Chapter 32
Laif needed to overcome his crippling fears. This was the next step to save the girls.
Sharon had always believed that intimate conversation healed. Talking about losses could help him deal with his own to overcome the fear. Psychotherapists used this tool.
She looked into his beautiful, brown eyes.
They held each other on the couch. Cuddles curled onto the floor. A wind outside began to push on the windows, and Sharon could hear them creak against its pressure. He ran his hands through her hair, sending hot electric chills into her.
“I guess I have lost someone before,” he answered.
“Who?” she encouraged.
He was silent for a moment. “My mother, although now I’m not sure when. I can’t remember anything before age five, but I know she wasn’t with us after I turned five.”
She squeezed him tighter. She wanted to do whatever she could to help him grow stronger.
Three scented candles burned on the dining table, scattering puddles of light, shadow, and sweet vanilla odor around the room.
“My father’s schizophrenia hadn’t been diagnosed until I was nine, but even before then he was paranoid. He would wake up ten times a night, armed with a loaded pistol, checking all the locks. After that, he would go into the garage to make sure no one was there, then he would circle the outside of the house for hours.”
“What did he say happened to your mother?”
“That she was a whore. That she had slept around with every guy in the neighborhood, so he kicked her out. He was paranoid though. I’m guessing he was the one who slept around, and he had to blame her to take the heat off himself. So in his own sick and twisted way he made her the villain.”
“But it’s unusual for a mother to give up her child. Why didn’t she take you?”
He looked down at her legs. “I wish I knew. I would have loved to have gone with her. My father was hell to live with. As he got worse, he would run throughout the house yelling that the devil was chasing him, throwing plates behind him. Luckily or unluckily he had a large inheritance so he didn’t have to function at a job.” Laif laughed. “Although he went through many jobs anyway. Being separated from my mother, I always wondered if I had younger half-brothers or half-sisters. I dreamed of having one, someone to relate to, someone who could relate to me.” He paused. “It was lonely with my father.”
No wonder Laif pursues the truth with such intensity, Sharon thought. He comes from a home where it was not only scarce, but his only companion. “Have you ever tried to find your mother?”
“He would never tell me her name. Can you believe that? My entire life and never spoke her name. I looked around his desk drawers and address books. Found some old girlfriends’ numbers, but never anything that led to my mother. There were no pictures of her around the house either.”
Cuddles stood up and licked Laif’s knee.
“I’m sorry … I wish I could have been there … with you. I know it’s impossible. I would have been only a child as well,” she laughed, “but I guess it’s my social worker instincts.” She stroked his cheeks and felt smooth skin until she reached beard stubble around his sculpted jaw and chin.
Butterflies swooned in her stomach. She curled her legs underneath her.
Cuddles rose, rested her head on Sharon’s lap, and chuffed.
Sharon just kept staring at him, soaking him up. She was also slowly gaining the courage she needed to talk. She decided it was time. It might help Laif somehow. She looked past him at the candle flames on the dining table.
“I had a sister, Marlene, three years younger than me. Such a little pest.” She giggled and felt tears marching out her eyes. “She would come up to my bed in the morning and jump on it while screaming, ‘Earthquake!’ She would sneak up behind me while I was putting on makeup and wrap her arms around mine and say, ‘Don’t. You’re turning into a turkey-monster. Ugly eye shadow, big red lips, clown cheeks, eeekkk!’”
He smiled. “I think I would have hated and loved that.”
She felt a shaky smile forming on her face. “Yes.” And she looked deep in his eyes. “She never lived old enough to put on makeup herself.” Insistent words traveled from her heart: “She was ten, playing on the front lawn on a hot summer day, not a cloud in the sky. The grass was sharp green, with a freshly mowed scent. She was somersaulting with Karen, a neighbor girl, and I was watering our rose bushes.” She swallowed hard. “I heard a screech of tires. A car came around the corner, fast. It swerved toward one side of the road, then the other.” She paused, unsure if she could go on.
His warm touch on her neck was comforting.
“When it got closer, it began to turn towards the girls. My sister was too busy somersaulting to see it jump over the curb, cross the sidewalk, and quietly travel the grass, then ...” Sharon was shuddering in his arms. She felt them tighten, holding her together. “… I screamed … I screamed with all my might … but she …”
“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
Cuddles nuzzled Sharon’s leg.
“She probably thought I was screaming with excitement,” Sharon continued in a weak, watery voice, “as she was flipping over, again and again. The girls were both having so much fun, Laif. The car … I can still see the bumper. Rusty and scrapped, like this wasn’t the first time it had hit something.” She had to pause. “It was so cold in that summer light, like it wasn’t just metal but a possessed animal. The hood was dark brown and dented into a horn shape.”
He wiped the tears off her cheeks. She buried her face in his warm chest.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen, Laif. It was a beautiful day. Home was supposed to be safe.”
She felt his strong hands rub her back.
“It was a drunk driver. My mom had been drunk that afternoon too. I was the only one left to watch Marlene, keep her safe.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated earnestly. “Your mom should have been sober and so should’ve the driver.”
“I couldn’t stop him.”
“You tried your best. You couldn’t have done more.”
Cuddles whined and licked Sharon’s leg.
Sharon stayed in Laif’s arms for a few minutes. When she lifted her head from his chest, their lips met. It was so natural that it was a wonder why it hadn’t happened sooner. Soft, gentle kisses at first, their breath mingling, growing faster, her body burning, then hard and forceful kisses—
A sharp knock on the door broke them apart.
“It’s probably the Chinese food,” she said, out of breath. It was difficult, but she got up.
