Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

Author:Steph Cha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Yvonne looked terrible. Her hair was unwashed, her skin waxy, her cheeks sunken and gray. She looked almost worse now that she was out of the coma, a body awakened undead. The room smelled ripe. Human smells, and flowers browning in soiled water. Grace wondered who else had visited, who had bought bouquets in the depressing shop in the hospital lobby. It seemed there should be more of them—she was suddenly aware of the bareness of the room, and knew that if she were unconscious for a week, she’d want to wake up to a jungle, a sign of her many well-wishers, the people in her life who cared about her and wanted her to pull through. That seemed like the only upside to getting shot—it was a way to fulfill the fantasy of viewing your own funeral. How devastating to return from the verge of death and be disappointed.

Grace hadn’t visited in two days; she’d felt so sorry for herself, she could hardly move, and now her heart pounded, fearful of an accounting. Even Miriam had managed to come every day and sit with their father. Paul, solemnly dutiful, had spent the whole week on the hospital grounds, leaving only to sleep. Grace wondered how he was coping, tried to picture him alone in their empty house. Did he sleep in his bed? Did he wish Grace were home? He said nothing, and she felt spared by his silence.

It was morning, the start of visiting hours, and Yvonne was waking up again, now from a less perilous sleep. She gazed weakly at her family gathered around her, and Grace found herself staring at the pillow behind her mother’s head. She was terrified, suddenly, of being alone with Yvonne, of what they would and wouldn’t say.

Miriam spoke first. “Umma,” she said. Her voice broke on the word—it was her first time addressing their mother in two years.

Yvonne’s mouth opened. Her lips made a parched sound as they parted. She swallowed, and when she spoke, her voice was faint and tremulous. She looked at her prodigal daughter, beautiful and beloved, and said, “You came.”

How many times had Grace prayed for this reunion? For two years, their rift had been her primary source of anxiety and grief. It was easy to imagine that their reconciliation would make her life whole, that things would go back to normal, the wound closed up, the scar faint and easily forgotten.

But it was all wrong now. Her mother, whose known totality she’d taken for granted, was a murderer who’d nearly been murdered by some wild avenger. Grace had made a fool of herself before an unsympathetic world. And these three, her own family. These past two years, Grace had seen herself as their cornerstone, the only one caring and brave enough to keep them together; and the whole time, they’d been lying to her, each one of them in on it, protecting the lie. She was the outsider, the ignorant stranger who knew none of the rules.

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