Family Trust

by Kathy Wang

  Linda squirmed. She was in the kitchen, unwrapping the packet of hand-cut fat rice noodles she would later use in a seafood stir-fry. As a general rule she didn’t approve of excessive pronouncements of affection. While she had come to accept that Winston’s flowery declarations—usually peppered with the more complex English he had acquired since his arrival on American soil—were a flourish he was proud of, she still preferred the soliloquies be at least kept more succinct.

  This last bit, for example, had gone on far too long. Thinking he’d reached the climax, she’d finally released a sympathetic mmm she’d been holding in, only to have him work himself up on another tangent. The only part she’d found of any particular interest was the bit about his family. From what Linda had gleaned so far, Winston’s ex-wife and children were all cut from the same cloth: lazy spoiled brats who depended on him for too much, and too often. But so far, he’d only referred to his daughters in angelic terms.

  “You know what they say,” she ventured. “Children can be a blessing and a curse.”

  “Except for you, my whole life is a curse. A curse to be punished and to give until I have no more.”

  “Yes.” Linda unwrapped the wild shrimp she’d purchased that morning for an outrageous sum, sniffing it. “My children, they have been such disappointments lately. My son is divorced, and my daughter, did I tell you? Her husband doesn’t even have a job! Not a real one, at least. Tell me, Winston, what is an entrepreneur? I used to think it was someone who worked hard all day at their business, going in early and staying late, like the Koreans with their dry cleaning. Until now I didn’t know that there was this whole other kind, where you get to sit at home in front of the computer all day, doing God knows what! You know that every day, my son-in-law takes a break and leaves the house to drive to a special coffee shop? He and my daughter talk so much about this coffee, how it’s organic and much, much tastier than any other kind.

  “So finally yesterday I decide to go buy myself a cup, because I don’t want to be so stubborn and not try new things. And, Winston, I swear, the coffee tasted exactly the same as McDonald’s. But smaller! And even worse, it took half an hour to come out and cost $6. I was almost late meeting my friend Yvonne for lunch. But when I say anything to my daughter—about how maybe they should brew their own coffee at home, since after all they only have one income—she treats me like the enemy. When I’m the only person who will tell her what everyone else really thinks!”

  “Oh, I can’t imagine my daughters would ever marry someone unemployed,” Winston said. “Tina and Cindy, they are both very smart, beautiful too. Did I tell you that on our last trip to Shanghai the hotel concierge thought Tina looked just like Fan Bingbing?”

  “You did.” Linda pickled her voice slightly, to warn Winston off from recounting the anecdote, which she’d found rather unbelievable upon first telling. She had never seen photos of his children, but neither Winston nor his ex were particular beauties, and only by marrying another race had Linda ever seen an ugly Chinese woman negate the gravitational pull of her own genetic forces and pop out an attractive daughter. Winston had also violated a key tenet of polite conversation, that one should never compliment his own children when the other party had maligned her own.

  Winston took the hint or had simply exhausted the topic. “How’s your ex-husband?”

  “Oh. He’s doing fine.” Linda had completely forgotten about Stanley the past few days, though it might have been closer to a week. If this was thirteen years ago, Stanley’s illness would have consumed every waking moment and invaded her sleep; she would have been expected to conduct her daily activities in a state of forced optimism and quiet mourning. Now Linda barely thought of Stanley at all, except for when she heaped more greens onto her plate at mealtimes. She struggled to recall what news Kate had told her, the last time they spoke. “I think he will begin chemotherapy soon. We may have divorced, but I don’t wish for him to suffer,” she added piously.

  “At our age, health is truly most important,” Winston said.

  “Yes, without a doubt. Please take care of yourself.”

  “Only if you do. I would die if something happened to you. Linda, I love you.”

  She couldn’t say it back. It was too much a departure for comfort; the words would ring false, and she knew she’d relive them, wincing, the rest of the day. Instead, she told Winston she couldn’t wait to see him and hung up. The vegetables needed blanching.

