Chapter FOUR
GRANDMA'S HOUSE
Alex waited until Daniel left. That was the only reason Mei agreed to go.
After the mug shattered, Daniel spent twenty minutes pacing downstairs and another ten arguing through Alex's closed bedroom door.
Then, without apology, he put on his jacket and drove away. Alex came into Mei's room immediately.
"You ready?"
She had filled one duffel bag with jeans, sweatshirts, underwear, toiletries, a school charger, and the small jade pendant her mother used to wear.
She had taken the pendant from Grace's jewelry box after the funeral and hidden it inside an old pencil case because Daniel once said he might sell some of her mother's things.
"What do I tell him?" Mei asked.
"Nothing."
"Alex."
"You're twelve. He threw a mug at your head. You don't owe him
a formal checkout process."
"He's going to be mad."
"Let him be mad at me."
Mei looked at him.
Alex picked up the duffel.
"Come on."
They were halfway down the stairs when Mei stopped. The
basement door was ten feet away.
Closed.
Ordinary. She had walked past it thousands of times since Grace
died. Every time, part of her expected the door to open and release that night again. Alex followed her gaze.
"You okay?"
Mei swallowed.
"Can we just go?"
"Yeah."
Outside, cold air hit her face. She did not look back at the
house. Grandma Lillian lived in a brick ranch on a quiet street lined with sycamores.
Mei's mother had grown up there. There were still pencil marks inside the pantry doorway showing Grace's height from age six to seventeen.
When Mei was little, she used to stand beside the marks and try to stretch taller than her mother had been at the same age.
The porch light came on before Alex reached the front steps. Grandma opened the door in purple house slippers, reading glasses perched on top of her gray-streaked hair.
"Why are you two here this late?"
Then she saw Mei's duffel.
Her face changed.
"Come inside."
No interrogation on the porch.
No panic. Just come inside. Mei loved her for that. The house
smelled like ginger tea and the eucalyptus ointment Grandma used for everything from sore knees to headaches. A game show played quietly in the living room. Grandma locked the door after them.
"Kitchen," she said.
They sat around the same oval table where Grace used to do homework as a teenager. Grandma put a kettle on before asking a single question.
Alex spoke first.
"Dad lost it."
"That isn't new."
"He threw a mug at Mei."
Grandma turned slowly.
"At you?"
Mei nodded.
"Did it hit you?"
"No."
"Did he touch you?"
"No."
Grandma looked at Alex.
"And you?"
"We shoved each other. I'm fine."
The kettle began to whistle.
Grandma switched it off so hard the lid rattled.
"You two are staying here tonight."
"I can go back to Marcus's," Alex said.
"I wasn't asking."
Alex gave Mei a look that said now you know where Mom got
it.
Grandma poured tea.
Mei wrapped both hands around the warm mug but didn't
drink. Her body had calmed since leaving home. Her mind had not. She thought about Daniel coming back to an empty house. Her missing clothes. Her toothbrush gone. The jade pendant. He would know this was not an overnight visit.
"Can I stay here longer?" she asked.
Grandma sat across from her.
"As long as you need."
"What if Dad says no?"
"Your father does not get to frighten you and then demand that
you return to be frightened some more."
"But legally—"
"Legally, I will make some calls in the morning."
Mei looked down.
Grandma watched her.
"There's more."
It wasn't a question.
Alex glanced between them.
"Mei?"
Her pulse sped up.
This was the opening. She could still close it. Say no. Go to bed.
Sleep in her mother's old room. Wake up and keep carrying the secret. Tiana's voice came back to her. It's not fair that he killed your mom and gets to just live his life like nothing happened. Mei put the tea down before she spilled it.
"Grandma, I have to tell you something."
Lillian's expression went still.
Alex pulled out the chair beside Mei.
"Okay," Grandma said.
Mei looked at Alex.
"You too."
He sat.
For a few seconds, all Mei could hear was the refrigerator
humming.
"Mom didn't fall by herself."
Alex frowned.
Grandma did not move.
"What do you mean?" Alex asked.
Mei stared at the wood grain of the table.
"Dad pushed her."
Silence.
Alex blinked.
"What?"
"I saw it."
Grandma's hand tightened around her mug.
Mei told them.
Not fast this time. Not like she had with Tiana, when the story
had rushed out before fear could catch it. She told them where she had been standing. What Grace wore. What Daniel said. The way he grabbed her mother's arm. The movement at the top of the stairs. The fall. The waiting. The doorknob. The picture frame. She told them she hid in the closet.
She told them Grace had seen her. She told them Daniel had lied to the paramedics and the police. She told them why she had stayed silent. When she finished, Alex stood so abruptly his chair fell backward.
"I'm going to kill him."
