72. I’m Glad
I'm Glad
Kiri
Rithy stares at her.
Natalia freezes near the foot of the bed.
Ma’s eyes move between us, waiting.
A look passes between Rithy and me. We can’t tell her while she’s barely awake, her voice scraped raw and every monitor beside her waiting for something to go wrong.
Rithy understands before I have to say it.
He's always been the better liar purely out of necessity.
He learned young, trying to hide every part of himself that might make Dad rage harder.
Later, he learned how to deepen his voice and change his posture at gas stations in small towns where nobody cared that he played guitar for The Riven Altar.
All they saw were the dividing lines and which side of them they thought he belonged on.
He's lied for years for safety and survival.
Now he puts on the performance of his life.
“He’s fine, Ma.” Rithy says easily. “He’s at home. He called the paramedics and told them you had a nasty fall. You know how he hates hospitals and all the fuss.”
Something changes in Ma’s eyes. She doesn’t quite believe him.
I can see it in the faint crease between her brows, but the part of her that has survived all these years by choosing hope over truth accepts what he gives her.
She nods weakly. Then her eyelids fall shut.
Within moments, her breathing settles into the slow rhythm of sleep.
I can see the rage behind his eyes flare now that she's not watching him. I catch Rithy by the arm and pull him into the hallway. The door has barely closed behind us before he rips free.
“Calm down,” I say.
“Calm down?” His voice cracks. “She gets her voice back, and the first person she asks for is that motherfucker. Are you kidding me?”
“Rith.”
“He tried to fucking kill her, and she asks where he is.” He drives both hands into my chest. "Fuck!"
He shoves me again. I let him. His eyes are full now, anger and tears fighting for the same space while he pounds his palms against my chest like he can force the whole thing through me and out the other side.
“It’s fucking stupid,” I say. “But this isn’t new. We know how she is.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
He shoves me once more before the strength falls out of him. He drops into a crouch against the wall, hands pressed together in front of his mouth like prayer, breathing through his nose. I stand over him and wait.
“We can’t upset her right now,” I say when his breathing finally slows. “Just keep your shit together for a few more days. Let her get stronger, then we’ll tell her.”
He closes his eyes. Natalia slips through the door behind us.
“She’s out,” she says quietly.
Rithy pushes himself to his feet. His face is blotched, his eyes wet, and he doesn’t bother hiding either one.
“Did you hear that bullshit in there?”
Natalia nods. Her face pulls tight with concern, not only for Ma but for both of us.
“She’s only ever known him,” she says. “She was a scared teenager when they met, and she just woke up from something terrifying. Her mind probably reached for what it knows.”
“What it knows tried to fucking murder her.”
“I get that.” Natalia moves closer. “I’m not saying it makes sense. I’m saying it doesn't mean she loves you any less.”
She reaches out and closes her hand around his arm. Rithy looks down at it, then up at her and his tension eases.
There’s something between them now that wasn’t there before.
Something built in all the moments I missed while I was passed out against a waiting-room wall, taking a shower, going for a run, or disappearing long enough to piss.
She learned when to joke with him and when not to.
He learned how to let her touch him when he was falling apart.
Natalia isn’t just a miracle that happened to me.
Somehow, she’s become one for all of us.
Ma improves in small, steady ways.
She stays awake longer. Her voice strengthens from scraped air into a whisper we can understand without leaning over her mouth.
The bruising around her throat begins to fade at the edges, and physical therapists help her sit upright, then stand beside the bed with both hands wrapped around a walker.
Every new thing feels impossible until she does it. Then we immediately want the next one.
The doctors clear her for ice chips, followed by thickened liquids and food soft enough that Rithy says it looks pre-chewed. She eats three spoonfuls of mashed potatoes before announcing they have no salt and refusing the fourth. That's the first moment I believe she might actually be okay.
The questions about Dad keep coming. At first, our excuses are easy because they fit the man she knows.
He doesn’t like hospitals. He has trouble driving at night.
His back is bothering him. He’s at home watching television and waiting for her to get stronger.
Ma accepts each answer with the resigned disappointment of someone who has spent most of her life expecting nothing better from him.
Dad choosing his recliner over her hospital bed doesn’t surprise her, even if he’s the reason she’s lying in it.
