Leon's Way (30 page)

“I’m not grieving,” I growl, and she nods to that as well. She’s noncommittal with shuffling sandals slowing at a green door, identical to every other door in the place. She raps short knocks against wood.

I don’t feel like waiting, because I know what lies beyond.

“Thanks, I’ll take it from here,” I say and summon all my strength not to fling the door straight into the wall on the other side.

My mother’s satiny-black head is bowed over my father’s hand. She looks like she’s been in this position for a while. Kat bounces up from her chair, alarm striking her features. “Shishi? How did you know?”

And that’s it. I grab my little sister’s arms, clenching so hard she whimpers. Mom gets up too and scurries to us. They’re two tiny, weak, strong, fearless women side by side, facing me, their self-appointed protector. They’re ready to defend themselves against me—
me
—and it hurts like a motherfucker!

I drop my hold on Kat.

“What are you doing, Mom?” My voice is a whisper and a roar at once, the pitch hitting the ceiling in ways it hasn’t since I was ten years old.

“Oh, baby boy,” she says, hands lifting to my cheeks. I jerk away, glaring at her.

“This is not happening.” I flash a single glance at the monster, whose eyelids flutter at the unrest around him. He can rest once he’s dead—if they let people rest down there. “
You
! Are coming with me.”

“No, Leon. I’m waiting for him to wake up. He needs to apologize to me,” my little mother says, determination painting not just the statement but her whole stature.

“
Of course
, but it’s a tad late now, Mom.” I laugh.

“Leon, listen.” Mom’s voice grows infinitesimally, demanding attention. “That’s not what I’m saying. For himself, he needs to apologize, and it might not be too late.”

This family I was born into? They’re so messed up.
We’re
messed up—every one of us in different ways. “You’re a goddamn martyr, Mom!” I shout.

The door opens, and a male nurse the size of my bouncers clasps his biceps in the doorway. “Sir. You need to calm down, or you’ll have to come with me.”

Mom straightens, and before I can react, she walks past me and addresses the man. “I’m sorry, sir—it won’t happen again. This is hard for my son. Please give us another chance.”

She’s so good at this. At taking the responsibility for other people’s actions. She used to do it for Dad. Making sure the neighbors didn’t “misunderstand” shouting matches and bruises.

“Please…” It’s not Mom now.

It’s Dad.

We all turn and stare into eyes so yellow that algae-infested blue appears green.

“One last chance.” The nurse bobs his head once, rumbling the words out as he leaves us alone.

“He hasn’t been awake in days,” Kat whispers.

Dad is struggling. Roaming for words, maybe the strength to speak them, and his gaze widens as he focuses on his ex-wife between his two children. We’re a distorted Pleasantville family.

Kat runs over and tries to accommodate him higher on the pillows. He must be feather light by now, but she still can’t do it. My sister is frustrated, fingers fumbling against bony shoulders and too-wide hospital gowns.

“Shishi, help her?” Mom pleads, and so I do—because it’s what they want. I am their protector, not their antagonist. I need them happy.

“Let’s leave,” I go through the motions of articulating, and both of them ignore me. The sperm donor hears me, though, and urgency crosses his features.

“Sshh,” Mom coos to the monster. “We’re not leaving. Relax, Marshall. Take your time.”

I huff out a breath. My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I can’t pick up. Judging by the missed calls earlier, it’s Arria, and I’d be an idiot if I answer only to scare her off with my anger. There’s one, maybe two weeks left until the baby comes; I have everything to lose, and my dad is not going to be my downfall.

“Switch your phone off, Shishi,” Kat says. “They don’t allow it in here.”

It’s my turn to ignore her. I lace my fingers at my neck and swing to the window, where grass and trees offer distraction from the putrid man on the bed. I might not answer Arria’s calls, but I can’t cut her off. What if something happened?

“My… wife,” Dad stammers out. “I… love… you. So… much.”

I rotate, muscles coiled and ready to attack. I’ll beat the son of a bitch into a bloody heap. He wrecked us—he’s his own fucking home-wrecker. I want to laugh at my new use of the word, but destroying him is more important.

