Chapter THREE #3
Mei looked at him.
She still had not told him the secret. Not yet.
The words sat behind her teeth while Alex blamed himself for leaving home more often, for sleeping at Marcus's, for being tired of Daniel's rules. Mei realized silence did not stay contained inside the person keeping it. It leaked into everybody else's explanations.
"Alex," she said.
He dropped his hands.
Mei almost told him. Then a car door slammed outside. Everyone froze. Alex crossed to the window without pulling back the curtain. Grandma checked the doorbell camera. A neighbor stood on the sidewalk bringing in a trash can. The room exhaled together.
"This is ridiculous," Alex muttered.
"No," Grandma said. "This is information. We are learning how scared all of you have been."
Mei looked down.
Grandma sat beside her. "You can tell us what happened tonight. Only tonight if that is all you can manage." So Mei described the dishes. Daniel's question. His voice changing. The ceramic mug leaving his hand. She did not describe the basement. Not yet. Alex's jaw tightened. "He aimed at you."
"He said he didn't."
"It hit the wall by your head."
"I know."
"That's aiming."
Grandma said, "Whether he intended to strike her or frighten her, both are unacceptable."
Mei's phone buzzed.
DAD. She flinched so hard the duffel strap slipped from her hand. Alex reached for the phone. Grandma stopped him. "No. Mei decides." That mattered. Mei looked at the screen.
DAD: Where are you?
Another appeared.
DAD: Alex better bring you home.
Then:
DAD: Now.
Mei turned the phone face down.
"I'm not going."
Grandma nodded. "Good."
"Can he make me?"
Lillian took a breath. "He is your legal parent, which is why we are not pretending this can stay informal. If you are afraid to return, we need help from people who can make that official." "Police."
"Police first. Then probably a court."
Mei's stomach twisted.
"What if he tells them I'm lying because I got in trouble over dishes?"
"Then we tell the truth and let him tell whatever story he tells."
"What if they believe him?"
Grandma's eyes sharpened. "I am not giving him my granddaughter because I am afraid somebody might misunderstand us."
Mei had never heard anyone speak about Daniel as if he were a problem that could be opposed instead of weather everyone had to survive.
It made her brave for approximately five seconds.
* * *
The morning after the mug shattered, Daniel sent Alex a message before he contacted Mei. ALEX, STOP INTERFERING WITH HOW I PARENT MY CHILD.
Alex showed Grandma at breakfast.
"He wrote child like I'm a possession," Mei said.
"That's because control sounds ugly when people say it
honestly," Grandma replied.
Alex typed a response.
Lillian took the phone out of his hand.
"Hey."
"No fighting by text. Save the message. Send it to yourself. Do
not perform for him."
"I wasn't performing."
"Your thumbs were preparing a concert."
Mei smiled despite the headache behind her eyes.
Then Daniel called Alex.
The phone vibrated across the table. Once. Twice. Three times.
Alex let it stop. A voicemail appeared. He listened on speaker. "Bring Mei home. You're nineteen minutes away and making
this worse. I threw a mug into the sink because she was being disrespectful. She jumped and now everybody's acting dramatic.
Call me."
Mei stared at the phone.
"Into the sink?"
Alex's jaw tightened. "It hit the wall."
"I know."
"He knows."
That was the first time Mei understood gaslighting as an action
rather than a word kids threw around online. Daniel was not
confused. He was not remembering differently because the moment
had moved fast. He was changing the location of the mug while the
broken pieces were probably still on the kitchen floor. Grandma
said, "Write down exactly what happened while it's fresh. Both of
you. Separately."
"Why?" Mei asked.
"Because memory changes. And because later, if he tells the
story ten different ways, you will have what you wrote today." They did.
Mei sat at Grandma's kitchen table and wrote:
Dad told me to do dishes that were not mine. I said Alex used
cups too. Dad got mad. He picked up the blue mug. He threw it. It
hit the wall to my left near my head. Pieces went under the table.
He said, "Look what you made me do."
Her handwriting got smaller by the end. Alex wrote his version
in the living room where Mei could not see it. When they finished,
Grandma photographed both pages and emailed them to herself. "That feels very police," Alex said.
"It feels very grandmother who has learned not to trust a liar." Mei looked at her page.
"Can I add something?"
"Of course."
She wrote one more line.
I thought he was going to hit me next. That sentence made the
room quieter than the others. Later, when Mei finally told
Grandma and Alex about Grace, the written page stayed on the
kitchen counter beneath a magnet shaped like a peach. The small
violence of the mug sat beside the enormous violence of the
murder. Neither cancelled the other. The mug had simply been the
moment Mei stopped waiting for danger to become undeniable.