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Din is 5 when she loses her father.
It’s been raining for 3 days and the roads are slippery and she falls asleep in the car with the memory of her father tucking her in for sleep in the backseat etched behind her eyes.
She wakes up with a pounding headache and blood pooling down the side of her face. She cries for her father — she can see him but he’s not coming to get her. No one is. It’s hot and Din is tired. She goes to sleep with the side of her face burning from the heat.
—
The walls are pearly white and there’s a steady beeping coming from the side and it’s annoying her. She wants her father but Khun Akanee and Khun Adisorn and Khun Watit are arguing behind the curtain and why are they arguing about who will take her in? She has a home and she has a father, she doesn’t want to go live with any of them.
3-year-old Nam is painfully shy and she hides under tables — “I’m not hiding, I’m being safe,” Nam would argue” — and she screams like she is being murdered if her cereal is a tad too soggy and when someone accidentally brushes their arm against hers and she always has a headphone on and she is always rocking back and forth and Din does not understand Nam or why Nam can get away with things Din can’t.
2-year-old Lom is somehow worse. Where Nam is (mostly) quiet, Lom is a whirlwind of emotions. The girl is loud and brash and she’s always running around and she never stays in one place long enough to finish a conversation and she gets sidetracked by a million, seemingly, unrelated things when she’s talking. She slobbers when she eats and Din hates it. Din can’t live with someone who doesn’t know what manners are.
Din wishes she has a sister she can get along with.
—
Din goes to live with Khun Akanee. The first week she spends crying, he is very understanding about it. But Din knows he is getting annoyed with her. She wishes she could stop crying. She just wants her father, She keeps asking Khun Akanee where he is but he just rolls his eyes and pretends he doesn’t hear her.
Khun Akanee reaches his breaking point when Din accidentally breaks a glass bowl when pouring herself some overnight oats. Din is too short to reach the kitchen counter but she has learned that, in this house, you have to feed yourself or you go to sleep on an empty stomach.
He yells at her until she’s crying, not that she’s ever really stopped, and then he makes her pick up the glass shards one by one, until not a single speck is on the ground. The broom is right there, Din doesn’t understand why she has to use her hands, doesn’t Khun Akanee know she could get injured? Or does he just not care?
Her father would have hugged her and kissed her forehead and told her, “It’s a bowl, sweetheart. We can always buy another one. But I only have one Din and I can never lose her, can I?”
Din misses her father a little extra that night when she’s lying in bed, her hands wrapped with the cleanest cloth she could find because Khun Akanee refused to bring her to see a doctor for the cuts littering her palms.
—
Din learns to live in the shadows and gauge Akanee’s mood through the sound of his footsteps creaking on the floorboards. She learns to make food that she can hide in her room drawers for up to 3 days so she doesn’t have to go hungry again — Akanee has a habit of restricting her food intake. Din memorizes which steps on the stairs creak and learns to avoid them so she can sneak into the kitchen to get a glass of water when she has nightmares. Din learns to muffle her cries in her pillows and use concealers to cover up her eyebags and how not to gag when Akanee comes near her reeking of cigarettes and alcohol.
Din never learns how to stop crying for her father.
—
Din is 8 when little Fai is born to one of Akanee’s mistresses. Fai comes out of the womb, angry and red-faced, wailing at the cruelty of the world; Fai’s mother dies minutes after giving birth to her.
Din is nauseous the first time she sees Fai. Nam, aged 6, is seated ram-rod straight, her back not touching the backrest of the couch, her hands folded neatly atop her lap, Khun Adisorn is next to her, vibrating with uncontrolled excitement. Lom, aged 5, is running in circles around the room as her father laughs at her antics.
Din wants to vomit. Why did she ever wish for a sister? Poor Fai wasn’t even given a chance at life before it was ripped from her.
“This is your little sister, Din. You’ll have to take care of her the way you take care of Nam and Lom, okay?” Khun Akanee says, placing N’Fai in her arms, a warning glare in his eyes that only Din sees.
—
The day Fai comes home for the first time, Din goes to sleep in her room as per usual. She’s awoken at 3 in the morning to a shrill cry coming from the basement — Akanee never bothered to furnish a nursery for the child.
Din hears the telltale sound of Akanee’s boots hitting the ground — the angry footsteps. Din holds her breath as she strains her ears to hear what’s going on. The child stops crying. Din’s blood runs cold. Akanee’s footsteps retreat.
Silent tears flow down the bridge of her nose and she prays to a God she has never believed in — please, let N’Fai be okay.
5 minutes go by and Din hears the sound of Fai’s angry cry hitting her ears again. She rushes out her door and scoops up the baby, smothering her face in Din’s shirt as Din rubs her back and prays again — please, Akanee, don’t come down again.
When Fai calms down enough that Din feels confident she won’t immediately wake up the whole world with her loud cries again, Din reveals her face to the light and Fai looks up at Din like she’s her whole world.
Din promises to get the girl away from the angry man in the house.
—
Din learns to understand Fai’s cries. For a fetus, Fai has so many variations, Din wonders if her father learned what each of her cries meant too. Din learns to feed Fai, cloth Fai in the winter, change her diapers, swaddle her, bring down her fevers, bathe her. She learns how to make the angry child laugh and Din feels proud of herself for the first time since her father died.
Din learns to love Fai and she learns to love Nam and Lom a little bit more.
—
Din learns to smile again.
—
Din teaches Fai to hide her injuries — Din tried to take the fault for things that went wrong but Akanee never laid a hand on her; Fai was a whole other story. He treated her body like a canvas for his paintings — with the same concealer Din hid her eyebags.