  Chapter 7

  Kate

  Halfway through the first semester of his senior year at Stanford, on a prematurely cold November evening, Denny McCullough went out for a late dinner, some birthday party of a friend of a friend, then drove back to his apartment off campus. There’d been nothing remarkable about the night, except that it was his first time being social in a while. He’d been holed up in his room for weeks, slaving over a final project for his computer systems class, and the outing at a local Japanese restaurant had been a welcome relief, a chance to blow off some steam. On the way home, at the respectable hour of midnight, the thought crossed Denny’s mind that the lights flashing in his mirror might actually be signaling to him; he pulled over just to be safe, and the cop had ended up being kind of a jerk, one of those real “getting off on authority” types, and that’s how he ended up with a DUI.

  Denny had been barely twenty-one, in trouble with the law for the first time in his young life, and terrified of the consequences. Would he be kicked out of school? Assigned a parole officer? The computer science department at Stanford was hardly the sort of place one went for institutional knowledge of police procedures, and there was no one around to share what would surely have been the comforting knowledge that a DUI would be no big deal on his record—a distinction achieved by more than a million other Americans that year. He paid a hefty fine and was required to attend classes where the widows of drowsy truck drivers and parents of deceased teenagers lectured and wept. He shunned the bar and party scene and began to frequent the gym, running miles on the treadmill during the less-populated evening hours as he slowly reshaped his body. Without the smoothing effects of alcohol, he found himself unable to tolerate certain acquaintances whose annoying quirks he used to absorb with ease, and for a while his social landscape altered so much that he assumed there was no going back to his life pre-DUI. He was the new Denny now, older, leaner, sadder; while he might live a less thrilling existence overall, at least he knew he would never again end up arrested and in the back of a cop car, which to him was a worthwhile trade-off.

  Of course if Denny had actually possessed the emotional maturity he assumed he did, he would have known that this was just a passing period. That very soon the same friends whose calls he was currently screening would shortly reenter his life; that in fact in just a few months he’d once again be downing sake bombs at the cheap Japanese restaurant on University Avenue and at the end of the night forcing down ten California rolls to soak up the alcohol before driving home. But Denny didn’t know, and the phase lasted just long enough for him to turn down an uncertain job as the ninth engineer at a small start-up and go work for Cisco instead.

  “And do you want to know what that start-up was? A little outfit called Google.”

  Denny was reciting the tale for Erika, who had never heard it before, and Fred, who Kate was pretty sure had. The last line was the mic drop, the bit that was supposed to make listening to everything that came before worth it, and as they were in the presence of outside company, Kate made the effort to appear captivated. But she was so tired.

  Kate blamed the emotional surge immediately following Stanley’s diagnosis for the impulse that had spurred her to call Fred; we ought to get together, she said, and spend some quality time. She had felt good when she extended the invitation, forgotten all about it for the interim period, and then frantically regretted it the day of. If only she’d bothered to check her calendar and caught it just a few days earlier! Then she could have canceled and would already be at home, braless and in
pajamas. Instead, they were at some bougie restaurant, the sort that specialized in serving many small plates half an hour apart, that people without children (like her brother) thought nothing of booking. She had kicked off her right shoe, which pinched her big toe, sometime after the seventh course. Now she stealthily hunted for it, waving her bare foot as she tried to avoid touching the floor.

  “Really? Google.” From her breathless focus it was clear Erika appreciated the anecdote; the company’s name drew her attention in the same way a celebrity’s entrance sucked all available sound toward them in a room. “Did you meet the founders? Do you know them?”

  “Yes indeed. Interviewed with Sergey and shook hands with Larry.”

  “What a story. Unbelievable.” Erika took a deep breath, as if to allow the full weight of the names to sink in. “And how much do you think the ninth employee of Google is worth now?”

