61. A Murder Of Crows
A Murder Of Crows
Kiri
Afew nights later, I’m flat on my back trying to remember how breathing works.
Natalia is sprawled across me, one smooth leg tangled between mine, her hair sticking to her neck and my chest. Sweat still clings to the air, tangled with her perfume and the candle she insisted would make my apartment feel less like a divorced man lived here.
A divorced man would have had the sense to stop before nearly dying.
Every time we do this, it gets better. Hotter.
More impossible to come back from. We learn another sound, another weakness, another way to push each other so far past sanity that afterward I’m surprised either of us can still form sentences.
At this rate, I’m genuinely concerned I won’t survive the relationship.
I pull her farther over me. She settles against my chest with a smug little noise, her cheek pressed above my heart. My phone vibrates across the nightstand. We both ignore it. It stops, then immediately starts again.
Natalia groans. “Whoever that is, I hate them.”
I reach over her and grab the phone.
Rithy.
I answer, careful not to move her.
“What?”
He says something in Khmer, his voice quieter than usual. I answer in the same language without thinking, the words coming fast and easy while Natalia’s fingers drift over the ink along my side.
Rithy reminds me of the date. Ma’s birthday is this week. We’re both in Seattle for once. No tour or recording sessions in different cities. Which means there's no excuse to send flowers, transfer money and promise we’ll make it up to her when things calm down.
Things never calm down.
He asks if I want to go over together. If Dad’s out, we can bring the cake and let Ma enjoy it without him bitching about crumbs or frosting getting on something. If he’s there, we’ll endure him for the required amount of time. No cake, but at least she’ll get to see us. I stare at the ceiling.
“Yeah,” I say eventually. “Yeah, we should.”
Rithy pauses before asking if I’m bringing Natalia.
My eyes drop to her. She’s stopped tracing the lines on my body.
She watches my face even though she can’t understand the conversation.
Normally, the answer would be no. I’d invent something.
Tell her Rithy needed me. Say we had band business.
Disappear for a few hours, take Ma her cake, give her enough money to cover whatever Dad drank away that month and leave before he found a reason to start something.
Then I’d come back here and bury the entire thing beneath Natalia’s body until I didn’t have to think about where I came from. I look down at the woman curled against me. The woman I promised I'd stop hiding.
“Maybe,” I tell him.
Rithy goes silent. He tells me to call him tomorrow and let him know my answer, then hangs up. The room feels different when I lower the phone. Uncomfortably still. Natalia props her chin on my chest.
“What was that about?”
I set the phone facedown on the nightstand and drag a hand over my face. She waits, studying me with those huge brown eyes that always make me feel like she can see the answer before I decide whether to lie.
“It’s Ma’s birthday this week,” I say. “Rith and I happen to be home at the same time, so we’re planning to go see her.”
Natalia goes stiff against me. Only slightly, but I feel it.
“Oh.” She slips off my chest and settles beside me. “That’s nice. You should go. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have both of you there.”
“She will.”
Natalia reaches for the sheet and pulls it higher over herself even though she wasn’t concerned with being naked ten seconds ago.
“That’ll be good.”
“Nat.”
“What?”
“You’re doing that thing.”
Her mouth tightens.
“I said it was nice.”
She looks away. I stare at the side of her face, trying to force the words through whatever is crushing my throat. Then I lift my left hand between us.
“So,” I say. “You asked about the birds.”
Her gaze drops to the black shapes spread across my hand and knuckles.
The murder of crows. She’s traced them before on the rooftop in Seoul.
Kissed them. Asked what they meant again while we were half asleep.
I always gave her some bullshit answer about liking the design.
I turn my hand palm down and hold it out to her.
“They cover the worst of the scars.”
Her expression changes. She takes my hand carefully, like she’s afraid sudden movement might make me pull it back. Her thumb follows the wing of one crow, then moves over the uneven skin beneath the ink. I stare at our hands.
“From beating the shit out of my father.”
Her thumb stops. The silence after that feels endless.
“He liked throwing us around.” I keep my eyes fixed on the tattoos.
“Ma. Rithy. Me. Didn’t really matter who.
If dinner wasn’t made right, Ma got her ass beat.
If Rithy needed help with his math homework and didn’t understand the first explanation, he got his ass beat.
If I left some stupid toy in the hallway and Dad kicked it with his foot, I'd get mine.”
I can feel her looking at me, but I can’t meet her eyes yet.
“That was his language,” I say. “That and drinking himself fucking stupid.”
Her fingers close around mine.
“You don’t have to tell me this.”
“Yeah, I do.” She presses her lips against my shoulder. I exhale through my nose. “I’m trying not to run from it for once.”
She brings my hand to her mouth and kisses one battered knuckle. I stare at that until I can keep going.
“Ma was always too afraid to leave him, he met her in Thailand when she was young. She'd lost all her family in Cambodia. She didn't have anyone to help get us of out of it. So she stayed. When I got older I started working out. I figured if I got big enough, eventually he’d think twice. I’d lift whatever I could find. Weights when I could get them. Furniture. Bags of rice. Anything heavy enough to make me stronger.”
