74. No More Surprises
No More Surprises
Kiri
Igo back in first.
Marisol is standing beside Ma’s bed, checking the numbers on the monitor. Natalia sits close to her, one hand resting over Ma’s while she sleeps.
“She’s okay,” Natalia says before I can ask. “Her heart rate came back down.”
Marisol gives me a look that makes it clear she’s still deciding whether either Chhim brother should be allowed near this room again.
“She needs quiet,” she says. “No more surprises. No arguments.”
She finishes checking Ma’s IV and leaves us alone.
Rithy appears in the doorway a minute later.
All the anger has burned out of him. He looks younger without it, his eyes swollen and his coat clutched around him like armor.
He doesn’t ask whether he can come in. He slips into the chair by the window, pulls his knees to his chest, and drapes the coat over his head.
A nearly six-foot musician hiding beneath several thousand dollars’ worth of black wool because he hates himself.
Ma sleeps for another hour. When she finally opens her eyes, she looks disoriented until her gaze finds me. Then Natalia. Then the shape curled beneath the coat.
“Rithy,” she whispers.
The coat drops. Rithy unfolds from the chair and crosses the room, but he stops beside the bed like he isn’t sure he deserves to come any closer.
Ma opens both arms. He climbs carefully onto the edge of the mattress, avoiding her bruised ribs and every wire still attached to her.
Then he folds himself around her as much as the narrow bed allows, his head tucked beneath her chin like he’s a boy again.
Ma holds him. Her fingers comb the hair back from his face.
“Koun pros s’at robos mae (My beautiful son),” she says.
Rithy squeezes his eyes shut. “Som toh, Mae (I'm sorry, Ma),” he answers.
She nods against his hair. Neither of them says anything else. They lie there trying not to cry, failing quietly enough that neither one has to admit it. Eventually, exhaustion takes them both. Ma’s hand stays tangled in his hair while Rithy sleeps curled against her side.
I pull Natalia tighter against my chest and lower my mouth to hers.
“Still sure you don’t want out?” I whisper, letting the tease soften the question I can’t seem to stop asking.
She answers by kissing me. It drags my heart straight into my mouth.
I feel every beat of it in the rush of blood beneath my tongue, in the way my hand tightens at her waist, in the certainty that she could ask for any part of me right now and I’d hand it over.
When she pulls back, she sinks her teeth into the side of my neck.
Pain flashes, followed instantly by a rush of pleasure so hot I have to clamp down on the moan rising in my throat. Her lips brush my ear.
“Stop asking stupid questions, Misiu.”
I breathe out carefully. “Yes, Kroppy.”
The next week moves faster than the one before it.
Ma leaves the ICU for the trauma floor. Her brain scans continue to improve, and the doctors stop talking about the bleed with the same tension in their voices.
She walks farther each day, first with a walker and a therapist beside her, then with one of us following so closely she threatens to hit us with it.
Her throat heals slowly. She tires after speaking for too long, and swallowing remains painful, but she works her way from thick liquids to soft food and finally something that resembles an actual meal.
The bruises fade through every ugly color imaginable. Her ribs will take longer.
So will everything no scan can measure.
Stefan and Elise call every day. They never directly tell us to leave, but the questions keep coming. When do you think you’ll be able to join the others? Should we move the studio dates? Can you work remotely? How much longer should we tell the label to expect?
Rafe and Ronan have already started in Los Angeles without us, building rough arrangements and sending files back and forth. We listen through headphones in the hospital cafeteria and leave notes at two in the morning, but it isn’t the same as being in the room.
Rithy and I argue about it constantly.
“We should stay,” he says.
“She’ll tell us to go.”
“She tells us she can walk alone while holding onto the wall.”
“She’s getting better.”
“She almost died.”
That ends every conversation. Neither of us says what sits beneath it. We left her in that house once.
We aren’t doing it again.
Before she’s discharged, we rent her somewhere new.
A furnished one-story house in a quieter neighborhood with wide hallways, a walk-in shower, and no memories of Dad in the walls.
Rithy fills the kitchen with food she won’t be able to eat for another month.
I replace her clothes and toiletries. Natalia chooses soft blankets, slippers with grips on the soles, and enough pillows to build a defensive structure around Ma’s ribs.
Nothing from the old house goes there until police release it and Ma decides what she wants.
She never has to cross that doorway again if she doesn't want to. The discharge planner arranges home-health visits. A nurse will check her medications and injuries several times a week. Physical and occupational therapists will come to the house. She’ll have follow-up appointments with trauma surgery, neurology, and speech therapy.
It still means someone needs to stay with her.
At least for the first few weeks.
Rithy and I discuss hiring a private-duty nurse for the hours home health isn’t there. We can afford it. We can afford three of them. Money isn’t the problem.
“Someone might sell it,” Rithy says quietly.
We’re gathered around the small table in Ma’s hospital room while she sleeps. Discharge papers cover half the surface, along with medication lists and instructions none of us fully trust ourselves to remember.
“It's a risk,” Natalia says.
“If they recognize our names that's it. One picture of her bruises, one recording or detail about Dad, and suddenly some outlet has an exclusive source close to the family.”
“We can use an agency with confidentiality agreements,” I say.
“And when the money an outlet offers is more than their yearly salary?”
I rub both hands over my face. Elise wants us in Los Angeles within five days.
Stefan says the studio schedule can stretch another week, but after that, other people start losing time and money.
Ma insists she’ll be fine alone between visits, which proves more than anything that she can't be trusted to make this decision. She won’t only be recovering from the injuries.
She’ll be grieving him too. She tries to hide it from us, but I still see the pain in her eyes every time someone mentions the house or she wakes up reaching for a man who will never be there again.
We can’t leave her alone.
We won’t.
“I’ll do it,” Natalia says.
I look at her. “No.”
Her eyebrows rise.
“No?”
“You’ve been here every day since this happened.”
“Exactly. She knows me.”
“You’ve stopped everything for this. You're barely on your socials and you've paused all your brand work. You hardly see your own family.”
“I can visit my parents when she's resting. I can work from the house.” She leans across the table. “You’re trying to protect me from choosing something difficult because you think loving you means you’ve already taken too much.
It's just like back in Japan. You're not taking anything from me. I'm offering.”
My mouth closes. Rithy looks between us and wisely says nothing.
“That’s a lot to take on.”
Natalia glances toward the bed. Ma is asleep with one hand curled beneath her cheek, looking more peaceful than she ever did in the spotless house Dad ruled.
“Maybe,” Natalia says. “But she shouldn’t have to recover with a total stranger.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think you understand what you’re offering.”
“I understand perfectly. You and Rithy need to go to Los Angeles. She needs someone here who won’t sell her pain, won’t treat her like a patient every minute, and won’t let her pretend she can do everything alone.” She sits back. “That’s me.”
“Nat.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
A laugh escapes Rithy and I glare at him. Natalia reaches across the table and takes my hand.
“I love you,” she says. “This is part of loving you. Let me decide what I’m willing to give.”
She's looking at me the same way she did when she stood between Ma and Dad. That steady, certain look that shows she's already committed. I look at the two of them and realize the decision was made before I ever opened my mouth. Natalia squeezes my fingers.
“I’m doing it.”
I bring her hand to my lips.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”