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. I didn't know how Bà and Ông would respond to me praying — if they'd just think I'm being a country bumpkin or downright be offended by it, so I did it in the kids' room with the bunk bed.

Everyone were 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 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 clutches her tea mug with white knuckles.

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. It's 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 as though their disappointment has hooked a noose around my neck that tightens with each word.

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 knock the empty granite vase from the console table to the floor. The carpet muffles most of the sound but the thud is loud enough: silence is instant. It seeps from the ajar kitchen door 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 don'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. I wait for her to settle before I turn for the door. 'Night–'

'Can you stay with me? Please, Thỏ.' Her voice is a shattered glass; I know I'll cut my feet open but I have to come when called.

'For a bit,' I whisper as I place myself beside her.

Chewing the inside of my cheek, I watch her in the dark. The whites of her eyes glisten and as I allow mine to lose focus, they turn into the canines of a mouth that'll bite my head off without difficulty.

It's not weird. Ziri still sleeps between his parents sometimes. It's not weird. But I'm grateful for the thick material of my hoodie and joggers; I can't feel the heat of her body when Má throws the duvet over me and cocoons herself into me.

I tuck her under my chin so she won't see my face; a voice is easier to manufacture. 'I'm sorry, Má. That they give you such a hard time because of me.'

'I've tried so hard to please her and nowt ever does.'

I sponge up her turmoil at the same time that I realise this is the fate I'm forcing Ziri into. He's always going to be the scapegoat for why I failed to reach my potential, Má is always going to despise him for loving me better than her. Does she really think I'm going to grow out of it? When is she going to stop thinking that? In another five years? When — if — I get married? When she's on her deathbed?

She presses tighter against me. Her hand slips under my hoodie by accident; she plants it against my skin nonetheless. It's not weird for people to be affectionate with their parents even as adults. That's a societal norm that forces us to be lonely. But I can't stop imagining Dr Qureshi's face if I told him about this — it's inappropriate for a parent to ask that of their child.

Má's voice forces me to stay present, shackles my mind to the house even as the walls shrink. 'They blame me, you know. For his death.'

'Of course, they don't. He were born with a heart defect. What were you s'posed to do?'

'Be a better wife. Take care of him better. Not let him work so much. Not get pregnant so early,' she lists. 'They think I did it on purpose, to trap him. Like I'd do through owt of that on purpose...

'We were going to get a divorce.'

It's delivered like a slap. I focus on breathing, do it slow — inhale... exhale... But I have the lungs of a nine year old and they can't feed a body this big. My mind scours the room for summat to distract me but there's nowt. I close my eyes, imagine orange walls and the scent of freshly cut mint but I've never known how to construct them on my own.

I want to be home. I want Ziri to hold me.

'He wanted custody. They were all planning it together.' Usually, I would consider her paranoid but after Bà Nội more or less confirmed that fifteen minutes ago, I don't know what to believe. 'So he were stressed. So it's my fault he died.'

I wrap my arms around her. Maybe if I try hard enough to imagine a ball of light in my chest, I can pretend it's Ziri but Má's palms press to my back like she's trying to root them there.

'When are you going t'university, Thỏ?'

'Soon... Next year.'

When I return to the kid room, Iris is lying in the top bunk, awake. I don't say owt, don't even tell her to put on some sheets. It's past three, according to the clock radio, and I'm too tired for frustration.

Iris opens her mouth–

'Go to sleep, em ba.'

She drops against the mattress with a huff. 'I don't understand why we couldn't just have stayed at Bác Trai's.'

'He were their son.'

'Doesn't mean we need to stay here when they clearly don't like any of us.'

I shake my head but once I'm settled in the bottom bunk, tears well in my eyes. I welcome them but they dry up before they fully form. It's all stuck inside me.

I always knew Bà and Ông Nội were homophobic but the conversation tonight tore the rug from under my feet — the loathing in Bà's voice is still thick around my throat. An ache in my vocal cords has always been the way my body carries emotion.

I just want to be home. Even manic, Ziri feels safer than this. The only orange walls I know how to build is a piece of paper folded into a tent like the bomb shelters Bà Ngoại built during storms. She tried to teach me but of course I were too stupid to understand until it's too late: a house will be little protection in the end.