then Rithy’s voice carries through the house.

“Good news, the party has arrived.” A pause. “Also, the cake.”

Kiri exhales beside me. Mrs. Chhim presses one hand to her chest.

“You make so much noise!”

Rithy appears in the doorway carrying an enormous white bakery box tied with a black ribbon. He takes in the three of us sitting rigidly around the open albums. His smile falters briefly, then it comes back brighter.

“I risked my life in Seattle traffic and somehow this delicious work of art survived intact.”

Mrs. Chhim gets to her feet.

“How much is this?”