Alex and Steph were sitting on a park bench, watching as Ethan ran around a nearby playground. They had driven to Denver that morning to take a parkour class with him and were now resting before they decided what to do next.
Or at least Alex and Steph were resting. Ethan had spent the last twenty minutes using the moves he learned in the class on the playground while ignoring Ryan chiding him to be careful.
As the three of them looked on, Ethan went down the slide and immediately spun around to clamber back up it. When he reached the platform at the top, he climbed over one of the tall railings on either side and hung onto the top bar, bracing his feet against the vertical metal bars underneath it. He looked down with a grin as Ryan fretted below him, raising a hand to wave at Alex and Steph sprawled out on the bench about twenty feet away.
"Do you think we should help get him down?" Alex asked, turning her head to look at Steph.
Steph shrugged. "If you have the energy, then go for it, dude. I definitely don't."
Alex laughed and shook her head. "I don't either. That class was way more intense than I thought it would be. I don't know how Ethan is still running around like that."
"It seems like the class really hyped him up. He's like the frickin' Energizer bunny over there." Steph leaned back further against the bench and gestured toward Ryan. "I'm fine letting Lucan handle this one."
Ethan was still hanging onto the railing at the top of the slide, saying something to Ryan that they couldn't hear. A moment later, he dropped to the ground and ran over to Alex and Steph with Ryan trailing behind him.
Ethan grabbed one of Alex's and Steph's hands, pulling them gently. "C'mon, we gotta get ice cream!"
Ryan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he came to stand next to the bench. "Yeah, the only way I could get him to come down was with a bribe."
"I think a bribe is the only thing that could get me to stand up right now, so that's perfect," Alex said, letting Ethan pull her to her feet. "Where are we going?"
Steph pulled out her phone, flicking her thumb across the screen as she stood up. "Looks like there's an ice cream place a few blocks that way." She pointed and Ethan instantly took off running in that direction.
Ryan made a frustrated noise and hurried after Ethan, calling for him to slow down. Alex and Steph followed at a much slower pace, brushing shoulders as they reached for the other's hand. Once they left the park, Ethan stayed a few feet ahead of them, doing short wall runs and spinning jumps off the buildings as he darted around the sidewalk.
They rounded a corner and Alex stopped, looking across a small parking lot at a store called Golden Lion Imports. The store's name was displayed in both English letters and Chinese characters on the neon sign above the door and the windows were filled with food advertisements in several different languages.
Steph turned back to look at Alex and squeezed her hand gently. "You okay?"
Alex nodded with her eyes still fixed on the storefront. "Yeah. There was just one of these stores near where my family lived in Portland."
"Oh, that's cool." Steph watched Alex for a few seconds before tilting her head toward the store's doors. "Do you wanna go in?"
"Would that be okay?"
"Yeah, of course." Steph turned to wave Ryan and Ethan over, waiting until they were within earshot to speak again. "Alex wants to go in this store for a minute."
Ethan threw up his hands and groaned. "But ice cream!"
"There's gonna be some really good candy in here, stuff you've probably never had before," Alex said, gently poking Ethan's shoulder. "It'll be worth it, I promise."
Ethan dropped his arms and sighed. "Okay, fine. But I still want ice cream later." He waited until Alex nodded, then turned and bolted into the store.
Alex and Steph laughed as Ryan groaned and they all followed Ethan inside. Once they passed through the sliding doors, Alex stopped, looking around with a smile slowly spreading across her face.
In front of her were large cardboard crates filled with durians, jackfruits, and coconuts, with smaller boxes on tables of ginger roots, Asian pears, and husked coconuts wrapped in tight plastic. The cooled shelves along the walls held small Styrofoam trays filled with different kinds of produce, each one covered securely in plastic wrap. Along the back wall was a deli with tanks of live seafood and rows of whole fish on ice in display cases.
Alex waited until Ethan circled back to the group before leading them further into the store. Once they were out of the produce section, they passed shelves filled with bottles of sauces and plastic bins packed with colorful packages alongside pallets stacked with huge bags of rice.
