There was evidence of him everywhere in our apartment. I found a man’s shaving brush in the medicine cabinet and a sterling silver Zippo lighter beside the windowsill. When I presented my finds to Ma, she said, “You should be in theater. You have quite the imagination. That’s your uncle’s.” It was obvious though when she kept the lighter and took up smoking. She caressed the heavy lighter in her small fist like a precious stone. She sat alone at the kitchen table and flicked the fire on and off on and off until her thumb became callused and slightly charred. She stared beyond the light to the branches slapping the kitchen window. She talked to nobody in the chair beside her but the shadows of the leaves. That’s when Ma began to toy with danger.

It was as if we lived with a ghost. Everyone knew he had been there but we had to pretend he hadn’t. How else to explain the missing handles on her favorite teacups? The ones that were real china etched with blue vines on white porcelain. They had cost an entire Christmas bonus though she indulged anyway. Ma said that they made her feel pampered and beloved again. It reminded her of Sunday afternoon tea times with her Francophile mother in a garden blooming with red roses and green limes.

I held the damaged teacup to the sun. “What happened?”

She said, “I’ve turned into a clumsy old lady I guess.”

When I went to the bathroom, I saw a crack on the toilet seat between my legs. I led her in and pointed. “Who did that?” Ma got on her knees and pretended to examine the fracture as if she had not noticed it before. She placed a lock of hair behind her ear so that it won’t fall into the water as her finger traced the edges of the fault line. I pleaded, “You wouldn’t have needed to lift it up to go.”

She said, “How would you know? Aren’t I both the man and the woman in this household?”

I know it was him. I can see his blunt fingers, nails cut to the flesh, the same hand that held that officer’s cap, stubborn and proud, I’d recognize it anywhere. The veins are pumping and with all his force he slams down that lid until it shattered. He pissed over the rim and it infuriated him. It reminded him that he’s nothing more than an animal. He wanted to spray all over her bathroom to mark his territory but didn’t bother. This wasn’t territory he wanted to claim anyway.