by Jackie Lau
“I’ll have the taro and strawberry-lychee,” Deidre says.
“Bubble waffles?” Valerie asks.
“Sure,” Anita says. “Why not.”
“I’ll bring you something, too,” Valerie says, her hand on my shoulder.
I take a seat at a table by the window, Anita and Deidre across from me. Deidre looks around, a smile on her face, and I feel a bit self-conscious. It’s my ice cream parlor, after all.
“Keisha would love this place,” she says, patting the head of the rocking unicorn.
“She would,” Anita agrees.
“Who’s Keisha?” I ask.
My aunt pulls out her phone and shows me a picture of herself with Deidre and three children, who must be Deidre’s. Twin girls and a boy.
“Keisha, Sasha, and Isaac,” Deidre says, pointing at them with a fond smile. “The twins are six, and Isaac is eight.”
Their skin is lighter in color than their mother’s—I think their father is white. Biracial, then, like me. Except growing up with a black mother and white father in the US is probably quite different from having an Asian mother and a white father in Canada.
“They’re cute,” I say.
“They’re with their father this week, but they live with me most of the time.”
I’m trying to imagine my aunt as a stepmother. They’d be my step-cousins—is that a thing? It’s hard to wrap my mind around all of this.
“Hopefully we’ll bring them to Toronto in a few months,” Anita says.
So now she wants to see me regularly, after three years of not visiting?
Valerie comes over with our ice cream. She’s gotten me a scoop of chocolate-raspberry and a scoop of ginger in a cup. Anita hands her twenty bucks. “Keep the change.”
“You don’t—”
“I insist.” Anita presses the money into Valerie’s palm, then starts on her ice cream. After complimenting my skills as an ice cream artisan, she dips her spoon into Deidre’s bubble waffle and tries the strawberry-lychee sorbet.
They’re both smiling lots, looking like the honeymooning couple that they are. I decide not to share my other feelings with my aunt. I certainly can’t do it when Deidre is present.
But Anita says to me, “We’ll have dinner tonight. Just the two of us, like old times.”
Whenever she visited, we’d always spend one whole day together. We’d do fun things like take the ferry to Centre Island or go to Canada’s Wonderland, the amusement park north of the city. In the evening, we’d go out to eat, something I rarely did with my parents. Anita was my cool aunt, and I loved it when she came to town.
“You’re on your honeymoon,” I protest. “You can’t ditch your wife.”
“I’ll be fine,” Deidre says. “I’ll hang out with some of Anita’s old friends, and she’ll join me later.”
Well, then. Apparently they have this all planned out.
* * *
“I take it you’re surprised,” Anita says.
“Of course I’m surprised,” I say.
We’re at Boreal, a restaurant that calls itself a “Canadian bistro.” I ordered the venison, and my aunt ordered us a charcuterie board to start. It’s sitting on the table, but I haven’t touched it yet.
The restaurant isn’t busy, and we have a quiet corner at the back. Anita knows the owner. How, I’m not sure. She hasn’t lived in Toronto for over two decades, but she always seems to know lots of people—I remember that about her. When I was younger, we’d often end up at restaurants where she knew the owner.
It’s like old times, and yet it isn’t.
“How long have you and Deidre been together?” I ask.
“Less than a year,” she says.
“And you’re already married?” That seems fast to me.
She shrugs. “When you’re my age, when you’ve been around for a while...you know what you want, and you don’t waste time.”
“How do you get along with her kids?”
“Keisha and I have gotten along well from the beginning. It’s been a little tougher with Sasha and Isaac, but it’s getting better.”
“Have you lived with them yet? Or not until you get home from your honeymoon?”
“We’ve lived together for four months. Since we got engaged.” She smiles. “I always wanted to have children but never got around to it. Now, I have everything.”
“You didn’t tell me. You didn’t invite me to your wedding.”
“It wasn’t a proper wedding. It...” She sighs, then picks up a slice of bread and tops it with some kind of cured meat—the server told us what everything was, but I don’t remember. It wasn’t important enough to register in my brain.
“You’re all I have left of my mother’s family. You used to visit all the time, but you weren’t there...” You weren’t there when I needed you. “I’m angry.”
I don’t usually tell people when I’m angry at them; I hide my feelings behind a cheerful front. But I can’t help it, not now.
“Why?” I ask, then cram my mouth with cured meat.
“I stayed away for so long. It would have been weird to just show up all of a sudden.”
“Like you did today.”
“Like I did today.” She pauses. “I lost both my parents and my sister in the span of three years.”
“I know.” I lost them, too. My mother and my grandparents, all so close together. “But didn’t you want to see the family you had left?”
“It became too hard to go to Toronto, and when you emailed me and suggested you could come to New York, I was in a really bad place. I was trying to keep my life from breaking at the seams. I was afraid that if I saw you, I would completely lose it and wouldn’t be able to get out of bed for a month.”
“Why would that have happened?”
Anita shakes her head. “You look so much like your mother. Your mannerisms are the same, too. I wanted to see you but knew it would remind me too much of what I’d lost.” She has a sip of her wine. “My response has always been to run away. I left Toronto twenty-four years ago because my best friend passed away and I couldn’t stand to be here anymore.”
