Page 28 of Caution to the Wind

“But I’m a man and you’re a kid,” I corrected, turnin’ her in my arms so I could cup her shoulders in my palms and stare down into that obstinate face. “You need to focus on school crushes and prom, on university and, I dunno, makeup or social media or whatever shit kids like these days. Not on revenge and murder, yeah?”

When she only rolled her lips under her teeth, I gave her a vigorous shake. “You hear me, Rocky? Focus on bein’ a kid, for Christ’s sake.”

“I stopped being a kid when I fell down the steps into that hell where Kate died,” she shot back, chin angled high in the air. “I’m not normal or safe or dull. I’m not scared of pain or death, Hen. I’m only scared of losing the few people I love.” Tears swelled in her ducts and trembled. “I can’t afford to lose any more of you when there were so few to start with.”

“How do you think Cleo and me feel?” I retorted, but I wasn’t angry, just so tired I felt my bones had turned to sponge. It was hard to carry my own weight. “Don’t put yourself at risk for a ghost.”

She stared at me, tauntin’ me with my own words.

We wouldn’t solve anythin’ like this, not now, or maybe ever. We were too similar, too stupid to value ourselves more than the ones we loved.

“Don’t leave,” I said, squeezin’ her shoulders before releasin’ her to grab a glass of water. Bleedin’ always made you thirsty. “Cleo sleeps better with you around and it’s late.”

“I’m not tired yet,” she said after a moment, a thread of stubbornness remainin’.

I bit the edge of my smile before turnin’ to face her, leanin’ against the counter. “You hungry?”

Her mouth stayed flat, but her eyes warmed. “Yeah, I could eat.”

“Good, you cook.” I moved to the table and sat down with a groan.

She laughed under her breath but moved to the cupboards to scrounge somethin’ for us to eat. While she did that, I pulled her sketchbook over and flipped to the last entry.

The drawin’ of Cleo was perfectly rendered, so life-like it was hard to believe a seventeen-year-old girl had done it. She’d only started drawin’ a few years ago after watchin’ me carefully, studyin’ me and the way my fingers moved pen and pencil across the page. Mostly, I liked to work with pens, detailed line drawings I’d started to sketch out as a kid on napkins and restaurant menus ’til my stepmum finally thought to enroll me in art class. My sketchin’ lent itself well to tattooin’ and my talents had started somethin’ of a cult followin’ in the province, with people travelin’ from out of the city to be inked by me. I’d also converted half the garage into a quasi-art studio where I’d started to dabble with paints.

“This is good shit,” I murmured, tracin’ a finger over the curve of my daughter’s face.

Mei made a dismissive noise, but she didn’t wrench the book out of my hands, which was what she usually did when someone tried to look at her artwork.

I flipped the page to see a detailed image of a male hand complete with creases, shadows, veins, shrapnel scars, and corded tendons. There was no mistakin’ the hand as anythin’ other than my own.

A steamin’ cup of instant noodles appeared over the sketchbook and I looked up to see Mei glarin’ at me in challenge.

“Hands are tricky,” she explained defensively.

“They are,” I agreed, takin’ the cheap but delicious Nongshim Soon Noodles in one hand so I could put it to the side to cool. “Sit.”

Mei pursed her lips, eyein’ her sketchbook as if to take it, but ultimately, she sat. Her hand was smooth skinned save for the ridge of faint callus over her knuckles from her martial arts trainin’. She gave a little start when I tugged her hand, then lay it just so over the laminate tabletop.

“Let me?” I asked, already pickin’ up her discarded pencil, already tracin’ the delicate lines of her extended fingers.

It had been a bad night, a bad week. I was foul-tempered and restless, a sense of forbodin’ about the war with the triad and Mei’s continued rebellion itchin’ under my skin like fire ants I couldn’t scratch. But this, the quiet strength and trust of the girl across from me and the opportunity to lose myself in art, was the balm I desperately needed.

In answer, Mei merely settled back in her seat comfortably and watched me with low-lidded eyes.

I finished her hand quickly, fingers almost crampin’ with my urgency. Still, I ached with the need to purge the ugliness in my heart with the beauty I could create on the page. So, I started in on her shoulder, the delicate wing of her collarbone where her overlarge tee slipped to reveal pale skin smooth as ivory. She had a lot of fine, silky black hair, falling in straight sheets to the top of her chest. A lock fell over her face, tanglin’ with long straight lashes, a perfect comma.

She was beautiful, I realized in a way I hadn’t ever let myself before. Not just in the way of pretty girls. No, her beauty was written in her very bones. In the slope of her steeply carved cheeks and the faint hollow beneath. In the full brows arched delicately over large eyes that were dark but warm, vital. Freshly tilled earth instead of a night without stars. She looked almost fragile, but I mapped the strength of her character in that stubborn chin, the knit of her brows, and the flattenin’ of a full mouth into a fine line. Slim limbs carved with muscle, sharp nails painted black. A surprisingly strong jawline that had taken more than its fair share of punches.

A livin’ contrast, Mei Zhen. Our Rocky.

A girl who was both named for a beautiful pearl and a famous fictional boxer.

We had sat up just like this together many nights before, sketchin’ together in our own books, the scratch of lead on paper and the soft gust of our breath the only soundtrack to our shared insomnia. But never like this. Never when my focus and art was all about Mei.

It made me look at her in this new way that made my chest pinch even though I fought to ignore it.

I fell into the hazy pleasure of creation, losin’ myself to the craft and dance of pencil over paper, only stallin’ to reach for another, sharper pencil Mei offered when the one I was usin’ wore down to nothin’. My eyes grew tired, scratchy, and raw, but still, I filled pages of Mei’s notebook with images of her, not whole renderings ’cause somethin’ about that made my stomach clench, but sections of her litterin’ the pages, a corner of her forehead, the edge of her sharp little chin, the exact shape of that little dimple divotin’ her left cheek.