They made it about halfway down the row of aisles before Ethan stopped at the end of one. "Whoa. This entire aisle is noodles!"
Alex grabbed his shoulder, turning him to face her. "Ethan, focus. We gotta find the candy."
"Right, right, yeah." Ethan flashed a grin at her and spun around to keep jogging along the aisles. He went down two more rows before he stopped and pointed down one of them. "I think it's here!"
As soon as they caught up with him, Ethan grabbed Alex's arm and pulled her into the aisle. He stopped about halfway down the row, staring at the packages of cakes, candies, and chips in front of him with wide-eyed amazement. "How do we know what to pick?"
"Well, let's see." Alex looked for a moment before grabbing a package off the shelf. "These are rice puffs. They have sesame seeds on the outside and there's puffed rice in the center that's sweet and chewy. And there's this sesame candy, it's kind of like peanut brittle but with sesame seeds. Oh, and Mango Balls, these are really good! They're little bits of dried mango with sugar on the outside."
Ethan eagerly grabbed each bag from her, bouncing on his toes with excitement. "What else can we get?"
Alex laughed, shaking her head as she reached for a box of peanut mochi. "When I was a kid, I'd go to a store like this with my parents for groceries every week. Gabe and I always went to the candy aisle first, but we were only allowed to get one thing each, so we spent at least, like, twenty minutes trying to choose each time."
Ethan looked down at the bags in his hands, then back up at Alex. "Which one was Gabe's favorite?"
"Hmm." Alex searched for a few seconds before grabbing a package to hand to Ethan. "I think these. They're called Yanyan. They're these long, skinny biscuits that you dip in chocolate."
Ethan looked down at the cardboard tube in his hand, using his thumb to smooth out the bumps on the plastic seal across the top. "Could we get this to put with the stuff you have in your apartment for Gabe? By his picture, I mean. If that's okay?"
Alex froze for a second before her face softened and she pulled Ethan into a hug. "Yeah. I think that's a great idea."
Ethan smiled up at her, hugging her with one arm before stepping away and rubbing his eyes as he turned back to the shelves.
Steph moved next to Alex, elbowing her gently. "You said your parents would only let you get one thing but now you're an adult and have your own money, so you can get as many as you want." She laughed when Alex looked at her with a stunned expression. "Seriously, dude, get all your favorites. We gotta try all of them."
Alex grinned as she turned back to the shelves, grabbing packages of Pocky sticks, White Rabbit candies, Hi-Chew gummies, Haw Flakes, shrimp chips, and dried squid to hand to Steph as they moved down the aisle.
Toward the end of the row, Alex stopped and slowly reached for a bag of salted tamarind candies. "These were my mom's favorite," she said softly, running her fingers over the plastic covering the small sleeves of dried fruit. "Gabe and I hated them, but we'd always pretend to like them whenever she gave us some. And my dad…the store we went to was one of the only places you could get a newspaper in Chinese near where we lived. But he never wanted to actually buy it, so we just had to wait while he read the whole thing at the store. Half the time he didn't even get to finish because Gabe would get bored and do something to get in trouble, so we had to leave." She fell silent, her face turning thoughtful as she flipped the package over in her hands.
"Hey, you good?" Steph asked gently, ducking her head so she could see Alex's face.
Alex kept her eyes on the tamarind candies, struggling to decide if she wanted to frown or smile. "Yeah. A lot of the time with my family was shit but going to this store with them was one of the brighter spots. Especially since it meant I got to cook with my mom afterwards." The corners of her mouth twitched and after a few seconds, a smile slowly spread across her face. "We used to spend hours cooking together. I think it was just as much of an escape for her as it was for me, but I didn't know that at the time. I just loved spending time with her, learning all the little tricks she had for each recipe."
She paused, taking a deep breath before finally looking up at Steph. "Could we get some stuff to make one of the recipes she taught me? Since we're already here. And I don't think we could get everything we would need back in Haven Springs."
Steph beamed at her. "Yeah, of course! What are we making?"
"I was thinking thit kho trung. It's braised pork with hard boiled eggs."