God. I let that sink in. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Chloe. I’m so sorry. I wish I hadn’t been such a basket case after Sandra died. I wish I’d been stronger.”
“But you’re better now. With Deidre.”
She nods, then reaches across the table and squeezes my hand before helping herself to some of the cured meat. “I won’t disappear on you again.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“I’ll come back in August or September, I promise. With or without Deidre’s family—my family. I’m not sure yet if they’ll be able to come. You can visit me in New York anytime. Maybe in the fall or winter, when it’s not ice cream season?”
“Yes. That would be nice. I haven’t been to New York since I was a teenager.” Mom took me to visit my aunt and eat our way through the city. It was an exhausting trip. Mom and I argued every day about the stupidest things.
I miss her so much.
I miss the relationship we would have had when I was an adult.
So much shit has happened, but somehow, I will find a way through.
* * *
Thursday, I leave Ginger Scoops early so I can have dinner with Dad, Anita, and Deidre. Dad has us all over and grills steaks and vegetables. When we’re digging into the spiced apple pie and ginger ice cream I brought for dessert, Anita says, “You didn’t bring Drew tonight. Has he met your father yet?”
I shake my head.
“Who’s Drew?” Dad asks.
“Sorry,” Anita says. “I assumed you knew.”
“The guy I’m seeing,” I explain. “He was at Ginger Scoops when Anita and Deidre showed up.” I shoot my aunt a glare that turns into a smile. I can’t say I’m mad at her for spilling the beans. I don’t usually share details of my dating life with my father, but it’s not a big deal.
“What does he do?” Dad asks.
“He works in finance.”
“Ah. Good.”
“His dad’s parents are from Toisan, but his dad was born here.” I turn to Anita again. “Like you and Mom.”
We’re all silent for a moment after the mention of my mother.
Dad clears his throat. “How did you meet him?”
“He comes to Ginger Scoops with his niece.”
I imagine my aunt bringing me to an ice cream shop like Ginger Scoops when I was a child—it’s the sort of thing she would have done when she was in town. Except back then, I don’t remember there being any Asian ice cream shops.
“Does he look after his niece a lot?” Dad asks.
“For a while, he was looking after her every Saturday.”
“Sounds like he’d make a good father.”
I choke on my apple pie.
Dad laughs. I think he was hoping for that kind of reaction. “But to be clear, you don’t owe me grandchildren.”
“I want kids,” I say. “Just don’t expect them anytime soon.”
He smiles at me, and I look away.
He says I don’t owe him grandchildren, like that isn’t his business, and yet he still keeps insisting that I study dentistry.
When I told Aunt Anita about my feelings, it went well. I want to be honest with my father, too. I want to tell him that there’s no way I’m becoming a dentist and I don’t want him to keep bringing it up. I want to tell him that his comment about how he didn’t see Mom as Chinese bothered me. I doubt he remembers making that comment, but it’s stuck in my brain.
I want to tell him that I love him, but it still feels like he doesn’t really see me.
So when Anita and Deidre head to their hotel, I stay behind with my father. I help him wash dishes, and then we sit at the kitchen table with cups of tea.
“Chloe...” He reaches for my hand, but he doesn’t look at me.
He’s crying.
“Dad.” I squeeze his hand.
“I shouldn’t cry,” he says. “It’s been years, but sometimes, it feels like yesterday.”
Grief isn’t linear; it isn’t constantly decreasing in strength. Most of the time now, it’s bearable for me, but there are still moments when it’s overwhelming.
“I’m glad Anita came,” Dad says. “I’m happy for her. But...” His shoulders shake.
Tonight is not the time to have the conversation I wanted to have.
That’s okay. It can wait.
We sit at the table together for a long, long time.
* * *
After I leave my father’s, I don’t feel like going home and being alone, so I head to Drew’s. He buzzes me up.
When he greets me at the door, I take his hand and head to the bedroom, where I kick off my pants and climb into bed. He does the same and wraps his arms around me.
I feel safe.
I tell him about the past few days, about Anita and my father, about the years since my mother’s car was hit by a tractor trailer.
I tell him about how my dad said Drew would make a good father and that made me choke on my pie. I feel Drew stiffen slightly behind me, but he doesn’t say anything.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought that up. We’ve been together such a short time.
Still, I feel close to him in a way I haven’t felt with anyone for quite a while. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do this again. I thought that part of me was broken.
I was wrong.
Who would have thought an ice cream-hating finance guy would make me feel like this?
I look at Havarti Sparkles, sitting on his bedside table, and smile.
“What can I do for you?” Drew asks.
“Just stay here with me.”
“I can do that.”
“If you’ve got a unicorn onesie, you could put that on, too. It would make me laugh.”
“Unicorn onesies? They make those for adults?” The expression of horror on his face is priceless.
“They do!”
“Let me guess. You own one?”
“No, but maybe I’ll buy you one as a gift.”
“Speaking of gifts...” He climbs out of bed and grabs a small package wrapped in blue paper from his dresser. “I was going to give this to you on the weekend, but you can have it now.”