Her other hand moves into my hair, combing slowly through it.
“I wanted to get bigger than him,” I say. “Or at least big enough to stop him putting his hands on everyone.”
“You were literally a child, Kiri.”
“I didn’t feel like one.”
I swallow. Her nails scratch lightly against my scalp, grounding me.
“I was sixteen when he caught Rithy kissing a boy. He'd come home early from the bar. Rithy'd snuck him in, we normally never had people over. They'd been doing homework together, until they weren't.”
Natalia’s hand stills.
“Dad went fucking ballistic. Rith was already on the ground by the time I got to the kitchen. Dad kept hitting him. Kicking him. Rithy was trying to cover his head, and he just kept—”
The image rises too fast. Rithy’s blood on the floor. Dad’s boot connecting with his ribs. Ma screaming from somewhere behind me. I close my eyes. Natalia presses her forehead to my temple.
“You can stop.” I shake my head.
“I thought he was going to kill him.”
My voice breaks around the words, and I hate it. Hate that I can still feel sixteen inside me, all that rage and panic and helplessness.
“So I fucking stopped him.”
I flex my hand inside hers.
“I wailed on him. Just took everything he’d ever done and gave it back. He was still strong. Big guy. Military. He didn’t go down easy.”
I give a humorless laugh.
“But I had years of anger stored up. Every time he hit her. Every time he made Rithy feel weak. Every time I stood there knowing I wasn’t strong enough yet.
I fucked my hands up really bad,” I continue.
“I didn't know how to fight, how to throw a punch. I split them open. Broke a couple bones. Didn’t care. I just kept hitting him until he stayed down.”
I finally look at her. There’s no fear in her face or disgust to my surprise. Only concern so open that it nearly makes me look away again.
“He didn’t touch Rithy after that,” I say. “Not around me. Didn’t touch Ma either, at least not where I could see it. He knew I’d step to his weak ass. Knew I wasn’t someone he could throw around anymore.”
Natalia touches my face.
“You protected them.”
“I should’ve done it sooner.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I was bigger than Rith or Ma. I could’ve—”
“No.” Her hand slides behind my neck, holding me there. “You don’t get to blame that boy because the grown man in that house was a monster.”
The words land somewhere deep. I look down again.
“Ma still won’t leave him.”
Natalia’s thumb brushes beneath my eye although there’s nothing there. I can't let myself cry over him, it feels like a failure somehow. Like he gets another part of me he doesn't deserve.
“We bought her a house. Thought if she had somewhere safe, she’d finally get away. Instead she let him move in.”
“Oh, Kiri.”
“He drinks whatever money we give her. Still hits her, though she tries to hide it now.” My jaw locks. “She says she owes him because he got her out of Cambodia. Says he gave her a life here and her boys. Like that means he gets to spend the rest of it beating the shit out of her.”
Natalia curls into me, wrapping one arm around my waist.
“I hate going there,” I admit. “I hate looking at him. Hate how fast I become that kid again the second I walk through the goddamn door.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“It’s Ma’s birthday. She hardly sees us. She never gets anything nice for herself. It only happens if we do it. So we do it.”
Natalia studies my face.
“He’ll be there?”
“Probably. Might be at the bar if we’re lucky.”
My laugh sounds dead even to me.
“He usually disappears once he has enough money in his pocket. But if he’s home, he’ll act like none of it happened. Like we’re one big happy family and I’m the asshole for barely speaking to him. Until he's drunk enough beer, then he'll show his ass.”
The room goes quiet again. Natalia keeps stroking my hair.
“I don’t talk about this because I don’t want to,” I say. “I don’t like what I come from. I don’t like what kind of man he is.”
“You're nothing like him.”
Something inside my chest gives way. I pull her into me and bury my face against her neck. She holds me without another word, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other moves slowly along my spine. I stay there longer than I mean to. Eventually, I force myself to lift my head.
“So,” I say.
My voice is rough.
“So?”
I take her hand and lace our fingers together.
“Do you want to come with us?”
“For your mother’s birthday?”
I nod.
“To meet her?”
“Rithy'll be there too, being his usual self and possibly my drunk asshole father.”
She watches me carefully.
“You wanted pieces of me. This is one of them. Not a good one or one I’m proud of.” I rub my thumb across her knuckles. “But it’s mine.”
She leans forward and kisses me. Just one slow press of her mouth against mine that makes my chest ache more than anything we did before the phone rang. When she draws back, she keeps her forehead against mine.
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to decide now.”
“I just did.”
“It might be bad.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
“He might say something fucked up.”
“Then I’ll hate him quietly for your mother’s sake.”
A laugh catches in my throat.
“I want to meet her.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” Her fingers trace the crows on my hand again. "I want to be there with you.”
I pull her against me, tucking her beneath my chin.
Maybe this is possible.
Maybe letting someone close doesn’t have to mean I'm handing them a weapon.