Sopheap was overjoyed when she landed at Phnom Penh International airport and she knows that she will be free again to do whatever she wishes to do. Due to Piseth commitment to his work and investments in the USA; he decided to come back after making arrangements for a new house to be built on a plot of land they bought in Battambang 5 years earlier.
Piseth by this time still have his hotel investments in Siam Reap, Kampong Som and Phnom Penh and were generating significant amount of returns. But he wanted to come back to the US to work at on his investments that he started 7 years earlier. Both Sopheap and Piseth decided that it would be good for both of them to live separately for the time being until Piseth’s businesses in the US got settled and ready to be run on their own.
Piseth left Cambodia and returned to the US in despair leaving his wife and a daughter there on their own yet with the support of cousins and mother-in-law. Life was beautiful at the beginning but as time went on, Sopheap began to have an affair with a guy affiliated with the Military Police after many late nights at the clubs. Sopheap newly found freedom with money and support from abroad led her into night scenes of clubbing, drugs and gambling.
Every night, Piseth would call to Sopheap and life seemed to be normal for Sopheap. Sopheap would always responded that everything was alright and under-control. Piseth never doubted his wife because of his love for her. He would only suspect on why Sopheap never let him talk to his child whenever he called to her in Cambodia. It may sound strange; but life was as normal and happy as any husband would ever hoped for because of the ways things were communicated to Piseth by Sopheap.
Things gradually went downhill after Sopheap heavy gambling addictions. Sopheap would be gone from home for weeks on end, living a player’s life in high end casinos in Phnom Penh, Thai-Cambodia town of Poipet and Bavet, Vietnamese Cambodia border. These were the new haven s for illegal gambling, drug dens, sexual trade and re-known for money laundering. She managed to sell most of her jewelry that Piseth had bought for her during their time together.
It was in spring 2008, Sunday morning, the phone rang. It was Sopheap pleading Piseth to come to Cambodia right away because their daughter has gotten very ill. Piseth, by this time has not seen his daughter and wife for than a year decided to get the next flight out to see his daughter who was supposedly sick in Battambang, Cambodia.
On board a jumbo jet bounded for home, Piseth reminisced the memories that he had with his wife and the good times together. He felt a sense of pride that Sopheap was able to turn her life around and became a good wife and a good mother. Sopheap’s hardship during her teenage years made her strong and made her who she was to Piseth, a respectable wife.
Upon touching down at Phnom Penh International Airport, Piseth passed the immigration check point and checked out lonely without the fanfare that he used to get during his earlier trips to Cambodia. This time, his arrival sort of marked a time of sorrow, loneliness, despair, and a sense of a broken man. Can it be that these feelings will lead to events that were ready to unfold before his very eyes?
Piseth did not stay in Phnom Penh. He told the airport taxi driver to take him to the bus station in which he will travel on to Battambang to meet his wife and daughter who waited for him at home.
It was late in the evening when Piseth arrived in Battambang. When Piseth arrived at home, he was shocked to see that his mansion had been boarded up with planks of wood. His wife was nowhere to be seen. Disturbed by the scene, he walked over to his neighbor’s house to ask them about what had happened. Apparently, the house had been pawned by his wife so that she could fulfilled her crave for Ecstasy, Yama and her gambling addiction.
Sopheap was nowhere to be seen and none of her family members were able to reach her because she managed to switch her phone off. The news of the daughter being ill was just a story made up to seduce Piseth to come back. By this time, Sopheap had been planning something very grand. Was it greed, addictions, and lost love? It was difficult to gauge Sopheap’s mind. One could only imagine that she would have changed for the better for herself and her family.
That's too bad for piseth! Is my life gonna be like that? hmm...., i couldn't stand with it, i think. What did he do next? He came back to US or find her wife and daughter?
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