Kat reacts before I do. How was I so slow? She’s in front of me, in my space, pressing me backwards with her tiny body. “Don’t!” she wheezes. “You have no right!”

“
He
has no right,” I wheeze-yell back at her, staying below the limit so bouncer-nurse doesn’t barge in again. I’d have to fight him first, before I could demolish my father.

“Hush, darling,” Mom hums to the monster, and her fucking hands pat—
pat
—his arm up and down like he deserves comfort!

“Damn you, evil—” I start but Kat’s palm muffles me. I let her because… it’s Kat.

“What’s Mom doing?” I mumble against her fingers. I don’t understand, and I’m reduced to asking. Hoping I’ll get a reply that’s not surreal.

“He’s spun out from the drugs, Shishi—she’s humoring him, don’t you see? No reason to hammer in the truth when it won’t matter anyway.”

“I love you, Ayako.” My father’s broken record is weak and sickening. “My wife. Always on my mind.”

I open my eyes, only now realizing I closed them against him. I spear him with my glare, scrutinizing him. He’s ancient for his years. There’s regret behind the mustardy film of his stare.

And I notice. “No, Kat. He’s not beyond reason. Look.”

Kat follows my attention. Our father proves me right by starting in on a barely audible fucking
speech
. “My only love. I wronged you day after day, night after night. Please forgive me, Ayako. I was such a fool. I had everything back then, with my family. Squandered all for worries over money. I…” He’s out of breath. I groan; this is too hard to listen to.

My phone buzzes again. Fuck. Does she have to keep calling? I grab my electronic tormentor and leave it face down on the table.

“Money means nothing. People do. From the bottom of my heart…” He’s gasping for air, desperate to finish his sentence.

“Sshh,” our saint of a mother murmurs. “Darling, it’s okay. I forgive you. I forgave you years ago. You can rest now.” Not only does she say all that, giving him total absolution, but she smiles too. Ayako’s smile contains no rancor. How can she do this?

“Your… life?” Dad manages, wanting to hear about it.

Mom understands. “My life is good, Marshall. My husband, John, loves me very much. As much as I love him. We have a small house in the perfect neighborhood for us. I do some freelance writing for a newspaper. I have my charities, my yoga, and my religion.”

My father’s smile is frayed at the edges, but relief seeps into each wrinkle at her words. “Good life…” he repeats, content with her answer. For a moment, he shuts his eyes. Then, he opens them. They flow through me to Katsu.

“Princess…”

My fury snarls and rattles the bars. How dare he call her princess? Is he going to talk about
that
time? Sappy-apologize, snivel about how he never meant to almost rape his own daughter?

“Stay!” my sister hisses to me, irises ablaze with determination. “I don’t care, brother. I’ve tried like crazy to make you come to terms with stuff. If you can’t get over what he did to you, fine. But you’re not allowed to hold onto what he did to me. It’s like you savor it, suck on it like a flipping lollipop. Dammit, Shishi, it’s not
your
lollipop! This is our last chance, and I’m all in: I. Want. To. Be. Free.”

Frozen, I stare at her. Watch her stride over to the monster’s bed.

My phone buzzes. I want to chuck it at the wall.

My sister reaches my father’s bedside. Tears brim in his eyes, stained beige by his dying liver. And I watch as my mother steps back to allow her closer.

“Sweet princess. Your… life…?”

He wants reassurance that he hasn’t fucked her up. My heart beats out an unnatural rhythm. It’s blending anger with something else. Something softer. Goddamn—sympathy.

“Is amazing,” my sister replies with conviction, and our dad’s grin stretches wide, belying the dim flicker of energy his body produces. “In SF, Mom and John put me in a great school right away. My best friends from that school are still my besties, and I have my dream job and an awesome boss—who’s letting me be with you.”

