I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 24: less than the sum of its parts

My knees hurt when I stand up from prayer. I didn't think it'd been so long, but when I finally blow out the incense, it's past one in the morning. Ba's death anniversary has already ended.

Everyone was awake when I started, but I don't expect them to be still. I ease the door open to avoid the clack of the handle, only to be proven wrong. Taut voices climb up the stairs.

'–told you that you had to get married, that the kids needed a fella around. And now look at em.'

'It won't be forever,' Má responds. 'He'll grow out of it.'

Bà Nội scoffs a laugh. 'We should never have let you take em to the other end of the country. We should have gone to court for custody when Dean died. It were probably too late for Miles but at least we could've intervened with Iris since you clearly have no clue how to parent–'

'Yến,' comes Ông's warning.

I imagine them in the kitchen, Bà standing by the sink, her shadow cast against the curtain so that she appears twice as tall as she is. Ông is probably pretending to read the newspaper, as though he didn't already read it this morning. Má is trembling. She spins her wedding ring with enough force that it could cut off her finger.

Silence presses down like smog until Má speaks through it. 'Iris is perfectly fine. Her teachers have nowt but praise for her.'

'Well, at least you've managed one child that isn't a disappointment,' Bà says. 'He's twenty-four years old and he won't even go t'university.'

A bud of joy blossoms in my chest at the fact that she remembered it's my birthday, that it's past midnight, that I'm twenty-four now. That bud is stomped when I process the rest of it.

'He will,' Má assures. 'He will.'

'It's no surprise to me that your nhà quê family fails to understand this, but–'

'My parents fought for the independence of their country.' There's venom in Má's voice now; I wait to hear the thud of a body to the floor as it infiltrates Bà's heart. 'You abandoned it. You should be grateful.'

A door opens behind me, and I snap my head back as Iris steps out of the guest room, dressed in baggy pyjamas. Her brow furrows as she finds me leaning over the railing at the top of the stairs. A single second — during which a thousand ways of shutting down the conversation so Iris won't have to hear any of it fly through my mind — stretches like toffee until it snaps.

'I don't understand how you can let him be like this,' Bà bites. 'Dean would be ashamed of him, to have someone like him for a son.'

I open the toilet door and shove it shut. Silence is instant. It seeps up the stairs like some noxious gas that'll kill us if we inhale too much.

Iris glares at me. You're a doormat. Why can't you ever stand up for yourself?

I confirm her accusations and shake my head. It's fine.

Ignoring the knives she throws at the back of my skull, I head down the stairs. Má needs me, she doesn't deserve to be spoken to like this.

I don't pretend to stumble in, to be thirsty, to be too sleepy to understand what's happening. I don't address it either — I may be a disappointment of a son, but nobody can deny I make a first-rate doormat.

'Má, you should go to bed.'

I wait for her to step out, wish Bà and Ông goodnight, and follow. Waiting at the top of the stairs, Iris glares at me with downright disgust. I keep my focus on Má, guiding her to the guest room. She's already in her pyjamas, so all she has to do is pull back the duvet to get into bed.