Leon's Way

by Sunniva Dee

  “Has Leon been by today?” I crumple the giftwrap I tore off and sit down.

  “Yeah, he came at the crack of dawn.” A sad smile curls over her features, and I instantly get a bad feeling. My brother is doing the right thing, visiting as soon as he wakes up, but it’s not enough to make her happy. I wish—no—I need her to divulge details.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Arriane’s irises are a strange shade of blue, reminding me of lavender. They float up to me slowly, revealing a misty glint. “Kat, I…”

  My brother deserves everything in this world. Sure, he’s nutty and domineering, but even as a young boy, he placed others’ safety before his own. More than once, I’ve thought of how he could have moved away from home earlier—quit taking beatings and lived somewhere else—if it weren’t for sticking around for me, the little sister.

  “…don’t think I can do this anymore.” As she says the words, her chin begins to tremble.

  “What do you mean?” I’m taking Arriane’s hand on top of the blanket, causing a tear to spring free and sneak over the rim of her eye.

  “Did Leon tell you about the night I got admitted?” she asks. I shake my head.

  “His mood swings are worsening, Kat. He hides behind that shield of his as long as he can, but when he’s forced to face issues pertaining to your father, he gets angry.”

  “But he doesn’t hurt you, does he?” I ask, scared of the answer. If Shishi snaps, how far would he go? And she is in the hospital. No, no, no. My brother would never harm a woman.

  “No. He stays locked in the Bag Room, like when you were over for breakfast last. Hits, hits, hits, for hours at a time. He rages in there, Kat, and he won’t let me in. Leon takes longer and longer to come out. He’s losing weight. You must have noticed—your brother doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him anymore. From his neck to his feet, he’s wired tight, every inch of him muscle, tendons, and bone.

  “Two nights ago, I insisted that he visit your father, which I haven’t really done before—I’ve left that part to you.” She gives a small laugh, knowing he’s avoiding me. “At this point, though, I was desperate to see if I could sway him. He doesn’t face his problems. He just masks them.”

  “I know.”

  “Kat, they’ve been monitoring the baby’s heart rate and insisting I’m at as much peace as possible these last weeks of the pregnancy. I can’t take any more chances—”

  I cut her off and squeeze the fingers I’m holding. “Arriane, I’ll talk with him, okay? He’s so capable. My brother overcomes his obstacles—”

  She pulls my hand to her cheek. It’s her turn to console me. Arriane is so… “sweet” is the word. Why is Shishi such a fool? He should take those few, freaking steps into the car and drive to the other hospital building. Get himself sorted out.

  “I love your brother, Katsu. There’s nothing I want more than for him to get well, but I can’t endanger the little one for him. The baby is where my limit goes.”

  “Please, Shishi,” I say again.

  “Stop bugging me, Kat! I’m trying to keep my cool, here. Do you have any idea how hard that is?” Shishi’s eyes storm grey.

  What have things come to between us? He used to put my needs before his own, trying his damnedest to keep me safe. Now, I’ve wedged my foot in the door to his apartment. I’m intruding on his turf, imposing myself.

  “Listen, Kat. Arriane is sick, and our father takes his sweet time croaking in the hospital.” Shishi laughs out loud, no amusement in his tone.

  His words can so easily derail me, suck me in, and have me empathize too much, creating an obstacle I can’t overcome.

  “Let me in,” I say, and I mean it in several ways. I keep my pitch low as I cut to the bone. “Arriane and I had a chat. You’re about to lose her, Shishi.”

  For an instant, he’s quiet. Then, he pulls the door open and allows me in.

  “What did she say?” He rakes his fingers through his hair in a sure, yet helpless move, feeding my pain for him.

  A pair of black karate pants hangs below his navel, like he’s been spending time in the Bag Room. No music filters out, though, and he wears a dry, black Smother T-shirt. To me, this is a good sign; he must not have been wrestling the punching bags when I knocked.

  “Arriane thinks you’re getting worse. She’s afraid for the baby—not that you’ll hurt either of them, but the situation stresses her out, which is bad for the preeclampsia.”

  His focus is on me, and for once his entire façade is in shambles. Those bright eyes of his darken with panic. “What’s her plan, Kat. Is she moving out?”