That might be the sickest part.
On the second day without the tube, she asks for her phone.
“It’s at the house,” I tell her.
“Call him on the hospital phone.”
She reaches for it, and Rithy suddenly knocks her remote over on purpose, it falls to the ground with a clatter.
Rithy looks at the fully charged phone in my hand and turns his cough into something that almost sounds natural.
Natalia offers Ma another ice chip before she can question it.
Ma opens her mouth automatically, and Marisol arrives for medication rounds before the next demand can form.
Saved by crushed ice and scheduled painkillers.
On the fourth afternoon since she woke up, Ma can sit up without the bed supporting all of her weight.
Her voice is still rough, but each word comes out clearly.
A tray rests across her lap with chicken broth, gelatin, and applesauce lined up in separate plastic containers. She hasn’t touched any of it.
“Eat something,” I tell her.
“No.”
“Ma.”
“I want to call James.”
Rithy goes rigid, the spoonful of applesauce suspended halfway between the cup and Ma’s mouth.
“We’ll call him later,” I say.
“You always say later.”
“You need to eat first.”
“No food until I speak him.”
The spoon in Rithy’s hand hits the tray.
I look at him. His face has already changed.
I see the whole thing going wrong before it happens, stretched out in front of me so slowly I should be able to stop it.
But there’s nothing I can do short of hauling his ass out of the room, and even then, I won’t be fast enough to catch the words already coming out of his mouth.
“He’s fucking dead, Ma.”
The room empties of sound.
Ma stares at him. Her chin trembles before her whole face gives way.
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Rithy,” I warn.
“No. No, no.” Her hand fumbles weakly against the blanket as though she can push the words away.
“He shot himself because he thought he killed you.”
The monitor beside her begins to climb.
“Rith. Stop.”
“He didn’t want to face whatever punishment was coming for what he did to you. Do you understand that?”
“No.” Ma’s breath comes faster. “No. You lie.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Rithy, goddamn it, stop.”
“No.” He turns on me, his face wet and furious.
“I’m fucking sick of this. He terrorized us for years.
” His voice rises with every word. “I’m sick of pretending none of it happened.
I’m sick of acting like we were some happy family and he was just difficult.
He was a fucking psycho. He was a piece of shit. ”
Ma starts sobbing harder. Natalia moves to the bed immediately, taking her hand and putting an arm carefully around her shoulders. Rithy looks straight at Ma.
“And I’m glad,” he says. “Do you hear me? I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Rithy!”
I step between them and plant a hand against his chest.
He jerks away from me. “You’re defending him now?”
“No, I’m trying to stop Ma from having a fucking heart attack.”
I throw one hand toward the monitors. Her pulse is racing, the numbers flashing high while each breath catches painfully in her throat. The door opens hard. Marisol rushes inside, takes one look at the screen, and moves directly to Ma.
“Chenda, look at me. Slow breaths. In through your nose.”
Ma clutches Natalia’s hand and sobs harder. I expect the sight of her to break through Rithy’s rage. It doesn’t. His face goes harder, like he's finally reached the place where anger burns hotter than anything else.
“If the only person she gives a shit about is him, maybe it’s a shame she didn’t go with him.”
The words sink in like broken glass. Ma makes a broken sound. Pain flashes across Rithy’s face the instant he hears himself, but he refuses to take it back. He grabs his coat from the chair and nearly drags the entire thing over with it.
“Rithy, leave,” Marisol orders. “Now.”
He shoves one arm into his coat, catches his hip against the tray table, and sends a plastic cup rolling across the floor.
His shoulder clips another chair on his way to the door.
He knocks it sideways and keeps moving, leaving a trail of noise and disorder behind him like the room has to look as wrecked as he feels.
Natalia looks at me from beside the bed.
She’s holding Ma upright while Marisol checks the monitors and speaks to her in the calm, measured voice none of us can manage.
“Go,” Natalia says. “I’ve got her.”
For one beat, I’m split between them. Ma sobbing into Natalia’s shoulder. Rithy disappearing through the door after saying something that might haunt him for the rest of his life. Natalia meets my eyes and nods.
I trust her.
Then I turn and go after my brother.