Page 13 of Beautiful Defiance

7

LEIGH

Idrift in and out of consciousness. Or am I asleep and having a nightmare?

At the moment, I don’t care. Seeing my parents again is surreal even if this is a dream or my imagination. Or a sick joke, baby girl. The arrogance in his tone grates on my nerves.

What right does he have existing in my head after I’ve shut out thoughts of him with his death?

I ball my hands at my sides and glare at the closed bedroom door. He’s in my mother’s bedroom. Tony’s men watch the apartment building and inform him of my dad’s comings and goings. It’s how Tony has easy access to my mother.

He comes in our apartment building through a back entrance from the alley. I followed him once when I suspected something was going on with my mother.

Around the time my dad left to go work his odd jobs in our crappy, crime-infested neighborhood and sometimes beyond Oakland to San Francisco’s Chinatown, my mother would push me out the front door and demand I go learn how to make dumplings with Grandma Chu.

Grandma Chu isn’t my real grandma, but I call her that because she spoils me, keeping tamarind candies special in the cupboard for me. There are also flat fortune cookies. Mochi too. It doesn’t take much to convince me to run off and visit with Grandma Chu.

After the third time in a week of my mom asking, curiosity got the better of me. I hung back by a dumpster and watched a man slip behind the apartment building using the alleyway in the back.

Unlike my father, who reminds me of a prince with his lean build and air of sophistication, this man looks like one of those fighters the elders watch on television at Grandma Chu’s.

He is taller than my dad’s five-feet-eleven inches, and has thick arms and a thick neck. Tattoos in bold colors cover his arms while his beard draws my attention to where he doesn’t have hair—his head. On his square face, his nose is crooked. Broken. Compared to my dad with his movie star good looks, Tony looks like a criminal and sneaks around like one too.

The stretch of alleyway he uses to get to the back door is dangerous. Drug deals and prostitution happen back there. Only the clueless or the dangerous take that back route to get to the mini mart and liquor store at the other end of the alley.

Tony used my mother’s beauty and gentle soul for his own pleasures. Held his position as a police officer over my mother’s head. Threatened to destroy my family with his family’s wealth. Tony came from old money.

If he ever hears a peep on the streets of him associating with trash like us, he’ll get my dad on possession of a firearm. That was the threat he used to keep my mom in her place and what my mom relayed to me to keep me obedient. It’s unlawful for a felon to own a gun in the state of California.

I walk up to my parents’ bedroom door. My hands clench and unclench. My gaze strays to the glass paperweight on the windowsill. The blue octopus with its tentacles draped over a clear boulder is the prettiest thing in our small one-bedroom apartment.

My parents and I share their queen-size bed. I always knew when they wanted “alone” time. Dad and I would pitch a tent in the living room, and he’d tell me a story of how he and my mom met. His voice is deep and comforting.

I love the sound of his laughter when he gets to the best stories. They’re the ones of him and Mom pulling pranks on one another.

One involved cornstarch and food coloring. Imagine my dad’s surprise when he pulled a string on a box and it exploded with pink powder. Yes, that was a gender reveal for my dad courtesy of my mom’s creative brain. My mother was only nineteen when she gave birth to me. It’s crazy to think she was my age when she got knocked up.

Mom pleaded with me to keep what Tony was doing to her a secret from my dad. She demanded my absolute obedience. How could I refuse when she had tears in her eyes? My mom rarely cried. Isn’t in the business of begging, either. My father is a criminal. Show weakness around him and he’d take advantage.

That was what Grandfather warned me before he passed away. Aside from my parents, he was my only living relative. Until Dad dropped the news on his deathbed that he wasn’t my biological father.

“Find Thomas and Eleanor Stevenson. Threaten him with a paternity suit. He is your real dad, Leigh. Be disobedient and defiant. But always for the right reasons.”

And then he was gone, and my world transformed from worse to godawful unbearable.

I tear my gaze away from the paperweight and stand next to the door. There’s grunting and the creaking of the bedframe. I squeeze my eyes shut and take deep breaths in and out.

I need to cool my temper and remember that my loyalty firmly belongs with my mother. I don’t want my father to go to prison. We don’t need Tony’s men and his family harassing mine. I’ll stick with the status quo for now.

But the minute Tony makes my mother cry again, I’ll defy to my heart’s content.

Be disobedient and defiant.

But always for the right reasons.

He might not be my father, but I am proud to call Alistair Kim my dad.

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