  “Look, she’s in the hospital, right? She can’t do anything about her living situation while she’s there. How long are they keeping her?”

  He covers the lower half of his face with a fist, inhaling measured breaths. “Another day or two, depending on the tests. If all is well, she should be home by Friday.”

  Home. As in to his apartment.

  My heart breaks for him.

  “Well, if you want another shot with Arriane, you need to get a grip about Dad.”

  His head snaps up, stare blazing at me. “Fucking don’t call him ‘Dad.’ Whatever happened with ‘sperm donor?’ Of all people you’re the last person he deserves to hear that name from!” he shouts.

  “Shishi—please. As far as our childhoods go, he’ll never be more than a sperm donor. But Mom raised me to be a good person, so I still feel sorry for him on some level. He’s just a sad, sick person who’s regretting his entire life, okay? I don’t know this man, and I simply feel bad for him the way you would watching some… um, someone in a movie.”

  He doesn’t answer, but I’m not surprised to read complete lack of understanding in his steely blues.

  “You have two days until she’s released from the hospital, Leon. Spend them well. Go visit the sperm donor. Talk to him. If you want to tell him more fairytales, that’s fine with me—I don’t care as long as you do everything you can.”

  He sinks down on a chair in the kitchen. Covers his entire face with both hands. “He needs a liver donor, Kat,” he says. His voice remains deep and steady. Thank God, he’s not crying.

  “Why do you even mention that?” I ask. “Are you beating yourself up because you don’t want to give him a piece of yours?” The hilarity from a few weeks ago, when I first told Leon about our father’s beyond-repair liver, stirs in my stomach, wanting to break free. Now is not the time, though, because Shishi isn’t seeing the humor anymore.

  “I’d never do that,” he states firmly.

  “Well, good—it would be a risk for you, and why the hell should you give up a physical part of yourself to save your tormentor?”

  “Exactly,” he mutters into his hands, and I hunch down next to him, forming my arms around my brother. He’s freaking rock hard everywhere. I need to lock him out of the Bag Room, because this is ludicrous.

  “Bro,” I begin, trying to annoy him with the expression, but I can’t even get a rise out of him. “Stop obsessing. Stop. Because I can tell that you are.”

  He flops back on the chair, arms hanging along his sides toward the floor. “Have you considered it, Kat?”

  “Not once. And to be honest, I couldn’t find guilt over not offering him some of my liver if I searched with a magnifying glass.”

  A hiss escapes Shishi. He doesn’t look at me, but his mouth curls up on one side in a silent laugh. “Damn, Kat. You say the geekiest shit.”

  “I’m a game designer. What’d you expect?”

  I don’t speak with anyone as I make my way down the hallway to my father’s room. They’ve got him in a single, a small screen shielding part of his bed from the door as I peer in. Katsu doesn’t know I’ve come. It’s just an impulse anyway, before I head over to my girl and my baby on the opposite side of the lot.

  When did I see him last? Not counting a few months ago, it’s been a decade. The rampage he went on back then, knocking on people’s doors, demanding th
ey tell him where his kids were… I shake my head.

  Anger simmers in my chest already, and I haven’t even caught a glimpse of him. I look at my watch. Three p.m. Katsu’s still with Arriane, so I guess I’m doing this.

  I force tense muscles to relax as I quietly enter. Expose my presence to him without a word. Nothing but tubes, machines, and a misplaced bouquet of flowers surround him in this godforsaken room.

  My father looks like shit, the way he should, considering how he’s lived his life. That fucking pulse still quivers lightly beneath the skin on his throat. He senses my stare and turns his head on the pillow.

  I’m not here for a goddamn conversation. I’d lose my cool. I’d have to run home to the Bag Room like a jackass instead of soaking up Arriane’s mild love. Still, I can’t help asking, “Do they give you enough to drink in this joint? You get to slosh yourself on Georgia Moon? The hospital bar carry the world’s cheapest and most disgusting whiskey slash home-brew, or are you stuck here sober, remembering the piece of shit you are, unable to indulge in your customary, rage-inducing oblivion?”

