But Tri said, “Dwight Clark? No way, the best is right here baby,” pointing to the name Montana stretched across his back and then doing a stomp and clap before shaking his butt. All the kids giggled.

Bao said, “Try some,” and handed his cognac to Kim. She acquiesced when the women egged her on. She liked how relaxed she felt after only two sips. Lam was rip-roaring drunk and didn’t object. He was busy strumming his guitar and singing pop songs from the old country for the kids. Marcel sat on the floor, resting his hands in his lap, mesmerized. Sophia pulled at her brother’s shirttail, needy for his attention. When this didn’t work, she meowed in his ear.

Bao turned to Kim and asked, “Is there food left?”

They went to the kitchen and Kim offered to make him a plate. She gave him a scoop of rice topped with chicken curry, pan-fried noodles, shrimp salad, and spring rolls. She wanted to give him everything, all the good stuff.

Bao gestured to the freshly sliced peppers placed at the corner beside the basil. “That’s something my wife did.” He was looking at her as if he wanted to say something more, when Kim was certain there was nothing more, that there could not be.

“Duc liked spicy food, too,” she said. She felt the alcohol simmering inside and feared she had had too much.

“Any word on his release?”

Kim ran cold water from the faucet and distracted herself by preparing tea. She found the kettle almost too heavy to bear. She had become a weaker woman than she used to be. She stood on her toes reaching for the cups in the cupboards overhead. Bao grabbed them for her and stood behind her so close the tips of his shoes tapped her heels. Her hands shook when he handed her the delicate cups. She thanked him without meeting his eyes.

The kids were running down the hall. She heard their little footsteps echoing on the old floorboards. Marcel shouted, “Stop it or I’ll tell!” Kim froze, momentarily believing her seven-year-old son could see through walls, had seen through her.

When she lifted her face to Bao’s she hoped it was composed, expressionless, withholding. She suspected she had failed because her lips were trembling. He sat next to her, closer than usual inside the arm of the breakfast nook. They were lit beneath a naked dangling bulb. Kim cracked open the window and rested her head against the windowpane. Her nieces Elle and Michelle were outside gossiping. Frenzied chatter rushed in with the fog. One of them uttered an American boy’s name, something like Tyler or Kyle and then both girls fell into a gaggle of a giggling fit.

Bao blew out a defeated half-chuckle and said, “Me and you, we’re the same. We’re almost living, but not quite.”

“We’re living. My children don’t want for anything.”

“I’m talking me and you.” He squeezed her hand beneath the table. “I wish things were different,” he said. She settled her gaze into Bao’s red-veined eyes and wondered if he too slept with a pillow cradled between his legs, lost sleep because he cried at midnight, woke up before dawn grabbing for a warm body that wasn’t there.