Red Thorns (Thorns Duet #1) by Rina Kent

“Mom…” I pull back to stare at her. She’s having her serious mask on, the business one that’s always thinking one hundred years into the future.

“What is it, Nao?”

“I don’t care about any of that. Can’t we…can’t we get a second opinion?”

“I had a third and my options keep diminishing.”

“Can’t you have surgery or something?”

“The tumor can’t be operated on due to the low survival rates associated with it.”

“How about chemo?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, too.”

A sob tears from my throat. “How…how can you be so calm about this? How can you talk about the will and the business and fuck knows what?”

“Because you’re staying, Nao. And I want to make sure you have everything you need.”

“Everything I need to live without you?”

She strokes my hair behind my ear and smiles a little. “You’re old enough.”

“I’m never old enough to be without you, Mom.”

“I used to think that, too. When I was pregnant, you were this naughty fetus who kicked me day and night to make yourself noticeable. One time, a bunch of strangers surrounded me in the supermarket just to see the entertaining ways you moved in my belly and I wanted to ward them off you, to take you and run away. And I did. I tried my best to protect you from the world. It might have to do with being an immigrant and having to adapt to a culture so much different than mine, but I found it hard to trust anyone, even your babysitters. After what happened with Sam, I decided that I couldn’t be parted from you, and that might have turned a tad too suffocating for you. It’s because I thought you would be too vulnerable in the world without me, and in a way, I still believe that. But I also see how fiercely independent you are. How genuinely you love and care, even if you don’t show it much. You remind me of myself when I was younger and if that’s of any indication, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

An onslaught of tears covers my cheeks. “I don’t want to, Mom. Please…please don’t go…you’re all I have.”

Her lips thin before she releases a long breath. “There’s also the father you’ve been searching for since you were a little girl.”

“You…knew?”

“Of course, I did. You put it in a lantern when we went to China last year.”

“I…don’t need him if you stay. I’ll stop looking for him, I promise.”

“You don’t need him even if I don’t stay.”

“Is he alive?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“Because he’s a dangerous man. Nao-chan, the reason I relocated from Japan to the States isn’t because of social circumstances. I did it to escape him and his influence. If I’d stayed, you would’ve been brought up in a corrupted way where you have to fight for your life every day.”

“Then why were you with him? Why did you give birth to me?”

“Back then, I was this simple girl from a conservative family. My parents had me at an old age and worked tirelessly in their small convenience store to make ends meet. Then your father walked in, threatening their business and their poor old hearts. My parents weren’t his only targets. Everyone in our neighborhood was. I was so sheltered and oblivious to the world that I had a false sense of grandiosity and thought I could stand up to him and his tyranny. I believed in the stupid myth that the good always outweighs the bad, but I was in for a life lesson. People like your father only know how to take and take until nothing is left behind. But he knew how to play with my young and foolish emotions, I’ll give him that.

“Thankfully, I was beginning to learn his ways and I realized I wasn’t safe with him. As soon as I knew I was pregnant with you, I didn’t think twice before I left. Not only Japan and my elderly parents, who couldn’t handle what I became, but also him. You gave me my fresh start, Nao. I regained the strength he’d slowly purged out of me. I stood above his gaslighting and abusive behavior, thanks to you. Keeping you was a no-brainer. After all, you’re the only thing I can call mine.”

The tears don’t stop as I listen to her nostalgic retelling of the old days. I wish I could reach out to her younger self and hug her, but since I can’t, I wrap my arms tighter around her in a silent show of support.

Normal people don’t survive what my mom did. They don’t use it as a strength to climb to the top, despite many odds being against them.

A sense of guilt hooks with my grief and drags me under. If I’d known my father was her nightmare and that he hurt her, I wouldn’t have searched for him. I wouldn’t have hurt her by constantly asking about him.

“Point is, your father is not a good man, Nao, and he’s nowhere near the perfect image you built of him in your head. If you ever loved me, you’ll forget about him and stop searching for him.”

“Do…those men from this morning have something to do with him?”

She hesitates before making an affirmative sound.

“Why were they here?”

“They’re your father’s men.”

“He has men?”

“Lots of them, and those two might have been the most sophisticated of the bunch.”