  He doesn’t reply, and from what Katsu tells me, it’s not because he can’t. “I’m going to be a father,” I say.

  Surprise flickers and dies in dull eyes.

  “And you’re a fucking road block! Across this parking lot, lies a girl who’s so sweet that no one—no one—deserves her. But somehow she’s decided to love me, and this woman is eight months pregnant with my little boy.

  “Yes, boy,” I continue. “Should be a red flag to me, right? Shouldn’t I stay far away, make sure I don’t become you, beating, beating on my son and never worrying if he cried?”

  My father’s voice trembles from the bed. “You’re not me.”

  What the fuck?

  “You’re speaking? Damn straight I’m not you. I’ll never put my child down. Scream at him. Kick him. Make him fear for his mother or his sister. Hell no.”

  “Leon, I’m glad you came. I wanted to tell you how—”

  I can’t hear what he’s about to say. Can’t listen to him ask for forgiveness. If Kat’s psych lessons are right, him throwing out an apology and me not accepting wouldn’t be good. And fuck if I’m standing by to test it out, watching him get guilt off his chest and swamping me with his dark matter instead.

  In two steps, I’m by his side. I hunch over and place my hands around his neck, squeezing. I’m experienced at this. Generally, I use the move to heighten my broken-girls’ orgasms. Now, I’m obstructing the old man’s oxygen to make him stop bleating. He instantly catches on and obeys.

  I smile, realizing I’ll be taking Kat up on the suggestion of telling him fairytales. Only with Kat gone, they can be gritty documentaries. “Remember this move, Dad?” I ask. A myriad of reactions cross his features as he rolls through the past in his mind.

  “Hmm, you might’ve been too drunk most of the times.” I drop his throat to count on my fingers. “One: you used it on me when I didn’t like my hot soup—after you pushed my face into the bowl. Two: you used it on Mom—if she got too scared to remain quiet. Three: you used it on Kat the night before I made her disappear from you.”

  “Can I talk?” he whispers so I don’t refasten my stranglehold on him again.

  “Nope. Oh, Dad, Dad,” I say, recalling another snippet for him. “I’m heading over to my sweetest girl, but you want a little story to nap on? I prefer the ones with a happy ending myself.” I let go of him entirely and stretch, excited over what I’m about to recount.

  “Our last fairytale ended with Kat getting on a plane to San Francisco. Not sure anyone told you what happened to me? See, I did return home for a moment afterward. You were still in the bathroom, conscious but unable to get up due to my little retaliation.” I suck in a relieved breath at the thought.

  “What a strange sensation to stand there, studying you, and know you couldn’t hurt any of us anymore. Mom had been out of harm’s way for years. Kat was on the plane to the Golden State. And I? The sensation of power I had when I realized I could break you, Dad…”

  I shake my head, thinking back to my warring emotions, my rage over the realization that I was so much stronger than him. How had I not known? I could have beaten his ass long ago! I wanted to crush him over and over again. Crack him in half. Live at home so I could terrorize him from now on. Give him everything back tenfold so that we were even.

  An eye for an eye. Hell—ten eyes for each fucking one.

  Religion does it to many people. Inspires them to reach their full potential. For me, what snapped me out of my desire to become his worst, ever-lingering nightmare was my dojo.

  “I left you in peace because of the karate, Dad. Did you know that? For years, they taught me about respect for others, about self-discipline, forgiveness, losing my ego. I learned to use my physical advantage as a last resort. During my childhood, all you taught me by example was the opposite of what my sensei emphasized: mental strength being as important as the physical. Turning the other cheek. Controlling oneself.”

  I laugh out loud, remembering how I’d still been a child, not fully harnessing my impulses yet. When I returned from the airport after sending Kat off to San Francisco, I’d shot air punches at him on the floor. I did it so close to his face that he whimpered, because he expected me to squash him again.

  “Did you enjoy it when we cowered from you?” I ask him, nodding once for him to answer.

  This comes easy to me; I read him like I read everyone else, and now his Adam’s apple bobs through the shame of the past.