He got me a present! My chest feels painfully tight. I tear open the paper to reveal an amigurumi eggplant...and an amigurumi peach.
I burst into laughter.
And then I hug him and kiss him like I never want to let him go.
Where are we going? I’m not sure, but maybe it’s all going to be okay.
Chapter 18
Drew
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Really, I have no idea.
Wednesday after work, I went to the Hall of Horrors—otherwise known as Libby’s Gifts—to buy amigurumi for Chloe. Fortunately, I didn’t have any nightmares about unicorns or Hello Kitty afterward.
I thought I’d only do something like that for Michelle, but nope, I went there for Chloe, too. When she opened my gift and laughed, I couldn’t contain my joy, and when she shed a few tears as she talked about her mom and her family, there were some painful stirrings in a body part that I think is called a heart.
Which surprised me, because I’ve been accused of not having a heart.
And when she told me how her dad had joked that I’d make a good father, I managed to suppress my urge to run out the door.
That one hit too close to home.
But I zipped my mouth shut and stuffed any retorts deep inside me. I couldn’t stop my body from going rigid, though, and I knew she felt it, but she didn’t say anything.
Chloe is an affectionate person, and I love how she always wants to touch me, even when we’re in public. She seems so...pure.
Not innocent, no, and it’s not like she’s been untouched by suffering, but there’s something about her laughter and delight in the world around her that seems pure to me. I can’t help wanting to spend as much time as I can with Chloe.
Even though I seriously doubt I’m any good for her.
Still, I ask her to stay the night on Thursday, and I ask her to come over again on Saturday after she’s finished work, so I can lose myself in her body.
Sunday, I meet Chloe at Ginger Scoops at seven, planning to take her to a cider bar on Ossington with a nice backyard patio.
My jaw drops when I see her. She’s not wearing jeans and a simple T-shirt, like she usually wears when she’s working. No, she’s changed into a cute sundress, printed with yellow flowers, that skims her knees.
“Ready?” I ask, my voice rough.
“Yep, let’s go drink some cider!”
Frankly, I’d prefer my bedroom. I want to slip those straps off her shoulders and suck on her nipples and do all the activities that people think of when they see eggplant and peach emojis. Or amigurumi.
After she locks the door to Ginger Scoops, I capture her mouth in mine and kiss her deeply. “You look hot.”
She steps back and looks me up and down appreciatively. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
When we reach Spadina, I realize I’m holding her hand. How did that happen? I don’t remember consciously doing it. But it feels right, and I don’t let go.
It’s a little ways to Ossington, but it’s a beautiful night and we decide to walk, holding hands the whole time.
At the cider bar, I ask to be seated on the patio. We get a small table in the corner and each order a flight of four ciders. Our drinks come quickly, but when I lift my first tasting glass to clink it against hers, she’s distracted. She’s looking at a couple of women who just walked onto the patio.
“I slept with her,” Chloe says with a giggle. “The one on the left.”
The woman in question is white, with short pink hair and a nose ring. She has a tattoo snaking up her arm.
“Oh,” I say. “When was this?”
“A couple years.”
Not super recent. Okay.
Admittedly, this is the first time I’ve run into a woman that my date has slept with.
Chloe puts her hand on my cheek and turns it toward her. “Are you jealous? We slept together a couple times, that’s all. It meant nothing.”
It meant nothing. Is she implying that it means something with me? That I’m different? I hope so, even if I’m not sure she should be feeling this way about me.
I’m not jealous. It was a while ago, and it was nothing serious. It would be utterly ridiculous—and hypocritical—for me to expect the woman I’m seeing to have no past. I like that she has one.
But I can’t stand the thought of her seeing anyone else now. Although I’m pretty sure she isn’t, I want to be clear on the matter.
“I want to be exclusive,” I blurt out. “I want you to be mine. Only mine.”
She puts her hand on my knee. “I’d like that, too.”
I can hardly believe this is happening. I’m having drinks with a beautiful woman, and she wants to be with me.
Me, the villain of Embrace Your Inner Ice Cream Sandwich.
“Is this just because I’m amazing in bed?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she says. “Stop being so insecure and cocky at the same time. I don’t know how you manage that combination.”
I pick up one of my small glasses of cider and lift it in her direction with a smirk.
This is all a bit too good to be true, but for now, I’ll just enjoy it.
I have a sip of the first cider. It’s tart and refreshing and—
“Drew?” It’s a woman’s voice. Although it’s vaguely familiar, I can’t place it. “Or should I say Marvin?”
I turn around and see Lisa’s best friend, Rhiannon. Her lips are thin and twisted unkindly. The last time I saw this woman, it was at the wedding that never happened, and she was wearing a bridesmaid dress.
Yeah, it looks like this evening was too good to be true after all.
As I’m sitting there slack-jawed, Chloe holds out her hand. “Hi, I’m Chloe. Drew’s girlfriend. Nice to meet you.”
Girlfriend.
Rhiannon doesn’t bother shaking her hand. “I can’t believe you have a girlfriend,” she says to me instead.
I can’t quite believe it either, but I don’t let on that I feel this way.
“Ohhh,” Rhiannon says. “She doesn’t know, does she?”