Page 92 of The Dragon 1

She quirked her brows.

“The samurai used to carry them on the road when they traveled. My mother used to say that. . .after a battle, the samurai would sit beneath a tree—tired, bruised, and bloody—and they would mourn the men they’d lost and sing to the few ghosts that were watching.”

Nyomi looked at me like I’d cast a spell. “Were you close to your mother?”

“When I was a boy, we were inseparable. I was damned near her shadow. I loved everything about her and hated any moment I was away from her.”

“And when you got older?”

“My father kept me close to him, claiming that I was getting too soft because of my devotion to my mother.”

“And what did you think about that?”

“In my household, when my father spoke, that was law. It was not a moment to think or question.” I sighed, shocked that I’d said this much. “But in retrospect, I wish I had fought against it.”

“Why?”

“Those are years lost to me that I can never reclaim because now she’s gone.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No. It’s okay. Grief is a strange thing,” I lowered my gaze to the table. “It’s like a void that never truly leaves you. It merely gets quieter over time.”

I stared down at my sake for a moment, unsure when the fuck I’d started monologuing like some grieving priest.

Why did I say all of that?

I never talked about my mother. I damned sure didn’t talk about my grief. I sure as hell didn’t talk about what my father stole from me.

There she was—across the table, her face tender and open—I’d cracked like a man who didn’t know better.

“Anyway,” I lifted my view up to her. “Are you close to your mother?”

“Well. . .no, I. . .stomach her. No. That’s not nice. What I’m trying to say is that we have a very complicated relationship.”

“Why?”

“My father sounds kind of like yours. Being a judge, he would bring that sort of stuff home with him,” she rolled her eyes. “When I was in trouble, I would have to address him with ‘Your Honor.’”

I parted my lips in shock.

“It was such bullshit. Especially when I came to find that my father had been less than honorable his entire career as a judge, taking bribes and other illegal things,” she tapped her finger on her cup of sake in a way that told me that this was a highly uncomfortable topic.

Still, I was glad she was sharing this with me.

Nyomi cleared her throat. “But my mother. . .she enabled my father and believed that the man was damn near Jesus. It was always his way, even if it hurt me. What he said was the only thing that mattered. Honestly, even after the court cases and clear evidence of his wrongdoings, you still can’t tell her that he isn’t a good man. She would argue about it.”

“She treated him like a king?”

“She did and it made her seem so weak to me,” Nyomi looked away. “That’s not nice to say, but. . .”

“I understand what you mean. Due to my father, I saw my mother the same way. The only problem was that as a soon to be adult man myself. . .I just assumed that was a woman’s place.”

She stared at me. “That’s interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s why I’ve always resented my mother. Because. . .as a daughter. . .I didn’t want to end up likeher. . .being weak and spending my entire life serving a man. If I was her son. . .I may not have resented her at all.”