  “He wasn’t the ninth employee,” Fred interrupted. “He received an offer to be the ninth engineer.”

  “Well in the early days most employees at start-ups are engineers,” Denny said pleasantly. “The business guys don’t come until later.”

  “So how much?” Erika pressed.

  “Wow. I don’t know. One of my friends from Stanford, Devlin Rose, was employee number forty-eight. And he just bought an $8 million vacation home in Deer Valley. That’s vacation home. So the ninth, or let’s just say for the sake of it, twentieth? Probably hundreds of millions.”

  “My God. Riches beyond belief.”

  “Not really,” Fred said, as he rubbed savagely at an invisible spot on his arm. “It’s very believable.”

  Kate heard in his tone the pricklish buds of agitation, a milder version of one of Stanley’s own warning signals that the mood was about to turn sour. “When’s the last time you saw Dad?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Two weeks ago. We were supposed to meet last Wednesday, but then he canceled to go to some vegan-eating seminar at that temple instead. What a crock of shit.”

  “My, my.” When Fred was in this state, she knew the best course was to slowly needle, then drain the ill temper. “Aren’t we grouchy.”

  He shot her an evil eye. “I’m stressed.”

  “I hear you. Isn’t talking about how stressed we are the siren song of our generation?”

  He ignored this. “There’s a lot of pressure at work, and now both Mom and Dad are breathing down my neck.”

  “I can guess what Dad wants. Family dinner?”

  Fred groaned. “He’s obsessed with getting everyone together. You, me, Mom, him. Of course whenever I bring it up with Mom, she acts like I’m signing her up for a joint colonoscopy. But Dad won’t let it go. It’s his greatest wish, as he keeps reminding me.”

  “I know. I think he thought that after the divorce, we’d still have dinner together all the time. I’ll work on Mom, though; she should be able to make it at least one night, given the circumstances. Now what’s she going on to you about?”

  “The will, of course. Always the will. The nonexistent trust. I’m sure she’s mentioned it?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He took a long swig from his glass. “Well, it’s no big deal. She just wants to make sure we get our fair share, that’s all.”

  “Fair share? As opposed to what?”

  “I don’t know.” Fred looked defensive. “It all going to Mary or something.”

  “Dad wants to give it all to Mary?” A stale memory rumbled forward: Stanley, boldly proclaiming over dim sum that he could always bankroll Denny’s start-up, if financing was an issue. “It’s your inheritance, anyway,” he’d said. “My legacy to you and Fred. You can just take yours early.” That had been almost two years ago, when Denny first quit, and she’d been so excited by the possibilities of his work and CircleShop, delighting in what a genius her husband was.

  “Mom’s paranoid that’s what will happen if he doesn’t get his estate in order,” Fred said. “That we’ll get nothing.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Besides, Dad already told me how much we’re supposed to get. A million, each.”

  There was a short burst of surprise on Fred’s face. Did he not know the sum? The number had just slipped out; she shouldn’t have said anything. “Right,” he said, and she relaxed. “One million.” He stated it with emphasis, and Kate looked over at Denny to see if he’d heard. She hadn’t told him about Stanley’s offer when it was made, not being sure if her father actually meant it. She felt guilty about the omission and tested herself: Would she still give it all to Denny now, if he asked? Yes. Probably.

  The waiter was back at the table, a cheery twentysomething with a massive beard, the sort of San Francisco resident who always made her feel old. He’d announced at the beginning of dinner that he was graduating from art school that month and then poured himself a glass from their pitcher of sangria when they congratulated him. Was that normal? Would they be compensated for the glass? The questions made her feel like Linda.

  “Hey, you guys ready for dessert? My favorite’s on tonight. A shot of peanut milk, with paired ice cream on the side. Mucho delicioso.” He kissed the tips of his fingers.

