Page 205 of The Encore’s Crown

“He does.”

“He better.”

The machine beeps again, louder this time. Kasia turns and pulls out the first paper cup, then hands it to me before collecting her own. The coffee smells terrible, but the heat feels good against my palms.

I give her a weak smile. “Or you’ll kill him?”

“And Tata will bring the shovel.”

Chapter 70

Nothing Gets Worse

Kiri

After that night, one day bleeds into the next.

Morning becomes whatever time a nurse switches on the light above Ma’s bed. Night is when the windows turn black and Natalia starts asking whether either of us has eaten anything that didn’t come from a vending machine. I sleep in fragments, twenty minutes with my head against the wall, an hour folded into a chair, once with my face pressed into Natalia’s stomach while she sits beside me and runs her fingers through my hair.

Ma's alive.

That becomes the only measurement of time that matters.

Her condition is stable, but for the first two days, stable feels like another word for suspended. The monitors keep making the same sounds. The ventilator keeps breathing for her. Her face remains swollen beneath the bruising, dark fingerprints rising around her throat no matter how many times I look away and look back.

Nothing gets worse.

Nothing gets better.

Stefan calls before sunrise the first morning with Elise already on the line. Someone has seen police outside the house. A grainy picture of Rithy’s car at Harborview is circulating in a private fan group, and a reporter has emailed the label asking whether there has been a death in the family. They send us a statement to approve.

PRIVATE FAMILY TRAGEDY.

I stare at the words until they blur.

“Ma isn’t dead,” I say.

Stefan goes quiet.

“So don’t write it like she fucking is.”

Rithy takes the phone from me before I throw it through the window. By the time the statement goes out, tragedy has become emergency. It says Rithy and I are stepping away from professional commitments while our mother remains hospitalized. It asks for privacy and confirms nothing about Dad beyond the fact that authorities are investigating an incident at a private residence. It takes six people and fourteen emails to say almost nothing.

Detective Alvarez returns.

He interviews us separately this time. Me first, then Rithy, then Natalia. I tell him again about pinning James against the wall. Where my arm was. How hard I shoved him. That he was standing when we left and still had enough breath to insult us on the way out. Alvarez asks whether Dad had ever threatened to kill Ma. I tell him that man didn’t need to say things out loud for us to know he was capable of them. That answer earns me a long look and another note in his book.

They recover the gun from the living room. It was registered to him. The photographs in the bathtub belong to the albums Ma showed us. Some were burned down to blackened corners. Others had been soaked when she tried to put the fire out. The police believe the fight started there.

Believe.

Preliminary.

Consistent with.

Every answer arrives wrapped in language designed to keep it from becoming one. Kasia visits during her lunch breaks and again when she finishes work. She keeps Nat stocked in magazines and snacks. Rafe and Ronan trade shifts so one of them is almost always in the waiting room with us. They bring clothes, chargers, food, and the kind of conversation that doesn’t require us to answer.

After three days, Stefan sends them back to Los Angeles to get ahead on the album work while Rithy and I stay in Seattle. Rafe argues until I tell him there's no point in all four of us sitting around pretending we understand brain scans. He grips the back of my neck before he leaves.