Din hides extra food for Fai and Fai never goes to sleep on an empty stomach.
Din bandages up Fai’s wounds and reluctantly kisses her ‘boo-boos’ away.
And Din gives the ‘world’s best hugs’ — Fai’s words, not hers.
They watch Frozen every other night and Din hugs Fai extra close and Din cries every time while pretending to wipe dust from her eyes. Fai, almost always, falls asleep on her chest, 10 minutes into the movie.
If Nam’s safe space was at the bottom of her dining room table, Fai’s was Din.
—
Din wasn’t born an angry child, she just lived with an angry man.
When Din sees the two lines appear on Rose’s test, she flees. She hates herself for it.
—
Fai finds her in their spot — a little tunnel in a dilapidated playground that Nam used to hide in for hours when she was in Chiang Rai and the gatherings got too loud — hours later.
“Are you stupid?” Fai starts, without preamble, panting.
Din looks up with red-rimmed eyes and guilt illuminating her gaze. It is dark — the only sources of light coming from the moon and a street lamp that is blinking, almost out of battery. Din feels like her light is flickering too.
“What?” Din asks, bewildered.
“I asked,” Fai drags, annoyed. She plops down next to Din, even though neither of them are small enough to fit in that small crawl tube side by side anymore. “If you are stupid.”
“What?” Din repeats.
Fai throws her hands up. “I can’t believe you would do that. You literally planned this. What the fuck are you running for?”
“N’Rose called you?” Din asks, voice so quiet and guilt-ridden that Fai feels sorry for a brief moment.
“Yeah,” Fai confirms, her tone softening. “Why’d you run, P’Din?”
“I—” Din hesitates, gathering her thoughts as her throat closes up with unexpressed emotions. Fai remains patient; Fai is only ever patient with P’Din.
“I don’t know how to be a mother,” Din admits. Fai isn’t even sorry when she bursts out laughing and Din looks at her, affronted. Din slaps her shoulder which just makes her laugh harder. Fai falls out of the crawl tube.
Fai gathers herself and looks up at Din, not bothering to sit back up. “Oh, wait. You’re being serious?”
Din just shoots her a deadpan look that screams obviously.
“P’Din.” Fai says, mock glaring at her like Din is supposed to come to her senses with the sound of her name.
Fai rolls her eyes when Din looks genuinely confused, having no idea what Fai is talking about.
“Come on,” Fai says insistently, pointing at herself.
“What?” Din asks, getting annoyed.
“How can you not know how to be a mother?”
“BECAUSE.”
“That’s not an answer, P’Din.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is not.”
“Is too”
“Is not”
“Is too”
“What are you, 5?” Lom’s monotone voice joins the chaos. Nam is next to her, clearly judging the sisters.
“PHI NAM!” Fai exclaims as she struggles to get up from where she’s sprawled on the grass. She runs to Nam and hugs her, in the way that only Fai is allowed to hug Nam. Next to her, Lom feigns insulted.
“What are you both doing here?” Din asks them, crawling out of the tube, going to hug Lom, just in case the mock insult wasn’t actually mock — Din knows a lot about hiding her true feelings behind It’s okays and I’m fines.
When the pleasantries are done, and Lom and Fai share a hug that is just as warm as the one Fai gave Nam, the cousins settle themselves on the slides — it is a two-swing set that seats 2 people on either swing; it was perfect for them.
“What are you doing here?” Din repeats.
“What do you think we’re doing here?” Nam asks, like it should be obvious to Din. It is.
“I’m sure Fai already asked you but what the hell were you thinking running away?” Lom asks, cutting straight to the chase. Lom and Fai have that in common.
“She said and I quote “I don’t know how to be a mother”,” Fai says, clearly expecting Nam and Lom to see her side of things.
“Well, I mean, she’s not wrong?” Nam says. If Lom and Fai are personality-twins, so are Din and Nam; they have their obliviousness on par.
“P’Nam,” Lom says, pointing at Fai.
“That’s exactly what I said,” Fai exclaims.
“What does Fai have anything to do with me worrying I will scar my baby for life?” Din asks, oddly vulnerable.
“You won’t,” Fai promises.
“How do you know that?”
“How do I know that?” Fai repeats, earnestly. “Because that is not the first kid you are raising. I am.”
“You’re her cousin. Not her child.” Nam says.
“Not literally, P”Nam,” Lom tells her. “But technically, Fai grew up under P’Din’s care. P’Din did everything for her from day fucking zero. P’Din became a mom at the age of 8.”
Nam nods, finally understanding what her younger siblings are talking about.
“You will make mistakes, P’Din. You’re human. But you will make the best mom ever. I turned out pretty fucking decent, didn’t I?”
“...I owe N’Rose an apology, don’t I?” Din says, smiling for the first time that day. That’s the thing about Fai; she can get Din out of the dark spot in her head in a matter of minutes and she always knows what to say to Din to make her feel better.
Din supposed, they had a point. By blood, Fai might be her cousin. By relation, Fai might be her sister. But by heart, Fai was her daughter.
—
When her child is born, little Daisy comes out screaming everyone’s head off. The first time she stops crying all day is when Din, carefully, ever so gently, places her in Fai’s arms, who takes the bundle of joy and cradles her to her chest.
It reminds her of the day she met Fai for the first time.
Din thinks she’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. They’ll learn to heal together and Daisy will be proof that having an angry man in your house doesn’t have to be permanent.