"Want to spar?"
"No thanks," Lydia said, just having settled in from school—shower, sweats and sports bra. Her dad held a beer can with one hand and pumped the other in a fist. She hid her annoyance beneath a weak smile. "I'm going to knock this homework out while I'm thinking about it."
"Your loss." He grinned, plopping back down in his recliner, calling up some nature show about penguins. "Later?"
"Sure. Maybe."
* * *
Lydia blinked back the tears in her eyes, using the pain in her nose as fuel for strength. She thrust a kick forward, raising her gloves. Dad caught her ankle and yanked, throwing his own legs low, knocking her into a straddle. A year ago, she could have dislocated something; today, she rolled out, breaking his grip in the spin.
"What do you call that? Panic?" Dad said.
"I'm free, aren't I?"
"Try it again."
Fine.
She hopped to her feet and snapped her kick. Again, he caught it and destroyed her footing. Lydia rolled, adding a stomp towards his head. Blocked sideways, then wrapped at the calf, he rolled with her before pinning her knees, belly-down. With a flop, he slammed her chest to the floor and kicked her legs open, spread. Two fingers pushed into her neck, his other hand pressing her face into the not-so-soft padding.
"That was it." Dad's 'knife-hand' slapped the back of her head. "It's not just about mobility and flexibility; it's keeping your calm even without your feet. We train our instincts; we don't train to be instinctive."
"What's the difference?" she said, climbing to her knees and rebinding her ponytail.
"Any dumbass fights with fury, lust, emotion. He's only thinking about submission. In kind, all you were thinking about was escape. Keep your head above that."
Lydia again squared off, a dozen maneuvers tumbling in her mind. None of her rolls and dodges would work against dad—six-foot-three yet agile, and as broad at his shoulders as her entire torso was long. Again, she flung her leg forward, the kick a bit clumsy, fatigued.
Dad caught it, eyes dropping from alert to—disappointed? She snarled and hopped forward, shuttling a right hook along his catching arm. He dropped her leg, crossing his body to block. Too late. The punch connected with a crack, transforming his face into blurry ripples of smooth-shaved skin. Lydia dove away, rolling to her feet, arms raised to defend.
Dad had landed on his knees, eyes blank before collapsing forward.
* * *
"The bruising?" The doctor said, consulting a hand-held holo-screen.
"We were training." She tightened her gi across her chest, arms wrapped around her stomach.
"And how often do you 'train'?"
"N-Not as much as we used to. This was the first time in a month." Lydia wiped her face, glancing at the cop guarding the ER's waiting-room door. "I didn't hit him that hard! We don't go all out."
"I'm not accusing you of anything, Miss Stamos, I'm merely asking about his lifestyle, for his benefit. Does he fight often, out of your home?"
"No, never."
"Drinking?"
"W-What happened? Why?"
The woman finished her pen strokes and closed the screen. Her brick-wall mask softened into sympathy. "Aneurisms are unpredictable. His last medical check was seven years ago. Do you know why?"
Of course she did. After mom passed, they'd lost her healthcare. Dad did his best with the life insurance, but with a year to go working fulltime and part-timing his vocational studies—
"Let me in."
"Of course. The surgeons are almost done. He seems in perfect health otherwise."
"So he'll be ok?
"On our end, you're father will be fine…" The doctor turned her back and walked into the operating room, immediately shielded by a transparent blue bulge from the door.
Soon Lydia watched as the nurses, then surgeons, exited out the back, two by two.
* * *
Another sunny day in Vancouver. Tropical birds sang their litanies on palm fronds and weeping willows. The pastor had left. Her uncle wouldn't arrive for another two days. Dad's coworkers lingered after the service, but now kept their distance by the street, some forty feet away from the grave. Maybe if she had wept, they'd have offered more than clasps on the back.
Small comfort, either way.
A flat square of levitating steel spilled earth into the hole, first sanding the casket, then draping it, piling up and up—an hourglass impossible to upturn.
Lydia stared, eyes still burning from days before. The coroner said it had only been a matter of time—he'd been withering in front her eyes, but she hadn't seen it. Had she known, she wondered whether she would have ignored him to prolong his final days, or grant him his last wish and send him off on his own terms. Ultimately, he'd given up to join Mom.
By her own hand, everything she'd taken for granted was gone. By his choice, she was alone. No one was at fault; everyone was to blame.