She must already have told him this during her hours at the hospital. “Ah…” my father breathes like it’s news to him. “Can you… Will you…”

“Dad, yes. I mean what I say. It’s over. I refuse to live in the past with so much good stuff in my life. I forgive you for everything you did. Even for what you… tried to do.” Katsu chokes the last part out as my phone vibrates on the table again.

“Honey?” Mom’s eyes flash between the cell and me.

I hit “Reject Call” without looking. Then, I cross my arms because I know what’s coming next. The sperm donor’s focus flows to me. The light my mother and my sister ignited in him fades as he meets my glare. A sooty glob swells in me, chafing against my ribs. Sinks like lead and makes me feel like shit. It’s his fault.

They’re all pressuring me with their kindness, their it’s-okays, because really, none of what happened is okay, and I’m the only one left getting it. This is a nightmare.

“Leon, don’t worry. I don’t deserve your absolution.” My father enunciates so clearly it’s as if he’s not at death’s entrance. Serious, he means what he says, and yet his grief is as deadly as his disease. “Not any more than I deserved it from your mother and sister. I am blessed already. I expect your—”

“Damn fucking straight, you piece of shit. You sad excuse for a human being. You should have been jailed for what you did to all of us—”

My phone. My phone. My goddamn phone!

“Hello!” I shout into the microphone before I can compose myself.

“It’s me, Ingela.”

“I’ve got caller ID, all right? Get to the damn point. I’m busy! What. Is. It.”

“Sure, Leon. Your baby’s being born.”

It’s not supposed to happen this way!

Flanked by Ingela and a rush of white-coated staff, I’m wheeled into the delivery room. They bark quiet instructions to each other, grip my legs and arms, and hoist me from the wheelchair to the bed.

Metallic clangs resonate from the bedsides as the nurses lower them. Then, someone heaves the backrest up, giving me a better view. I’m hurting. I’m hyperventilating. There’s fire extending throughout my hips. They must be melting—rupturing!

“Breathe,” a stout nurse with grey hair orders.

“I
am
breathing,” I puff, but I’m so scared I don’t know how to do it right. “Give me an epidural,” I plead. Dr. Rosenthal is already here. He’s calm with a hint of urgency coloring his irises.

Now he catches my gaze. “You’re too dilated for an epidural. You’re at nine and a half centimeters, and your water just broke.”

“Yes, but…”

“The amniotic fluid is discolored, Miss Sarin. Which means the baby isn’t receiving enough oxygen. We need to get him out. Now.”

“My boyfriend!” I cry. “He’s not here. I can’t! I can’t do this. Please slow it down!”

“Miss.” My doctor’s voice is stern. “
You
aren’t doing well either. I can’t have you go into an eclamptic fit, which you very well might do if we don’t deliver your baby. Now. Let’s focus. I need your cooperation.”

The cool hand of another nurse, this one a twenty-something blonde, strokes my hair away from my forehead. It’s sticky, sweating through the pain. “It’s okay. Breathe with me. Pull air deep into your lungs, like this.”

“You’re just going to let me suffer?” I shriek. In my panic, my vision blurs.

The intense pressure around my hips eases some, but there’ll be more. These are the dreaded contractions. My time has come. Why aren’t they giving me a caesarian? They need to stop this—at least until Leon comes!

I rotate to Ingela, who’s squeezing my hand hard. Someone tells her to sit. Her eyes are so scared I’m not sure she hears them.

“Please, get him,” I sob. “I need him here.”

“I’m trying, but he’s not picking up,” Ingela says. “He’s a dick-shit.”

Dipshit.

“No, no. This is not happening. Don’t give up, Inga. Tell him this hurts and it’s his fault!” I instruct her. She nods like I’m making sense and redials, redials, redials.

My clothes are gone, the grey-haired nurse pulls a gown over my body and leaves me bare below the waist. This room is chock-full of people I don’t know, half of them male and I? All I care about is getting rid of this agony!

Another intense contraction rolls through me. Someone shouts that I need to breathe, but I can’t. They stick something inside me, consoling me and saying it’s to monitor the baby’s pulse.