  Now was her opportunity! Her chance to finally escape this overwrought dinner, a meal in which she’d already been assigned at least two unpleasant tasks to manage with her parents on top of her already heavy load, and go home and collapse in bed before her 6:00 a.m. call with Europe the next morning. But before she could utter those miraculous words to signal an end to the evening—check, please—Denny intervened. “Actually, can we see the regular menu?” he asked. “I think we might want to add a few more appetizers, maybe another order of that chicken with the aioli sauce.”

  Denny wanted to stay? And linger? Didn’t he know she wanted to leave? Kate thought they had made meaningful eye contact communicating exactly this, several times. Wasn’t he as tired as she was? But she saw now that he was having a good time, making moon eyes at Fred’s girlfriend while she spoke in that husky lilt Kate suspected was partially manufactured.

  “Do you ever think about it?” Erika asked. “What would have happened, if you had picked Google?”

  “Oh sure.” Denny sounded so casual, Kate thought, strikingly different from the mournfully reverential persona he usually assumed when recounting this particular tale. “It’s always fun to think of what could have been. But even if it was a mistake not to have taken the job, I’m still thankful for the experience, for giving me the confidence to be an entrepreneur. I don’t want to have those sorts of regrets again, not in this lifetime.”

  “If I had a chance to be one of the first employees at a company like Google and didn’t take it, I think I would not get out of bed for an entire year,” Erika said. “Too depressed.”

  Denny smiled. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  Kate slumped in her chair. She remembered she was still missing her shoe. Where the hell was it?

  “Maybe. But then I would feel that my next project would have to be a success. So that I would not always regret the past.”

  Denny nodded. “It takes a certain kind of person to understand that,” he said quietly. He sounded so wistful that Kate experienced a rush of intense love, a tender sentiment shortly overrun by righteous indignation. Did Denny think she didn’t understand him?

  Kate knew her husband in many ways better than he knew himself, in the form that only two people who had lived and slept together for years could comprehend. That he pretended not to care about Devlin Rose, his friend of the $8 million vacation home, but in actuality secretly tracked his career progress with brutal intensity. That he watched porn at least three times a week, retreating upstairs to jerk off whenever the reality of two young children became too much, usually right after dinner. His hidden habit of trawling online gambling forums, which he read for hours at a time, relishing the stories of those who had lost fortunes.

  How many PowerPoints had she assisted with over the years, pitch decks, business plans? How many times h
ad she claimed the very desires he secretly yearned for as her own, to save him the embarrassment? Insisting herself that they spend $25,000 of their savings on the services of a top PR consultant in San Francisco, a speed-talking pro with a Cher Horowitz accent who managed to garner a mention of Denny and CircleShop as one of Fortune’s “45 Under 45 to Watch in Retail” only after Kate’s forceful hounding? All that so he, too, could partake in the rumbling machinery of Valley hype he claimed so emphatically to hate.

  Yet here he sat—Mr. Fortune #38, smiling not at Kate but at a near stranger. As if his very soul had been a parched plant, neglected for all these years, now basking under a rare shower.

  What was Denny up to in the attic? What was her husband doing with his life?

  * * *

  The park closest to their neighborhood had an official name, but everyone who lived nearby and had children called it Jade Mountain. It was considered large for the area at twelve acres, and ample parking meant it was frequently packed on weekends with oversize vehicles bearing sports equipment and zealous parents claiming tables for single-digit birthday parties. At one point there had been rumors it was to be razed to make way for a charter school, but the neighborhood parents had put an end to the initiative. The area had a surfeit of stay-at-home moms with dormant legal degrees; the nascent proposal was quickly shot down in city council.

  One of the more popular features of Jade Mountain was the multiple play structures, meant for different age groups, on the north and south sides. Off to the east was a man-made hill with four slides of different-size rollers. The rollers hurt your butt going down; all the regulars brought collapsed cardboard boxes, which functioned as makeshift sleds. The grass on the hill wasn’t real but rather some advanced form of turf, soft and eternally durable in a distinctive shade of deep acid green, which had earned the park its nickname.