Chapter THREE
THE brOKEN MUG
The next week passed without anything terrible happening, which somehow made Mei more nervous. Daniel was polite. Too polite.
He asked about school. He made stir-fry on Wednesday and let Mei choose what they watched during dinner. On Thursday, he brought home a pack of the strawberry mochi ice cream she liked and left it in the freezer without mentioning it.
Anyone else would have called it kindness.
Mei called it weather. Her father could be sunny right before a storm.
Tiana tried not to hover at school. She failed.
The days when Daniel acted kind were the days Mei trusted him least.
Earlier that week he offered to drive her to the mall.
He suggested new sneakers, then breakfast, then a movie.
He had not volunteered to spend an entire day with her in months. Mei said she had homework.
"On Saturday?"
"A project."
"I can help."
"It's art."
Daniel leaned against her doorframe. "You used to like hanging
out with me." Mei kept her eyes on the sketchbook in her lap. "I was little."
The room went quiet.
She looked up, instantly aware that the sentence could sound cruel. Daniel's expression did not change. "You're still little."
"I mean younger."
"I know what you meant."
He left before she could decide whether she had made things worse.
Ten minutes later the vacuum started in the hallway.
Daniel never vacuumed. He was a person who believed cleaning occurred because someone else eventually became bothered enough to do it.
The machine bumped against Mei's door, moved away, then stopped.
Her doorknob turned.
Mei looked up. Daniel entered carrying the vacuum hose. "Need to get under your desk."
"I can do it."
"Move."
She slid her chair aside. He vacuumed beneath the desk for all of five seconds, then his attention shifted to the wastebasket. He lifted it.
"What are you doing?"
"Cleaning."
He looked through the crumpled papers before dumping them into a trash bag.
Mei's pulse quickened.
"That's weird."
"What's weird?"
"Going through my trash."
Daniel's mouth tightened. "If you don't want me cleaning up after you, keep your room clean." He moved to the dresser. One drawer was open an inch. His fingers rested on the handle.
"Dad."
He looked at her.
"That's my stuff."
Something passed across his face. Irritation, maybe surprise. Mei rarely said mine in his house. Then he lifted both hands. "Fine. Have your privacy."
He rolled the vacuum out.
Mei waited until she heard it downstairs before checking the drawer.
Her socks had been shifted. The old purple pencil case was still at the back, beneath a winter hat, but the zipper faced the wrong direction.
Someone had opened it. The case was empty except for three dried markers and a movie ticket from years ago.
Mei had moved her mother's jade pendant to a small jewelry pouch months earlier.
Still, seeing the pencil case disturbed made her hands go cold.
Why would Daniel search it? Unless he remembered Grace giving it to her.
Mei sat on the floor and tried to reconstruct the day. Grace had picked her up from elementary school. They had gone for dumplings. Grace had written something on the back of a receipt and folded it into the pencil case while Mei colored on the kids' menu.
Call Nai Nai if you need her. Mei remembered the meaning more clearly than the exact words.
Had Daniel known about the note? Had he found it after Grace died?
If he had, why was he searching now? A heavy thump sounded from the basement.
Mei stood. Another thump. She stepped into the hall.
Daniel had left the basement door open. Light spilled across the kitchen tiles.
She moved halfway down the stairs before common sense caught up with her. Do not go down there. Then she heard Daniel talking. Not to himself. On the phone.
"I said I handled it."
A pause.
"No. She was nine."
Mei's grip tightened on the railing. Daniel's voice dropped. "Because I know my daughter."
Another pause.
"Stop asking me that."
Mei leaned forward, trying to hear the other person. Nothing but a faint electronic murmur.
"It doesn't matter what she thinks she remembers."
Her stomach clenched.
The stair beneath Mei's foot gave a tiny wooden click. Daniel stopped speaking. Mei did not breathe.
"I'll call you back," he said.
She ran upstairs on silent feet and made it to her bedroom just as the basement door opened below.
Daniel climbed the stairs slowly.
Mei sat at her desk and turned a page in her sketchbook. Her pencil touched the paper, though she had no idea what she was drawing. His footsteps entered the hall. Stopped outside her room. The door opened.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
Mei looked up with what she hoped was confusion. "Yeah."
"Thought I heard something."
"I dropped my pencil."
The lie came so quickly it frightened her. Daniel's eyes went to the floor. No pencil. Mei let the one in her hand roll off the desk. It struck the carpet with almost no sound.
"That," she said.
He stared at her for another second, then walked away. Mei did not move until the garage door closed ten minutes later.
She called Alex.
He answered on the fourth ring. "Yo."
"Are you busy?"
