Family Trust

by Kathy Wang

  She unconsciously touched her fingers to her wrist. “That’s another thing. I don’t think it’s responsible to keep offering to buy me expensive presents when you’re having so many cash flow problems.”

  “How many times can I swear that I’ll never ask for money again!”

  There’d been a second request just last week after another tuition issue with Yale, Winston abruptly requesting $24,000 at the tail end of a three-hour-long marathon call during which they’d confessed to each other the worst of their childhood secrets. Linda had taken half a week to mull it over and then said no, allowing a frosty silence to descend for an additional day while ignoring all his attempts at contact. When she finally relented to a video chat, Winston had broken down out of relief and shame, a grayed man in a sweater-vest with twin waterfalls of tears streaming down his cheeks. “I will provide for you, I promise,” he cried again now. “I’ve always believed that a man should take care of a woman.”

  “I just want you to adequately manage yourself and your own expenses.”

  “Why do you sound so angry? Is this because of your friends? I told you, Chinese our age, they can’t stand to see others happy. Especially the women. They will always try to sabotage. What we have is so unique, so special. Isn’t that so?”

  The day before a bouquet of mixed flowers had arrived, followed by a large package. When Linda opened the box, she found it packed with paper confetti. Nestled in the middle, occupying a tenth of the space, was a smaller container. From that Linda had unwrapped a thin gold chain from Tiffany, sprinkled with small diamonds.

  She’d held it up to herself in the mirror. It was the sort of item she would have been overjoyed to receive when she was decades younger. Larger, chunkier pieces seemed to suit her better now; delicate jewelry only emphasized the flimsy nature of her body, disappearing in the tissue paper of her flesh.

  If Winston had overextended himself with the purchase, she’d thought, it was his issue. She was tired of burdening herself with the problems of men. And the necklace, after she’d toyed with it, was more versatile than it first appeared. She could double it up to choker length, or wear it with a turtleneck, and it wouldn’t appear so fragile.

  She would tell Kate about Winston the first time she wore the necklace, Linda decided.

  * * *

  Each year, after a carefully considered interval following her birthday, Linda sent an email to her college class.

  The tradition had started with Leonard Chan, a fellow Taiwan University classmate and mechanical engineer at Apple, one of the few who still worked a real job (one-man consulting shops, in Linda’s opinion, didn’t qualify as employment). Leonard had long established himself as the technology expert of their group, the one friends went to when they wanted to play DVDs of Chinese dramas on their iPads, and to whom late-night phone calls were frantically placed when laptops abruptly ceased to work (the diagnosis in most cases was porn, a fact Leonard kept gleefully to himself). Five years ago, Leonard learned from his son that each person in his high school class sent an email update on his or her birthday. It was a wonderful way to stay in touch, his son claimed, a method of cutting through all the unreliable noise of social media. Inspired, Leonard initiated the same action for the Taiwan University Class of 1966.

  Initially each person was simply supposed to email the group list he set up, every year on his or her birthday, but that system quickly descended into chaos. First there was the issue that no one knew or could remember what a group email list was, or how to send updates, which resulted in more frantic calls to Leonard. Then there was the complication that while nearly everyone relished reading gossipy updates about their peers, a much smaller faction actually wanted to furnish the same information about their own lives, leading to a dire asymmetry of data.

  Leonard eventually solved both problems by assuming a dictatorship over the process, where each person sent their email directly to him, which he then forwarded on to the group. He then issued an edict that anyone neglecting to provide an update would summarily be kicked off the list and not allowed back on until a full year had passed. This resulted in a flurry of communications, including Linda’s first participation—a brief three-line paragraph that confirmed she was alive.

  Since then, Linda had perfected her technique. She never sent an update on her actual birthday—to do so smacked of self-congratulation and also alerted everyone that you had nothing better to do on the auspicious day than to manage correspondence (delaying a week or two also allowed for a mention of how you were feted by children and grandchildren). And while it was true that one should never be seen as bragging, the same went for deliberately forgetful. Shirley Chang’s volleys, for example, never failed to mention the newest renovations on her Atherton home or the latest updates on her Ivy League daughter (as if Cornell counted!) but glossed over the shut-in son entirely; since everyone knew about him anyway, all her omission served to do was highlight the extent of her shame. It was a difficult task to strike the exact right balance of success and fulfillment without the putrid stench of boastfulness, a delicate art that required her full faculties.

