CHAPTER 7
LUNA
Parking on the familiar street has my muscles tensing. Ready for a fight.
But I don’t let anything as unacceptable as fear register in my mind. Surviving here means wearing a tough exterior at all times. No hesitating. I climb from my car and head up the cracked sidewalk, my confident stride fueled by my need to have this encounter over as quickly as possible.
The door seems smaller than it used to be, as if the wood is a dying thing that slowly decays as the years pass by. The color is different too. A surface that used to be blue is now a faded brown. I’ve been gone long enough that things had time to be new and grow old.
There’s no sound when I press the doorbell. I rap out a pounding knock with the side of my hand.
Still nothing, but that doesn’t mean no one is home.
“Hey!” I yell as I knock louder. “It’s Luna! Open the damn door!”
This time, when I drop my hand, I hear movement on the other side. Not sure what kind of greeting I’ll get, I take a fewsteps back and make sure my piece is easy to reach in my waist holster. I’ve never had to use the thing other than in a shooting range, and I hope today isn’t the day that track record changes.
The door whips open, and the woman framed in the entrance stares down at me, distrust on her face.
In that moment, I can’t help comparing her to Wai Po, recognizing the similarities in their faces. Confusion wrinkles the same sharp brows my grandmother and I share with Vivian Lamont. As if she doesn’t recognize me.
Do I look that different?
My mother always insisted I keep my hair long because men want a girl who looks like a lady, not like a boy. The first thing I did when I went to college was shave every inch off. My first year, I rocked a freeing buzz cut. But maybe I kept some of my vanity because I tired of the minimalist style and let everything grow back as far as a short bob that now frames my face. A face that looks more like hers than like my white dad’s.
He’s all blond-haired, blue-eyed, Anglo to a T. Dash, Leo, and I take after our mom with our dark hair, hooded brown eyes, and skin sporting a golden undertone. For the longest time, all I ever had of my Asian heritage was my looks. Mom was stingy with details about her past. I didn’t learn I was Taiwanese until I found Tsai Shu-fen.
“Luna?”
My first instinct is to snap back at her,No, it’s the tooth fairy, duh. Definitely not your estranged daughter.
But I smother the rebellious urge, holding on to civility as best I can. “Yes. It’s me.” I sound like a robot wearing her daughter’s skin suit, but I can’t seem to infuse any kind of affection into my voice.
“Why’re you here?” She leans a shoulder on the doorframe and braces her hand on the other side, barring entry with herentire body. As if I were begging to enter the sanctum of her home.
Missed you too, Mom.
“I have something to tell you. It’s not really front-porch talk.”
For a second, her coolly dismissive exterior cracks, eyes wide in panic. “Is it Dash? Is he okay?”
Would she have that reaction if my baby brother came here and told her something was going on with me? Maybe Vivian Lamont cares about me, somewhere way down deep. But I don’t know that there’s anything on this earth that could bring her motherly affection for me to the surface. It never rose before.
“Dash is fine.”
Tension drains from her in response. “Don’t scare me like that.”
Not like I was trying. If I wanted to hurt her though, I could. I could tell her what’s going on with Dash. Tell her he’s getting ready for his wedding and didn’t bother sending her a notification about it. I could tell her the way Paige’s mom loves Dash like a son, how the two of them work on cars together. Legally.
I could inform my mom she’s not the most important woman in her little prince’s life and never will be again.
But starting a fight is not why I’m here today. Petty revenge will have to wait for another time.
“Can I come in?”
She looks me up and down, as if I were covered in bed bugs and just asked to take a roll in her sheets. But she steps back, walking into the house, leaving the door open as a silent indication I should follow.
Instead of storming back to my car and driving away like I want, I bite down hard on my anger and step into my childhood house.
