by Jackie Lau
“You won’t be happy like this, not in the long run. You think it’s all fun and games to run an ice cream shop—”
“I don’t think it’s all fun and games! It’s a lot of work, and I spent years preparing for this. Learning about the business, taking courses. I only have one day off a week now.”
“Still. It’s frivolous.”
I’ve said that about myself before, but it’s different when it comes from my father.
It hurts.
“Stop it.” I look down at my lasagna and stab it with my fork.
“Stop acting like a child,” he shoots back. “You work in an ice cream shop. You painted it pink, for God’s sake. Pink with unicorns, like you’re six.”
“Because it makes me happy! And it’s an ice cream parlor. It’s supposed to appeal to kids. Besides, what’s wrong with the color pink? Are feminine things inherently bad?”
“You think you’re so different because you have flavors like green tea and durian.”
Ugh.
“No, I don’t. There are other places like that, and people like them—even Grandma does, and you know how she’s all about Jell-O salad and butterscotch.” I swallow. “It’s for Mom, you know. She used to take me out for ice cream, and she loved the ginger ice cream at that place in The Beaches, hence the name.”
He stares at me.
“You told me...” My voice wobbles. “You told me that you never thought of Mom as Chinese, and it’s haunted me ever since. You act like she was white, but she wasn’t. You’re denying her family history. You’re denying how people treated her differently because of how she looked.”
“We should all be treated equally,” he says gruffly.
“But we’re not. There are racist assholes, even in a diverse city like Toronto. And you want to deny where her family came from? That was a part of her, Dad, and it’s a part of me.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Sometimes, I don’t know what to do about it because my mother is dead and I don’t speak the language and I can’t even really cook the food. I am Chinese Canadian, but I feel like a fraud when I call myself that. So, okay, maybe some of those ice cream flavors are a frivolous—as you say—way of expressing my heritage, of reconciling my Chinese-Canadian identity when I’m not first or second generation, but you don’t understand that I have to deal with any of this.”
I take a deep breath. I’m finally getting it all out, these words I’ve thought of saying to my father for so long.
“You think we should just deny that race exists,” I say, “but I can’t. That’s a luxury only white people have, and you can’t seem to get it through your head that I’m not white. I don’t look just like you.”
“But you’re my daughter, and nothing changes that. Why are you bringing this up?”
“You don’t have to understand all of it, but can’t you accept that this affects me? Like, people regularly ask me where I’m from, and when I say ‘Canada,’ they get annoyed.” I glance at the lasagna on my plate. I have no appetite. “I’m not unhappy with who I am, even if it’s difficult at times and I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. But you’re unhappy with who I am—”
“I never said that.”
“—and I don’t feel like I belong when I’m with you, either. My career choice isn’t good enough for you, and I’m not white like you seem to think. You want me to force myself in a box, and I don’t fit into it.”
“Chloe...”
My dad is looking at me as though I’m a deranged alien. Like he has no idea who I am.
And he doesn’t.
It hurts so much that he feels that way, because he’s the only parent I have left, because I love him, despite feeling misunderstood whenever I’m around him.
I often felt misunderstood by my mother when I was a teenager, but I think, when it came to the big things, she understood me.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve edited my memories of her without realizing it.
“You think you’re progressive because you married my mother,” I say, “but it’s still easy for you to be ignorant of so many things. You don’t understand me at all, like I’m an outsider in my own family.” Tears well up in my eyes, but I hold them back because he probably thinks tears are childish, like unicorns.
He sighs. “I love you. You know that.”
“Then why haven’t you tried to understand me?”
“You’re being unfair.”
I want him to tell me he’ll do better in the future. Maybe ask me to clarify one of the many things I said to him. Something like that.
But it’s clear he’s not going to say anything close to what I need him to say.
I get up from the table. “I’m leaving.”
He sighs again, exasperated. “You don’t need to leave.”
But I do.
* * *
I get off the streetcar and start walking home, but then I change my mind.
I want to see Drew. He’ll listen. He’ll understand. He’ll make me feel like I belong.
When he opens the door to his unit, he smiles, but that smile quickly fades and his eyes fill with concern. “Darling, what’s wrong?”
I was crying silently on the streetcar. I must look awful right now.
He folds me in his arms, and we stand there for a long time. I feel a tiny bit better with each passing moment. There’s something wonderful about his hugs. I feel safe enough to shed a few more tears, and then he leads me to the couch.
“You were having dinner with your dad tonight, right? What happened?” He pulls me into his lap.
I tell him about my fight with my father.
“Is it stupid?” I ask him. “That my ice cream store is, in a way, me trying to connect with my heritage? Me trying to find some kind of third-generation Chinese-Canadian identity?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing about you is stupid.”
Just that simple reassurance is nice. When I’m with him, I feel accepted for who I am. I don’t feel too white, or too Asian, or too frivolous. Drew is, in many ways, the opposite of me, yet I think he sees me for who I really am, and he loves me for it.