“Wait.” He offered her sunglasses. “Put these on.” He was looking around the room. “Do you have a hat, a wig, something to help disguise yourself?” His eyes met hers. “The Brewsters might have sent another dark mist.”
She flicked on the lights and retrieved a beanie cap and scarf from the closet. She put them on with the sunglasses, the scarf wrapping around her mouth as well as her neck. She also pulled on her jacket and began buttoning it up.
Laif fitted his sunglasses over his eyes. “Never mind that. You’re fine.”
She opened the front door, Laif hidden to the side.
Illuminated in the porch light was an Asian man with a silly looking orange cap in the shape of a dragon. He held a white plastic bag, bulging with two square Styrofoam containers. He smiled. It was chilly outside, but she was comically overdressed for indoors.
Wind blew his straight black hair into his eyes. Brown braces covered his wrists that people with carpal tunnel syndrome wear. Perhaps he did too much hand manipulation working the register. He lifted the plastic bag. “Com pow chicken with sesame sauce, white rice, and white chicken with snow peas.”
She had forgotten money. Wind flew in from the open door, through her open jacket, and crawled down her blouse, chilling her chest. It was hard to believe this man could turn on her in an instant, enough anger within to give birth to murderous rage.
Laif dug in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, waving it at her.
She took it and paid the man, leaving a healthy tip. She just wanted the interaction to end quickly to reduce the chance of violence.
“No tip necessary. We at Dragon Rice like to keep simple. Like to have just one price and customer pay only one price.” He extended his hand with the ten extra dollars she had given him. “Keep customer happy is priority.”
Her scarf began to slip, exposing her upper lip. She quickly pulled it back across and around her neck but bumped her sunglasses in the process, skewing them and revealing one of her eyes. After quickly fitting them back on, she said, “It’s okay. You keep it.” She wanted him as happy as possible. “You deserve it.”
He frowned.
“You came here in the cold, through the wet streets.”
“No.” He began to appear agitated. “It our policy. You must keep.” He waved the ten dollars for her to take.
But she felt odd taking back the money. Tipping delivery men was expected. It felt wrong to give him nothing. “It’s okay. I want you to have it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Laif shaking his head and moving his arms like scissors.
Wind whipped the Asian man’s black hair away from his eyes, revealing flashes of anger. “You insult me.” As his hands fisted, the wrist braces looked more like boxers’ wraps. “I tell you, keep. But you do not.”
“I’m sorry,” she finally conceded. “Here, I’ll take it.”
“First you don’t take, then you take. What you doing?” His voice switched to a high squeal. “You play with me? You think I stupid Asian?”
She backed up a step and closed the door further. “No, no. Of course not. I was just trying to be nice. But it’s okay. I just need to go now.” She almost closed the door all the way, but his hand held it. He crumpled the money and threw it inside. “You keep. I tell you, keep, but you try closing door on me. What wrong with you?”
Anxiety pummeled her. The man’s dark eyebrows curled in anger. Although he was skinny and only as tall as her, he looked formidable.
“Nothing is wrong. Thank you. I have to go.” She tried pushing the door closed, but his hand still held it. Her scarf fell again, revealing her entire mouth this time. She threw it back and around her neck, but that allowed him to push the door wide open, and he began stepping inside.
“You bitch. You think I stupid Asian, huh? I not stupid Asian. You think color of skin or shape of eye make you smart? You not smart. You stupid whitey.”
Cuddles barked behind Sharon. Laif motioned for her to close the door.
The deliveryman’s ears reddened and his arms trembled. “Just because you have apartment and I live with parents, you think you better than me. You think I poor and need money. I don’t need your money. You not that richer than me. You not better than me. You worse.”
He was completely inside now, and as soon as he saw Laif, he swung and hit Laif in the jaw, dislodging his sunglasses. Laif went down.
Cuddles flew past Sharon, jumped into the air and hit the deliveryman’s midsection. Com pow chicken, white rice, and chicken with snow peas flew into the air in slow motion.
The Asian man fell onto Laif and began wildly throwing punches as Cuddles snarled and bit, and they all rolled into the living room. The Asian man screamed, flipped around and threw the dog, then broke a wooden leg off the coffee table, and as Cuddles jumped at him again, he swung the wood, smashing it against her head.
Cuddles yelped, dropped to the carpet, tried to get up on all fours, but was met with blow after blow from the Asian man. Sharon was behind him pulling at his arms, but he was too fast in a frenzy, and he swung the stick backwards and smacked her in the forehead, making her see only white dots and hear buzzing for several seconds, and then as her senses returned, dull pain throbbed through her head, and she became aware Cuddles was silent, but the Asian man kept hitting the dog on the head, which was all bloody now, and she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t stop, why he kept throwing the stick into her dog’s head, her lovable, dear Cuddles.
Sharon leapt at him again, but he pushed her down.
Laif rose from the floor and grabbed the man’s arm as it swung the stick towards Cuddles’ head once more.
But it was no use. The dog was dead.
Laif pulled the stick out of the Asian man’s hand, throwing it across the room, and landed a punch squarely into his jaw. This time the deliveryman was the one to fall.
Laif rushed to Sharon. “We need to get out of here. I don’t want to hurt him.” He grabbed her arm, pulled her up, and led her to the doorway as she stumbled to follow. “He’s mostly a good man. His old anger was being used against us.”
Her knees felt like buckling as a terrible emptiness inside seemed to devour her. An image of Marlene lying bloody on the freshly mowed grass was conjured from her past. She tried to look at her dog again, just to make sure life wasn’t still fighting inside, but couldn’t. Instead she froze.
Laif said softly, “She’s gone.”
Sharon called, “Cuddles ...”