"No," Grandma said.
Her voice was quiet, but it stopped him.
"Grandma, he killed Mom."
"And you will not throw your life away giving him another
tragedy. Sit down."
Alex's chest rose and fell.
"Sit."
He picked up the chair and sat.
Grandma turned to Mei.
Her eyes were wet.
"Baby, look at me."
Mei couldn't.
"Mei."
She forced herself to meet her grandmother's eyes.
"You saw this when you were nine?"
Mei nodded.
"And you've carried it alone for three years?"
Another nod.
Grandma covered her mouth. For one frightening second, Mei
thought she had broken her. Then Lillian stood, came around the table, and pulled Mei against her chest.
"Oh, my baby."
Mei began sobbing.
Not the quiet crying she did in bathrooms and under blankets. This came from somewhere lower. It bent her forward. Grandma held her tighter. Alex knelt beside them and put one arm around Mei's back.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered.
"I was scared."
"You could have told me."
"I was scared."
He closed his eyes.
"Okay. Okay."
Grandma kissed the top of Mei's head.
"You don't have to be scared alone anymore."
It took a long time for the room to settle. When it did, Grandma washed her face, changed out of her slippers, and put on real shoes.
Alex looked at her.
"Where are you going?"
"Police station."
Mei's stomach dropped.
"Tonight?"
"Yes."
"Grandma—"
Lillian crouched beside her chair.
"Listen to me. Your father hurt my daughter. He has frightened my granddaughter. I will not give him one more day because everybody is afraid of how he might react."
"What if they tell him I said it?"
"They probably will have to question him."
Mei stood. "Then no."
"Mei—"
"No. He'll know."
Her breathing quickened.
"He'll know I saw. He'll come here. He'll—"
"Then we protect this house. We call the police. We get an order from the court if we can. We make sure your school knows. We do everything we should have been able to do for you three years ago."
"You don't know him."
Grandma's face tightened.
"I knew him before you were born. I knew enough not to trust him. I just didn't know enough to save my daughter."
Her voice broke on the last word. She stood and wiped her cheek.
"I'm not making that mistake with you."
Mei looked at Alex.
His eyes were red, but his voice was steady.
"I'm going too."
Grandma nodded.
"Mei can stay here if she wants."
Mei imagined them leaving without her. Imagined police asking questions based on secondhand words. Imagined Daniel saying she was confused.
A child.
A liar. The fear was enormous. Underneath it was something else. Anger. Three years of it. She picked up her coat.
"I'm coming."
Grandma searched her face.
"You sure?"
Mei wasn't.
"No," she said. "But I'm coming anyway."
* * *
* * *
Grandma's house had a room nobody used anymore.
Grace's room.
Lillian had changed the sheets over the years and stored winter
blankets in the closet, but she had never fully converted it into anything else. The dresser was still the same honey-colored wood Grace had begged for in high school. A faded sticker shaped like a yellow star remained on the inside edge of the closet door.
"Your mother put that there when she was thirteen," Grandma said the morning after Mei arrived. "I told her stickers ruin furniture. She told me future archaeologists would appreciate it."
Mei touched the star.
"Sounds like her."
"It does."
On the dresser sat a framed photograph Mei had never seen.
Grace looked about sixteen, standing beside Lillian outside a mall. Both wore denim jackets that were aggressively 1990s. Mei smiled. "You dressed the same."
"Your mother copied me."
"She would say you copied her."
"She would be wrong."
For twenty minutes they talked about ordinary Grace. Grace who hated mushrooms.
Grace who sang badly on purpose in the car. Grace who once cut
her own bangs the night before picture day and then blamed humidity.
Mei listened greedily. Since the murder, memories of Grace had organized themselves around the ending.
Hospital. Funeral. Basement. Police. Whispered conversations that stopped when Mei entered rooms.
Grandma kept pulling her mother back into the years before that.
"She wanted to open a bakery for about six months," Lillian said.
"Mom barely baked."
"Exactly. She made one good lemon cake and thought destiny had spoken."
Mei laughed.
Then she saw a cardboard box beneath the bed. GRACE COLLEGE.
"Can I look?"
Grandma hesitated. "Yes. But if it becomes too much, we stop."
Inside were notebooks, ticket stubs, photographs, old greeting cards, and a blue planner from Grace's final year at college. Most pages contained assignments and work shifts. Near the back, Grace had written a list titled THINGS I WANT MY KIDS TO KNOW.
The list was from long before Mei existed.
Maybe Grace had been imagining motherhood rather than planning anything specific.
1. You can call me even when you're wrong.
2. Nobody gets to scare you and call it love.
3. Learn how money works. 4. Family is supposed to make room for who you are.
5. Always know where the exits are. Mom taught me that one.