  Linda prepared a cup of tea, the best loose leaf she had from her last trip to Hong Kong, and opened her laptop.

  To: Leonard168@apple.com

  From: LLiang1945@gmail.com

  Subject: Linda Liang’s 71st Birthday Email

  Dear classmates,

  I have been excited to read each of your updates. What interesting lives you all are leading, with so many fortuitous announcements! Of course at our age, living in good health is the greatest fortune of all, wouldn’t you agree?

  As most of you know, I divorced my husband, Stanley, more than a decade ago and continue to enjoy my freedom. Retired life is very satisfying. Every morning I take a brisk hour-long walk, and then in the afternoon I garden. I keep up with my stocks and do some light cooking. My son, Fred, works in venture capital and often travels overseas. My daughter, Kate, works at X Corp, where she has been for many years, and has two children, Ella and Ethan. I have attached a photo of me and them, at my house. The grandchildren love to come play with their Wai Po on the weekends!

  I am lucky to see many of our good friends regularly for mah jong and lunches and am enjoying the company of new acquaintances.

  Best regards,

  Linda Liang

  Chapter 11

  Kate

  What did it mean, to be nice? Nice was a label that had been foisted on Kate since childhood, one she hadn’t known she was campaigning for but which, once anointed, she found difficult to part with. “You’re great,” Denny had said, way back then. “Like, actually nice. Not like so many other Asian women.”

  It’d been a lifetime ago, before kids or marriage but far enough along that they could make fun of each other’s races, say things like “that’s something white people would do,” or “only Asians would be so insane.” The two of them had been on vacation—their first together, a modest weekend getaway in San Diego to celebrate Denny’s birthday—and she’d asked their hotel to have a private chef prepare and serve an assortment of Denny’s favorite foods in their room, beef brisket sandwiches and coleslaw and garlic fries. The hotel hadn’t exactly been the sort of establishment that regularly provided such services—it billed itself as three star in its own promotional materials, and touted features included working telephones and extra deadbolts—but it rose to the challenge, producing a line cook from the breakfast buffet who obligingly made the sandwiches and then charged $160 for the privilege. The meat had been dry, but Denny delighted.

  “Seriously,” he said, in between mouthfuls. “Just the fact that you thought of doing this means so much. Most girls wouldn’t. You’re one of the good ones.”

  When she’d demurred, he’d been insistent. “It’s ingrained in you,” he’d said, and she had supposed it must be so, since she wasn’t particularly trying.

  What had being nice brought her over the years? Kate used to think quite a lot: two won
derful children, beautiful home, successful career, devoted husband. Recent events, however, had proven the last assumption incorrect, and like a math formula in which just one constant has been altered, the entire equation had come tumbling down.

  It was the times she had been a bitch, Kate thought now, that she had really excelled. Going toe to toe with Sonny, batting down ridiculous last-minute feature requests. Wrangling engineering and operations to cease sabotaging each other long enough, to do their actual jobs. Screaming on the phone at their factories in South Korea and China to meet promised deadlines—the only method of communication the reps (who, come to think of it, were Asian bitches themselves) took seriously.

  Kate’s mentor at X Corp was a bitch too. Eleanor Thoms, the humorless former director of a Virginia-based think tank, was a mid-level vice president of the sort assigned to so-called high-potential achievers—which at X Corp included any woman who’d managed to make it above a senior manager level—who met with Kate once a quarter for scheduled half-hour intervals. Eleanor had read Lean In and at one point been genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of mentorship, volunteering herself for the much-extolled in-house program. She had quickly tired of the responsibility, however, when no corresponding uplift was karmically bestowed from above, but then was left with no easy exit without seeming like an even bigger bitch. So she continued to meet with Kate, though as time passed these became perfunctory checkpoints, both of them wanting the ordeal over with quickly so they could continue on with productive work the rest of the day.

  On one lone occasion, however, Eleanor did drop a useful tidbit. Executive-round promotions had been announced that week, and once again her name had been left off the Committee Select, the powerful steering group within X Corp known to be the politburo’s top-ranked table. The omission was widely considered a slap in the face; Kate had been prepared to avoid the topic altogether in their meeting. Eleanor, however, brought it up immediately.

