“Yeah.” Somehow, it made it easier that he already knew part of it. “He was a detective in Oakland. That’s where I grew up.”
“I remember. And your mother?”
“My mom was not a cop.” She took a deep breath and forced out a rueful laugh. “She was a mom, mostly. And a writer. A poet. She’d been published a few times. She and my dad were complete opposites. He was the strict cop, she was the hippy poet who did yoga and wore caftans to PTA meetings.”
His voice softened and he moved closer. “You loved her.”
“We both adored her.” She tried not to tense when he touched her shoulder. “My parents had a great marriage. We had a good life.”
“What happened? Your mother is dead?”
“There was… this homeless man in our neighborhood. Well, there were lots of homeless people, but she always took Oscar food because he usually stayed around our corner. She helped him find a shelter when it got cold. Tried to help him find work here and there. He was a vet, I think.” Natalie frowned. “He had a lot of… issues he never got the right help for. But Mom always said we were all someone’s child and some people just needed an extra hand sometimes. That’s the way she was.”
“She sounds like a very fine woman.”
“She was. She was the best.”
“This Oscar…” His voice was soft and coaxing. “Did he hurt her?”
“He was harmless, mostly. Everyone in the neighborhood knew him. Helped him out a little. But he adored my mom. Called her his angel.”
“What happened?” Baojia had moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, slowly drawing her back to his chest and covering her with one of the blankets on the bed.
“She would let him in the house to take a shower when he got really dirty. Dad told her not to do that, but I know she did when he needed it and couldn’t find room at a shelter. One day, my dad picked me up from school and we went home.” She started trembling. “And… Dad went in the kitchen. She was there. He had killed her with a kitchen knife.”
“Oh, Natalie.” He whispered her name and rocked her back and forth. She felt numb, relating the story as if it was just another shest 18" was reporting. She put her hands on his arms as they held her.
“My dad… he kind of lost it. He, uh, he left me with a neighbor to call 911 and went looking for Oscar, but the thing was, Oscar wasn’t even trying to hide. He was sitting on the corner covered in her blood, sleeping. A hundred people must have walked past him, but no one asked why he was covered in blood. And when Dad picked him up and shoved him against the wall, screaming, he didn’t even know why. Mr. Pak, who had the market across the street, told me Oscar kept saying, ‘Where’s my angel, Mr. Ellis? You seen my angel today?’”
“He didn’t know he’d killed her?”
She shrugged. “The doctors think he had a psychotic break. He hadn’t taken his medication in a while and he had no idea what he’d done. Had no memory of it. When the police finally got there and put him in the car, he was sobbing. They put him on suicide watch, but he killed himself a few months later.”
Baojia had his arms wrapped so tightly around her that she was beginning to wonder if breathing would become an issue.
“And your father?”
“He just… broke. We moved out of Oakland. Left the city. He commuted in for work, and I switched schools. But mostly he disappeared unless he was lecturing me about my safety. He got super-protective. I’m sure he was worried about losing me to something random, too.”
“How old were you?”
“I was fifteen when she died. As you can imagine, teenage Natalie was a huge fan of all the new rules.”
He let up the pressure on her ribcage and ran a hand over her hair. “I’m sure you drove him crazy.”
“Well, I was looking for a reaction.” The pressure around her heart eased a little with his touch. “And I got it.” She finally turned to him. “You say I can be reckless, but the thing is, there is evil in this world. It’s a broken, broken place sometimes. It can be obvious, like Ivan. But sometimes it doesn’t even know it’s evil. Sometimes it’s random and no matter what you do, it will find you. So I don’t want to live my life worrying about my safety. I can’t, Baojia, because even if I do everything right, even if I followed every one of my dad’s rules, or your rules, or any rules… the bad might still find me like it found my mom. That girl you rescued tonight probably wasn’t looking for trouble, but it found her. I want to live my life fearlessly and help other people without worrying about myself, because even after what happened to her, I think that’s what my mom would have wanted. Does that make sense?”
He was frowning, staring at her hard, as if he was memorizing her face. “It does make sense. Even if I don’t like it.”
She forced out a wobbly smile. “Be scared. Live anyway.”
Baojia drew her back toward the pillows and she could feel him start to slow down. “Rest with me. Sleep. I’m sorry I asked you to share all this tonight. It’s already been upsetting enough.”
“It’s okay.” Strangely, it was. Lying at his side, Natalie felt peace. She felt safe with him, safer than she’d felt in many, many years. “It happened a long time ago. I can remember the good things now.”
“I’m sorry you don’t speak with your father,” he whispered. “You should have been a comfort to each other.”