Mae reached into her bag and pulled out Somgiat’s old
wallet. From one of the torn side sleeves of the wallet she
produced a folded photograph, creased down the center and
stained on the back. The picture had been taken in color, but one
could hardly tell now. The film paper was a yellowish,
monochromatic mess of what it had once been, but Mae Aeo’s
and Somgiat’s faces were still bright. Their twin black hair
framed their faces like an engraving, their twin black eyes as
black as they were in real life. As serious-looking as they were,
there was a happiness there that was hinted in odd places: the
dinting of a dimple, the hidden shadow of a smile, the feigned
brevity of their interlocking hands, the simple terseness of the
photograph itself. They looked such the couple that one would
have thought apartness an impossibility and their lives together
a forgone conclusion.