  “I didn’t think about it,” he replies. “I wish I could apologize to your mother. I lucked out when this amazing lady fell for me, but then I—”

  “Dude, shut up. Simple answers, or I’ll abuse my intense physical superiority over you.” I wink. He inhales, wanting to keep going, litter out more garbage that’d make him feel good. The fucker shuts up, though, as soon as I crunch my hand tight, doing a half rotation with my fist in front of his nose and exhibiting bone-white knuckle. It’s not a technique at all, but what does he know? He never checked into my sport and has no idea. Now, he gets my drift and zips his ugly yapper.

  I don’t need to mean business to be lethal. After the last times my father and I “chatted,” my guess is he realizes I could kill on technique only. I’m ten years older than when I last beat the shit out of him. Ten years stronger. Ten years deadlier.

  He might not have given his family’s responses a second thought, but I wasn’t drunk when he finally feared me. “I enjoyed your cowardly fear of me on my last day at home,” I inform him, a hint of bliss coursing through me.

  I resent you. ’Til death do us apart.

  And when our eyes meet, the yellow-stained whites of his remain still under my scrutiny. I squash the tiny voice in my head. It sounds a hell of a lot like my mother’s, whispering the one word I’ve never worried about from my old sensei’s training.

  Forgiveness.

  Strange how popular I am since I got admitted to the hospital. Nurses and doctors are one thing—they cycle through every couple of hours—but what about the others? It’s like they think I’m about to fall off the face of the earth!

  Over the last few days, everyone on staff at Smother has visited; Kat comes by, my mother has moved into a hotel room in town again, taking sick leave from work, and my love, my bittersweet love that I can’t keep once I’m out of here, has been with me every free minute he owns.

  I’m supposed to relax, replenish my energy so I can tackle the everyday struggles of a pregnant woman with preeclampsia outside the hospital. The doctors haven’t upgraded my illness to the dreaded eclampsia yet, but if I have another bout of the type getting me in here, they’ll be inducing labor, robbing my baby of growing time in my stomach in order to save our lives.

  Whenever Leon comes by, his level of self-control astonishes me. I doubt that anyone besides Kat and me glimpses the turmoil beneath his façade.

  Today, he arrives early. He’s only been
gone for three hours, during which time I’ve eaten, had a nap, and accepted an unannounced visit from Katsu. Faintly, I wonder if Leon lets Christian run the shop altogether at the moment.

  The nurses adore him. They let him get away with murder. Anything Leon asks for, Leon gets, and who can blame them? Even the on-the-verge-of-retirement nurse, who’s really freaking good at policing visiting hours, holds my door open herself for my boyfriend.

  “Thank you, Dorothy,” he murmurs, causing her to nod curtly as if by this she erases her own, casual handling of the rules. At first, my always-love stops in the doorway, and I recognize his breathing. It’s how he sounds when he’s been hitting punching bags with fury; Leon keeps his chaos shackled through calm, barely audible inhales.

  I’m the queen of procrastination. After all, what good would it do to either of us if I broke up with him before I’m released? I couldn’t act on it, get set up in my own apartment again.

  This morning, the staff rolled me into a double room where a screen separates me from another girl. She has the bed closest to the door. Leon leans in so he can see past my roommate. He studies me from afar before he approaches me, the way he does at the club. It always stirs my anticipation. As much as I know what I’ll do once I leave the hospital, my heart isn’t privy to the plan. It swells and speeds up.

  I drink him in, because for now I can. The creamy tan of his skin, the smooth planes of his forehead, the high cheekbones. Today there’s no stubble dusting his features. His mouth is plump, ready for a smile, the light crook of the corners promising.

  But his eyes…

  Milky blues. Pupils too dilated. He’s upset but binds the despair. My heart bounces in ways it shouldn’t. It’s got to listen to me, and I—I’ve got to stop letting Leon’s moods influence my system.

  I worry. Just—

  Right now, the person I worry about is him.

  “Sweetie?” I sigh, allowing my eyes to widen and my mouth to drop open. “Come.”

  He leans on the divider, a fist clamping around the metal frame. I stare at his hand. It’s so strong. He’s as strong as that hand. Only, I wish the darkness he’s braving weren’t too much for a man to remain standing. I don’t know how he manages, and I’m afraid he’ll buckle and not get up.