Yes, I think he loves me.
And I love him.
I didn’t know it until this moment, but I do.
I squeeze him against me and kiss his mouth desperately.
“Chloe,” he groans as I run my hand over his abs. “I...”
“What?”
“Never mind,” he mutters, and then he’s pulling my shirt over my head and unhooking my bra.
I pull off his shirt, too, and we both groan as his skin meets mine. His hands roam all over me, up and down my back, over my breasts. When he grazes my nipple, it’s enough to make me gasp. He pulls my nipple into his mouth and scrapes his teeth over it, and God, he feels so good. I thrust my hands through his hair and rock against his erection.
I need to feel him inside me. So badly.
I fumble with his button and zipper and wrap my hand around his cock. He’s satiny and hard, so hard for me.
“Drew. Please.”
He slides his hand inside my jeans and panties and runs his finger over my slit.
Fuck. It’s good, but it makes me crave him even more.
Thankfully, he shoves down my pants and underwear, then picks me up and sets me on my feet beside the couch.
“Bend over the arm of the couch,” he says roughly. “I’ll be right back. Going to get a condom.”
The air is cool against my bare skin, against the moisture between my legs. My nipples tighten as I wait for him to return and make me feel complete.
There’s the crinkle of a foil wrapper, and then he’s rubbing the tip of his cock over me.
“Please,” I beg. I don’t care how desperate I sound. I need him.
Instead of entering me, he toys with my clit as he bends down and licks between my legs. He pleasures me with his tongue, and my whole body tenses before I cry out for him.
“Drew!”
“Yes, darling, it’s me.”
He stands up and holds me through my orgasm, then rubs himself against my entrance again before thrusting inside.
It feels so good. It feels so right.
He grasps my ass as he pumps into me, over and over, and it’s so intense, but I love every second. We’re together. Joined.
It’s rough but intimate. Not only does he have me naked, but he sees me. Really sees me.
He leans over and grabs one of my breasts while his other hand dips between my legs. He touches my clit, and that’s enough for me to come apart again in his arms. He thrusts into me a few more times before he stiffens and comes with a growl.
I smile; I love doing this to him.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the couch. We put on our underwear, but we’re otherwise naked.
Though my life isn’t perfect, I feel like I can handle anything right now. Normally, I shy away from expressing difficult emotions. But with Drew in my life, I know everything’s going to be okay. It was silly to think I’d lose my focus because of him, which is what I told Sarah about Josh; there’s no reason to avoid a relationship right now.
I need to listen to my own advice.
Josh is perfect for Sarah, and Drew...
I hug him close and whisper, “You’re perfect for me.”
Chapter 22
Drew
You’re perfect for me.
For one moment, I’m elated.
You’re perfect for me, too, I want to say. I love you so much.
And then I remember.
I was supposed to break up with Chloe.
But when she arrived, tears in her eyes, I couldn’t turn her away. I listened; I comforted her. That’s what everything in me demanded I do. I hate it when she’s upset, and I’m pissed at her father. Why doesn’t he see what a wonderful woman she’s become?
Instead of breaking up with Chloe, I held her, and we had sex. I thought it would be less intimate if she was bent over the sofa, if I couldn’t see her face.
But it was Chloe, and so it was still intimate.
Now, though, I have to do the right thing. The timing is crap, but I can’t let this continue.
I abruptly sit up and pull on my T-shirt. “You’re wrong. I’m not perfect for you—in fact, I’m no good for you at all—and we can’t keep doing this. We have to break up.”
She frowns. “I don’t understand. If you feel that way, then explain the past half hour.”
“I’m an asshole, and I wanted to fuck you one last time,” I say, deliberately crude, wanting to push her away.
“Before the sex—how do you explain that?”
I clench my hair in frustration. “You just have to accept that I’m not the man for you.”
“Drew, I think—”
“It’s over, sweetheart. We don’t belong together.”
Her face crumples. It utterly crumples, and I’m the one who did that.
“I love you,” she whispers.
No, don’t say that! She’s making this so difficult.
“You don’t really love me,” I say, desperately needing that to be true. I know how painful it is to be dumped by someone you love, and I don’t want her to hurt too much. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her eyes flash. “How dare you say that? How dare you say I don’t know my own feelings? I’m not a stupid little girl. You’re acting like my father, thinking you know what’s best for me.” Her voice is a little angry, but more than anything, it’s full of dejection.
I flinch. I’m not like her father. I don’t want to impose my dreams on her. I don’t deny who she truly is.
But breaking up is for the best, and she’ll realize that eventually.
“Let’s be honest,” I say. “We haven’t known each other all that long. You might think you know me, but you don’t.”
“I do know you,” she whispers.
“No.”
Her lower lip trembles. I reach out and press my thumb to it, but she shifts away and stands up, shaking her head. She puts on her pants and T-shirt and grabs her purse.