"Sounds great." Steph looked down at the packages in her arms. "But I think we're gonna need a cart to get anything else."
"Oh! I can get one!" Ethan called over his shoulder as he sprinted down the aisle and toward the front of the store.
Ryan sighed and trudged after him. "We should go with him to make sure he doesn't climb on anything."
Alex laughed as she followed Ryan, her smile growing wider as excitement fluttered in her chest.
Four hours later they were back in Alex's apartment, gently shooing Mao-Mao out of the way as they unpacked everything they had bought. Alex had been smiling almost constantly since they left the store, and her grin only grew wider as she looked over the food laid out in front of them.
"So." Steph clapped her hands together as she turned to Alex. "What do we do first?"
Alex bent down to pull a plastic cutting board from a cupboard and set it on the counter. "Steph, you get the rice cooker going and Ryan, you can cut up the pork belly. It needs to be in pretty big chunks, so don't make them too small. Once you have it cut, we can boil it for a couple minutes to clean it. I'll work on hard boiling some eggs. And Ethan, you can keep Mao-Mao busy, so we don't run into him while we're cooking."
Ethan saluted and ran to Mao-Mao's pile of toys, making the rest of them laugh as they started their tasks.
Alex found two pots in one of the cupboards and loaded one with eggs and the other with the pork Ryan had sliced. She filled both with water and set them on the stove over high heat.
After the pork had boiled for several minutes, Alex dumped the meat into a colander in the sink and rinsed it until the water ran clear. She put the pork back in the pot and set it on the stove again. "Ryan, it looks like the eggs are done, so you can drain those and cover them in cold water. We'll leave them to cool in the sink for a while so they're easier to peel later. Steph, you can help me get the pork ready to cook."
Ryan moved to the sink to handle the eggs, while Alex and Steph added a can of coconut soda, fish sauce, and salt into the pot with the pork before adding more water until the meat was just covered by the liquid.
Alex set a lid on the pot, moved it onto the back burner, and set the heat on high. "We need to boil this again and then we'll let it simmer on lower heat for about an hour," she explained. "Steph, you can watch for it to boil and then turn the burner down. And Ryan, you can help me make the caramel sauce."
Steph and Ryan both moved in front of the stove, trying to elbow each other out of the way while Alex looked through the cupboards for a saucepan.
Once she found the pan she needed, Alex set it on the front burner and turned the heat to medium. "Put a few tablespoons of sugar in here," Alex said, nodding toward the pan as she searched through a drawer. She pulled out a rubber spatula and offered it to Ryan. "Then you'll need to stir it constantly, so it heats evenly and doesn't burn."
Ryan took the spatula and followed her directions, watching the saucepan carefully as he stirred its contents. After a few minutes, the sugar began to clump together and darken in color.
"Cook it for a bit longer," Alex said to Ryan as she moved to the sink to fill a measuring cup with water. "We want the color pretty dark. I'll add water once it's ready to stop it from cooking more."
Once the sugar was a dark caramel color, Alex poured warm water from the measuring cup into the saucepan. "Keep stirring that until the sugar dissolves, then you can add it to the pork. And you should stir the pork to make sure nothing burns on the bottom, too." She moved to the sink and waved Steph over. "These eggs are cool enough now, so we can peel them and add them to simmer with the pork."
Alex emptied the water from the pot in the sink as Steph joined her, smiling when Steph kissed her on the cheek before starting to help with the eggs.
Ryan glanced at Alex as he poured the finished caramel sauce over the pork. "This is so complicated. It's really impressive that you made it as a kid. I'm pretty sure the only thing I could make when I was younger was burnt toast."
Alex laughed softly as she shrugged. "I always had my mom helping me when I made it. I don't know how well it would've turned out if it was just me." She paused, her smile slowly fading from her face. "This is actually the first time I've tried making it without her. I never made things like this after she died."
Steph paused with a half-peeled egg in her hand, watching Alex carefully. "Why not?"