"Depends. If you need money, yes."
Normally she would have laughed. "Did Dad ever ask you what Mom told you before she died?"
Silence.
"That's random."
"Did he?"
Alex's voice changed. "A couple times. Why?"
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, because she didn't tell me anything. He used to ask if she had talked about leaving. I thought it was grief stuff." "Did he ask about me?"
Another silence.
"Mei, what's going on?"
"Nothing. I was just wondering."
"You don't call me on a Saturday to just wonder."
She almost told him. The confession rose all the way to her throat. Then Daniel's truck turned into the driveway.
"I gotta go."
"Mei -"
She hung up.
That evening, Daniel made grilled cheese and tomato soup.
He asked if she wanted extra cheese. He apologized for being "nosy" while cleaning her room.
He even let her choose the movie. Mei watched him laugh at a scene he had seen before and thought about the phone call in the basement.
It doesn't matter what she thinks she remembers.
He knew somebody was remembering something.
The only mystery was how much he knew about her.
* * *
"You have to stop looking at me like that," Mei said Friday at lunch. "Like what?"
"Like you're trying to see bruises through my hoodie." Tiana stabbed a tater tot with a plastic fork. "I'm being
observant."
"You're being weird."
"I was already weird. You knew what this friendship was." Mei smiled despite herself.
They had not discussed the murder again in detail. Instead,
Tiana had become quietly practical. She made Mei memorize Mrs. Brooks's number. She added Alex's contact information to a note titled EMERGENCY because Mei knew his number but sometimes blanked when panicked. She asked whether Grandma Lillian still lived in the same house.
"She does," Mei said.
"How far?"
"Twenty minutes."
"Does your dad go there?"
"Not really. Grandma hates him."
Tiana looked up. "Even before she knew?"
"She never liked how he talked to Mom."
"So she has taste."
Mei kicked her under the table. That afternoon, Alex picked
Mei up from school. His old Honda sounded like a blender full of bolts, but he was proud of it because he had replaced half the engine himself.
"Seat belt," he said.
"You sound like Dad."
Alex made a face. "Never say that to me again."
Mei buckled in.
He turned the music down as they pulled away from the curb. "You wanna get food?"
"Dad said straight home."
"Dad isn't in the car."
"He'll know."
Alex glanced at her. "What does that mean?"
Mei looked out the window.
"Nothing."
"Mei."
She watched a row of houses blur by. Fall had stripped most of
the trees bare. Somebody had already put up Christmas lights even though Thanksgiving was still two weeks away.
"Do you remember the night Mom died?" she asked.
Alex's hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
"Yeah."
"Where were you?"
"Basketball practice. Coach kept us late. Why?"
"Just wondering."
"You don't just wonder about that."
Mei pulled at a loose thread on her sleeve. Alex took the next right instead of going toward home.
"Where are we going?"
"Parking lot."
"What?"
He pulled into the far side of a grocery-store lot and parked beneath a dead lamp.
"Now talk."
Mei stared at him.
He was four years older, but sometimes he still looked like the fourteen-year-old boy who had sat beside her at their mother's funeral with both fists clenched in his lap.
She almost told him. The words came all the way to her tongue.
Then she remembered Daniel standing in her doorway that morning after the funeral.
Your brother doesn't need more problems.
Don't upset him with things you don't understand.
At nine, she had believed adults when they told her what she understood. At twelve, the sentence still had power.
"Dad scares me," she said instead.
Alex's expression changed.
"Did he hit you?"
"No."
"Did he touch you?"
"No. Nothing like that. He just... gets mad."
Alex let out a breath through his nose. "Yeah."
"You know?"
"Of course I know. You think I stay at Marcus's because his couch is comfortable?"
Mei looked at him.
Alex rubbed both hands over his face.
"He's worse since Mom died. He was bad before too, just... quieter about it."
"Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"To who?"
The answer made Mei angry.
"Grandma. Me. Somebody."
"I thought I was protecting you."
"By leaving?"
Alex flinched.
Mei immediately regretted it.
"Sorry."
"No. You're right."
"I didn't mean—"
"You did. And you're right."
He looked toward the store entrance, where people pushed carts under bright lights.
"I should be home more."
Mei said, "I don't want you fighting with him."
"I'm not scared of him."
She looked at him sharply.
Alex caught it.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He waited.
She wished she could hand him the truth without saying it. Finally Alex started the car.
"If you ever need out, call me," he said. "I don't care if it's three in the morning."
"Okay."
"And if I don't answer, call twice."
"Okay."
He pointed at her. "Three times if you have to."
"Okay, Dad."
"Disrespectful."