He’s not getting enough oxygen.

“Can you turn him?” one of the male nurses asks the doctor.

“I’m certainly trying,” Dr. Rosenthal responds dryly.

“Why do you need to turn him?” Ingela’s stare bores into the doctor while she redials for the millionth time and waits for Leon to pick up.

“Because the umbilical cord is wrapped around his neck.”

“Oh my God,” my friend gasps. “Hello?” she says into the phone. “It’s Ingela.” She listens for a moment before she goes, “Sure, Leon. Your baby is being born.”

The minutes race by too fast as I run out of hospice and across the parking lot to the main building. I have no fucking idea where the maternity ward is. The receptionist takes her time getting off the phone, and when she does, she’s slow at explaining in detail where I need to go. Out the same door I came in and fucking four buildings over, entrance on the opposite side, elevator to the fifth—
fifth
—floor.

What the hell?

She asks if I’ve got a car. Wants to explain how to pull into the special parking area behind the center designated for deliveries, and I shake my head impatiently.

I stalk back out. Run down the street counting one—two—three. Look up and see the row of quiet windows five stories up on the fourth building. Somewhere in there, she’s having my baby. Shit. She was so scared of the pain. They better give her something for it. They will… right? Don’t they always? Hell, this is America. Of course they won’t let her suffer.

On the fifth floor, I dive off the elevator. Grab the arm of a young staff member at a nurses’ station. “Arriane Sarin? She’s giving birth to my child in here somewhere. Which room?”

She gives me a discrete onceover but doesn’t ask for my ID. “Room five two two on the left side.”

I huff out a “thanks” before I storm down the corridor.

Then, I hear her. She’s wailing. My girl is wailing! What are they doing to her? I slam the door open, and five people look up. Dr. Rosenthal is between her legs, a silvery instrument piercing her vagina while two nurses hold on to her arms.

“What the fuck?” I shout.

Inga is here. She mutters something to the doctor before she flies over to me and grabs my hands. I jerk them free, but she hurries to update me on the situation. “The baby’s not getting enough oxygen. He’s got his umbilical cord around his neck. He pooed in the water, Leon, because he didn’t feel good. They have to take him out, or he could die. Why did you hang up? I could’ve told you on the phone.”

Arriane is thrashing on the bed. I run to her side. She grabs my arm and clamps down hard. “Baby. Baby, baby, baby. I’m here now,” I whisper to her. “I love you so much. Everything will be okay.”

“
You!
Did this to me!” My lungs rasp through the cry I produce. The strength of my voice is not one I own; the pain makes me superhuman because I am—

Not. Made. For. This!

With each shriek, I shatter the silence. Leon is here, but I’m the only one hurting. “
I wish I never met you!
”

I go insane with pain. My wails shudder, meet no resistance from him, from anyone in this room. Why doesn’t he shove me into the mattress, shackle my wrists to keep me still, still—so still?

What I
am
is his fault. He caused what I’ve become—

“Fuck this goddamn agony—fuck
you
!”

“Sshhh, baby, everything will be all right.”

“I did this for
you
, to make you feel better! This is how you pay me back?” I roar.

For an instant, the fire snarling in my bones abates. The grimace on my face slackens, allowing my eyes to focus. His hand strokes my cheek, caresses my arm.

“Please leave,” I stutter during a lull in my pain. I know I asked Ingela to get him, said I wanted nothing more than to be soothed by him. But soon, I’ll be lost in absolute misery again, and I’ll be raging, sputtering devilish threats he doesn’t deserve.

“Never,” he whispers, and I find his eyes, the brightest, milkiest of sapphire blues. They remind me of obsession. Of damage. Of—

Love.

He has my hand sucked in between both of his, and he uses it to cover his mouth and his nose. I let out a breath, savoring my temporary reprieve.

He blinks, shrouds the way his irises glitter with excitement. I see it, though. I can’t take his delight. So I tell him what I want right now, in this very moment.

“For the love of God,” I whisper. “Please. Make it stop.”