Alex sighed, frowning as she tried to flick a piece of an eggshell off her finger. "Like I said before, I promised her that I would be there for my dad and Gabe after she died. But I had no idea how to do that, so the best I could come up with was taking care of everything she used to do. Cooking, cleaning, keeping track of doctor's appointments and prescriptions. I think part of me thought if I could do those things as well as she did, it would keep my family together."
She took a deep breath as she focused on removing the last bit of shell from the egg in her hands. She could feel Ryan's and Steph's eyes on her, waiting for her to speak again, but their attention felt comforting rather than awkward. "But I hated every second of it. Especially the cooking. I was doing it alone and I didn't have a lot of time between school and homework and all the other chores I was doing, so I just made really simple stuff like chicken and vegetable stir fry. I got so sick of making it–and of eating it–but I just couldn't handle doing more than that. And thinking about it now, about everything I tried to do on my own…" She exhaled slowly and drummed her fingers on the edge of the sink. "I get why Gabe didn't do anything about it. He was just a kid, too. But my dad watched me take all that on and just…let it happen."
Alex fell silent again, looking down when she felt something brush her ankles to find Mao-Mao weaving around her legs. She wiped her hands on her shirt before bending down to pick him up, stroking him gently as she kissed the top of his head. "I was worried it would be hard making this again, but it's actually really nice." She glanced up, her eyes moving between Steph and Ryan. "And I like sharing it with you guys."
Steph smiled, reaching out to squeeze Alex's shoulder gently. "Thanks for letting us help you with this."
Alex nodded as she matched Steph's smile. "I'm just happy I'm not cooking alone anymore. And going to that store with you was really cool, too." She jerked her head toward the pot bubbling in the stove as Steph finished peeling the last egg. "We can add the eggs in with the pork now. Everything needs to simmer for about another thirty minutes. Make sure you stir it again and leave the lid off this time so the sauce can reduce a bit."
Steph followed Alex's instructions, setting the lid from the pot on the counter before adding the eggs to the liquid inside. "Can we try the other stuff we bought while we wait?" she asked, grinning when Alex nodded.
The three of them joined Ethan in front of the couch, taking turns playing with Mao-Mao as they sampled the candies and snacks they had bought earlier.
When the timer on Alex's phone went off half an hour later, she got up to go back to the kitchen with Ethan following her closely.
Ethan hovered at Alex's side as he leaned over the stove and breathed in deeply through his nose. "Is it ready yet? It smells so good!"
Alex nodded as she reached up to take a stack of bowls from the shelf. "It is! The only thing left to do is put it all together."
She partially filled the bowls with rice before spooning in some of the meat, eggs, and sauce into each one and topping it with pickled mustard greens. Steph moved to take the filled bowls from her and pass them to Ethan and Ryan. Once everyone had a bowl, Alex eagerly dug into her own, closing her eyes to savor the taste of her first few bites.
"This is so good!" Ethan said, barely pausing to get his words out before he took another bite.
Alex smiled as Ryan and Steph made noises of agreement around their own mouthfuls. "I'm glad you like it. And that you all made it with me." She looked down at her bowl, tapping the edge of it with her spoon. "I know Gabe would've really liked this, too. But it probably would've turned out way worse if he had helped us."
Ethan set his bowl on the table, moving back to the coffee table to grab the package of Yanyan they had set aside earlier. "Can I put this with Gabe's other stuff?" He waited until Alex nodded before setting it on the mantle next to Gabe's picture. He stepped back to look at it for a second before running over to Alex and hugging her from the side.
"Thanks, Ethan." Alex held her bowl with one hand so she could put an arm around his shoulders. "I think Gabe would be happy to have those again."
Ethan smiled up at Alex, squeezing her one more time before grabbing his bowl from the table. "Can we make this again sometime? I wanna help more so I can learn how to make it."
"Ryan and I are in, too, if you want." Steph grinned at Alex, tipping her head toward Ryan when he nodded.
Alex looked between Steph, Ryan, and Ethan, smiling as orange auras flared around all three of them. "Yeah," she said, her breath catching in her throat as that new, soothing emotion washed over her. "That would be really great."
