Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
12
Mum was not someone who took an insult lying down.
She arrived with seven or eight relatives from her side of the family.
I was waiting at the door.
“Still in there?” she asked quietly.
I nodded hard, my voice trembling.
“Mum, I saw Uncle Wang enter the code. It’s 12567.”
She didn’t hesitate.
The code worked. The door opened.
She charged in, the others close behind.
Everyone stopped at the sight of the living room.
Dad and Wang were on the sofa together, caught in the middle of an unmistakably intimate encounter.
“What… what are you doing?”
Mum’s scream broke the silence.
She swayed and caught the doorframe to keep from falling.
Dad sprang up, scrambling for his clothes.
“Darling? How… how did you get in?”
Mum lost control.
She snatched up a chair and swung it at him.
“Li Minh Duong! Is this how you treat me? Is this how you treat our family? I bore your children, looked after this house, and you… with him? With the man who hurt your son?”
Dad covered his head and stumbled away. A chair leg scraped his arm.
“It’s not what you think! He… he seduced me!
“I was only curious. It was the first time. Honestly, darling, the first time!”
“The first time?”
She was shaking with rage, swinging harder.
“Do you know what he’s done to our boy? He’s in hospital!
“The doctors couldn’t save the damaged tissue. They had to operate! He’ll need a bag on his stomach for the rest of his life. He’s so young! His life’s ruined!”
Dad froze.
He turned to Wang.
“Wang Truyen Duc… you touched my son? I’ll kill you!”
He hurled himself at him.
His fist struck Wang’s face.
But Wang didn’t hit back. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
A strange smile spread across his face.
“Li Minh Duong! You deserve it!”
He pointed at Dad, then at Mum, and shouted out the secret he had kept buried for years.
“You betrayed me first! You promised we’d be together for the rest of our lives. So why did you marry her? Why did you have two children?
“Yes, I wanted revenge! I wanted your precious family line to end!
“You made me fall for you. So I went after your son. Fair enough, isn’t it?”
Everyone stared.
Even Mum stopped crying.
She looked from Wang to Dad.
At last, she understood: their relationship had come before her marriage.
“You animals! I’ll kill you both!”
She attacked whichever of them she could reach.
In moments, all three were fighting.
Curses, screams and crashing furniture filled the room.
The relatives looked at one another, unsure whom to pull away.
Instead, they quietly took out their phones.
13
Mum was at a physical disadvantage.
Before long, she was losing.
Wang caught her raised arm and wrenched it backward.
She struck the corner of the glass coffee table with a heavy thud.
Blood ran from her forehead.
She lost consciousness.
“Darling!”
Whatever reason Dad had left deserted him.
He snatched the fruit knife from the table and drove it into Wang’s chest.
“You bastard! You hurt my son! You hurt my wife!”
He wouldn’t stop.
His arm moved mechanically.
Once. Twice.
…
Wang collapsed in a pool of blood and lay still.
The room fell silent.
Everyone stood frozen.
Only when police sirens tore through the air did Dad seem to come to himself.
It was too late.
14
In hospital, my brother began to wake as the anesthetic wore off.
He reached down automatically and felt the plastic device on his abdomen.
He froze, then looked at me beside the bed.
“What the hell is this? Why am I wearing this thing?”
I answered calmly.
“The damaged tissue couldn’t be saved. There was too much necrosis. They had to remove it. You’ll pass waste through an opening in your abdomen now. That’s what the bag is for.”
“R-remove it?”
His eyes widened in horror.
“No! You’re lying!”
He tried to tear the bag away and pulled at his surgical wound instead.
He cried out and curled up in pain.
I took out my phone and played the video I had ready.
The phone was one of his old castoffs.
The picture was poor, but it had recorded everything: Mum tampering with the items and substituting adhesive.
I went on.
“She thought Dad was having an affair and had brought another woman’s things home. So she added a little something.
“She’s in hospital too, by the way. Right next door.”
His eyes went red.
He ripped out his IV and ran barefoot into the next room.
Mum had just regained consciousness. Thick bandages covered her head, and she was sitting weakly against the pillows.
Her eyes brightened when she saw him.
“Gia Hao… you’re awake. Thank goodness…”
“Mum! Did you switch that bottle? Tell me!”
He seized her hospital gown and shook her.
Dizzy and frightened, she began to cry.
“Gia Hao, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know you were using it. I thought it was your father—”
“You didn’t mean to?”
His laugh was terrible.
He glared at her.
“If you didn’t have to control everything, why would I have needed to hide it in the bathroom? This is all your fault! You old bitch! Look what you’ve done to me. I’ll be wearing this bag for the rest of my life!”
I chose that moment to add the last little detail.
“Mum, I forgot to tell you. Uncle Wang’s dead.”
“Dead?”
My brother let go of her.
“Dead?”
Mum missed his reaction completely.
She laughed with savage satisfaction.
“Good! He deserved it! That monster! After what he did to my son, dying was too good for him!”
My brother stared at her laughing face.
Something in him snapped.
This woman had destroyed everything.
His body. The man he loved.
“Then you can die too!”
He seized her by the throat.
Her smile froze. Terror filled her eyes.
She tried feebly to pull his hands away, her feet kicking against the bed.
I hurried out.
Only once I was somewhere safe did I call the police.
Unfortunately, they were too late.
My brother strangled Mum.
The officers restrained him and took him away.
15
I went to see him one last time.
In prison clothes, his once arrogant face held nothing but despair.
The slight outline of the ostomy bag showed beneath his clothing.
When he saw me, certainty filled his eyes.
“You… you came back too, didn’t you?”
I tilted my head, sounding bewildered.
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“No! You know! You know everything!”
He slammed his hands against the glass. A guard stepped forward to restrain him.
He ignored the man and screamed at me.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen to me!
“When I die, I’ll come back again. Next time, I’ll kill you first! Just you wait!”
I watched in silence.
The guard dragged him away. His legs kicked weakly, his mouth still muttering curses.
A month later, I took three urns of ashes back to our hometown.
There was an open waste pit there.
The stench almost took my breath away as I stood at its edge.
One by one, I opened the lids.
The gray-white ashes vanished into the filthy water.
I turned and left without looking back.
Sunlight fell across me.
Warm. Bright.
From now on, I had no family.
But I would live better on my own.
The End.
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