She’s going to leave, and I’m never going to see her again. The thought is an unbearable ache in the pit of my stomach.
Well, maybe I’ll see her if Michelle insists on going to Ginger Scoops, because if my niece wants to go there, I wouldn’t say no. But otherwise, I won’t see Chloe again.
This is for the best. I have to keep telling myself that. I’m doing this for her.
I’m doing this because I love her, even if I didn’t say the words.
I would crush her spirit, and I would be a terrible dad to her children, and she doesn’t deserve any of that. She deserves a better person than me.
She steps out the door without another word.
* * *
A funny thing happens after Chloe leaves.
I go to my chocolate stash because I deserve some good chocolate after doing the right thing, don’t I?
Except I’m not simply craving chocolate.
No, for some inexplicable reason, I’m craving chocolate ice cream.
I walk to the grocery store and buy some dark chocolate ice cream, the good stuff that I used to enjoy. Then I sit on my balcony with the pint and a spoon and shovel ice cream into my mouth. It’s actually pretty good, and it doesn’t make me gag.
How times have changed.
After eating too much of it, I text Glenn to see if he’d be up for a few drinks this week, and then I attempt to forget about Chloe by reading a book about grisly murders.
But nothing can make me forget her.
Chapter 23
Chloe
We don’t belong together.
If his goal was to hurt me, that was the perfect thing to say.
Before, he made me feel like I belonged for once, but I guess I was wrong.
I shouldn’t have been so stupid and put my heart on the line. For years, I had sex and half-heartedly attempted relationships, but I didn’t really put myself out there, didn’t open up to anyone. And then I did, and for a brief period of time, it was everything.
I should have known better.
And I should have known better than to think telling my father the truth would change anything. Now our relationship will be strained, and he’s the only close family I have left.
I stagger down the street, not knowing what to do with myself. I could visit Valerie, but I don’t feel like it. I feel so alone right now, and for some reason, I think seeing a friend would just heighten that feeling. Plus, I’m not really in the mood to talk, and when I’m not in the mood to talk, Drew is the only one who can make me feel better, but...
We’re over.
I don’t belong with anyone.
In the end, I decide to go home. I live in a house with three other people, but I don’t know them very well. We pass each other in the halls, bump into each other in the kitchen, occasionally make small talk, but I can’t say we’re friends.
Still, I go home. I head up to my bedroom and cry quietly so no one will hear.
* * *
Not surprisingly, I don’t sleep well that night. Thoughts of Drew keep running through my mind. I remember the day he first walked into Ginger Scoops with Michelle, the time he came in during a rainstorm and kissed me...
God, I want it to stop.
I want my mom.
I want her to hold me and tell me everything will be okay.
But she’s gone.
She’s been gone since I was twenty. The night she died, we had a stupid argument about my messy room and the fact that I didn’t come home until three in the morning that Saturday. I told her I was an adult, in university; she said if I lived at home, I had to follow her rules.
I love you.
That’s what I should have told her instead.
My life has formed around her absence. A giant void opened up in my world, and everything changed because of it. I imagine a boulder suddenly appearing under a tree, and how all the roots woul
d have to grow around it. My life would be completely different if she were still here, but I try not to dwell on it. It’s not worth thinking about what might have been.
But I do think about how it would feel to have her comforting me.
Some people say everything happens for a reason, but I don’t like thinking that my mother’s death in a car accident happened for a reason. To me, that’s a horrible thought.
It just...happened. It was senseless.
I get up at six o’clock in the morning after two hours of sleep and take the subway to the north end of the city. My mother is buried in the same cemetery as my grandparents, but in a different section. There’s a little creek, flowerbeds, and a large tree near her grave. Dad paid extra for that spot.
What if last night was the last time I’ll ever see my father alive? I didn’t tell him I loved him. I didn’t even eat the dinner he’d made for me.
I sit on my mother’s grave, arms around my knees. There’s no one else here. Just me and the quiet sounds of the creek and the birds. The sky is already a bright blue, and it seems wrong that it’s such a lovely shade of blue on a day like today.
Sometimes nothing makes sense. That’s just the way it is.
I remember when my first girlfriend dumped me. I’d met her during frosh week at university, and we had a few months together before she broke up with me over the Christmas holidays. I hadn’t seen it coming.
Mom held me as I cried, and later, we went out for ice cream. I felt like a little girl again, but it was nice. I managed a few wobbly smiles because I knew that I would always have her, I would always be her little girl, she would always take care of me.
And maybe, from some distant place, she is taking care of me—I don’t know what to believe about death. But even if she is, she can’t put her arms around me, she can’t take me out for ice cream, she can’t tell me I’ll find another person to love and it’ll all be okay.
Instead, I’m sitting on her grave.
I sob.
Usually when I go to the cemetery—a few times a year—I feel numb. I don’t cry at all. But something has opened up inside me, and now I feel too much.