Page 219 of The Encore’s Crown

I blast it while I make dinner. Then I make her listen to Polish rock. Songs Mama played while cleaning, songs Tata dances in the kitchen to, and some of Piotr’s favorites. One comes on that I haven’t heard since before he died. My hands stop over the cutting board. Ma notices before I can hide it. She doesn’t ask. She leans forward, takes the remote, and changes the song to something fast and ridiculous. Then she starts moving her shoulders to the beat until I laugh.

We learn each other that way. Through food. Music. Nail polish. Garbage television. The small pieces of ourselves that don’t require perfect English or any explanation at all.

I also learn the shape of her grief. It appears when a floorboard creaks behind her and her whole body tightens before she remembers no one is coming to inspect what she’s doing. When the television gets too loud, she reaches for the remote with panic in her face, then pauses as the truth catches up. She can leave it loud. No one is going to punish her for laughing or complain that dinner is late or that a glass is sitting too close to the edge of the table. No car door slamming outside means she needs to measure the mood waiting on the other side.

Sometimes relief softens her whole body and other times, it just makes her sad. She’ll stare toward the empty doorway as if freedom is another kind of loss she doesn’t yet know how to survive. I never tell her she shouldn’t miss him. I don’t think grief listens to what anyone should feel.

A month passes that way, so quickly it feels like a single long day.

Kiri calls every morning, every lunch, every evening, and several times between. Rithy calls Ma separately, then calls me afterward to ask whether she seems tired. Home health visits become less frequent. Her cane spends more time leaning against furniture than in her hand. The bruises disappear, though she still presses a palm to her ribs when she laughs too hard.

This afternoon, she says something vicious about a man on the television whose girlfriend has just discovered he’s been sleeping with her best friend.

I laugh so hard I bend over the kitchen counter.

“That's terrible,” I tell her.

“He deserve worse.”

“I’m very proud of how quickly reality television has corrupted you.”

She looks pleased with herself. Then a voice speaks directly behind me.

“I thought I’d seen beauty before, but I was wrong.”

My breath catches as strong arms circle my waist before I can turn. I know him immediately. His warmth settles around me like somewhere I belong.

“Because this,” Kiri murmurs beside my ear, “is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

His lips brush the skin beneath it and my entire body goes boneless. In that moment, I just collapse back against him, taking in the heat of his chest and the strength of his arms. I breathe in and let it wash over me, the smell of incense and leather mixed with hair gel. That scent of just him that every room has felt wrong without.

Ma gasps. “My boys!”

Rithy appears behind us. He opens his arms, and Ma pushes herself off the sofa so quickly that all three of us shout at her to slow down. She ignores us and hurries into him anyway. Rithy catches her carefully. He wraps both arms around her and lifts her just enough to make her scold him. His face disappears into her hair while she pats his back and says his name over and over.

I turn inside Kiri’s arms and loop mine around his neck. He looks tired. His hair is too long again, falling into his eyes, and there are shadows beneath them that weren’t there when he left.

He's never looked better.

“I thought you were trapped in the studio for another month at least.”

His gaze moves over my face like he’s checking every feature against memory.

“Oh, we have to go back, but I couldn’t stand another second away from you.” His hand tightens at my waist. “I was about five minutes from quitting the band and never coming back.”

“You can’t quit. Rafe would hunt you down.”

“He’d have to find me first.”

“You’re six-foot-four and built like a refrigerator. You don’t hide.”

“I’d grow a mustache.”

“That would only make you more recognizable and creepy.”

His mouth curves and then he kisses me. It isn’t polite or appropriate for a living room occupied by his recovering mother and his brother. It’s a month of distance disappearing at once, his fingers sliding into my hair while I rise onto my toes and pull him closer.

Behind us, Rithy groans.