  “People say I shouldn’t have pushed out Brayers,” she commented bitterly, referring to Paul Brayers, the genial former chieftain of supply chain whose departure she had engineered within months of her initial arrival. “Because he looks like a giant teddy bear. Who cares if we never chose the most qualified ODMs, right? And that the bid process was totally fucked up, nontransparent, and that we were definitely overpaying? Why should any of that matter when management throws a great Halloween party at his house every year?

  “Well, I don’t regret it.” She seemed to be answering to a third person in the room, an invisible body behind Kate’s own. “I wasn’t going to make compromises so early on. Don’t forget that you set expectations on the first day. So if you’re too accommodating, or let others take credit for your projects, or don’t speak up in meetings, that will become your new baseline. And it’s a real bitch to get out of that box.”

  That’s what Denny had done to her, Kate thought. Put her in a box. Made it cozy, with just enough air to breathe and a clear view of the sky. And then she’d done him the favor of nominating herself to serve as the simpering bottom of the pyramid, where she’d stood as the thankless base for his endeavors. Because what was more important for a house than its foundation? What device more crucial in a bathroom than the humble towel rack, since without it linens would fall to the ground, rendering the entire function of the space useless? That bizarre reasoning had come from their contractor, whose extended colloquialisms and rants on vitamins Kate had indulged and Denny had no patience for. She was the one in the family, he said, who could deal with these hopeless personality cases, the implication being that she was sympathetic and kind, the sort of person to accept small flecks of shit as long as the overall picture remained positive.

  That was what Denny had told her, and she had believed, and then he had rewarded her with exactly what she deserved, which was nothing.

  * * *

  Years ago, on her way to a restaurant in Woodside, Kate took a wrong turn. It had been peak rush hour, so she was driving on local back roads, a route she normally avoided at all costs because of the impossibly narrow streets and steep, unbarriered cliffs. Theoretically she knew that the roads were made to fit multiple vehicles, that the zillionaire denizens in the houses along its way would never stand for lanes that didn’t allow enough space for two cars headed in opposite directions. But Kate didn’t understand why the zillionaires didn’t just have larger roads to begin with. There was, after all, enough land to spare.

  That day Kate drove with her hands gripped on the wheel and eyes faced firmly ahead, until she made an incorrect turn. The street she ended up on had been larger than the one she’d missed, so she’d assumed she was still headed in the right direction, back toward commercial enterprise. She thus continued until it became obvious that the street was actually not a street but a private road, and that it led to a home.

  The structure Kate eventually reached was the largest residence she had ever seen in real life, the sort heads of movie studios lived in, at least in the movies. It was impossibly white, and the lawn was green and even. The building itself resembled a miniature version of the San Francisco Opera House, with endless paired columns and three rows of high arched windows, and a great circular fountain pulsed up front. The home’s largeness was such that it surrounded her from all angles, and Kate was struck by the thought that while the houses in her neighborhood might have been trying for French Country, this was true château.

  As she drove up, a man in a gray Nehru jacket and matching trousers came rushing out. He delicately indicated for her to roll down her window and then, just as gently, made it clear that she should immediately vacate the premises. The man had a Russian accent, and as he waited with a patient yet nonproprietorial air, she suddenly understood that he was not the owner but an actual servant. Kate had theoretically known that such luxuries existed in the Bay Area but had yet to actually witness such a phenomenon in person; she had friends with household incomes in the low seven figures who still mowed their own lawns and exclusively shopped at Costco to swing the costs of four children in private school. After a brief wave of apology, she turned her car.

  On the way out, she noticed a row of lanky saplings on either side of the driveway. They hadn’t yet grown most of their green, and the few visible branches were thin and spindly. Young plants, new money, she thought, and then chided herself. Who was she to label anything as nouveau? Over time the saplings would bloom into graceful trees; they would bend and curve and hold sway in a manner befitting the rest of the extraordinary estate.

  Camilla Mosner, the woman Denny was fucking and whose nanny he was making ample gratuitous use of, lived in a house like this. The fountain was missing, and there was less of an energy oligarch’s sense of landscaping, but otherwise the two were quite close, first cousins of the Impressive Mansion genus. Enormous doors, which matched their enormous entrances, which led to enormous gardens, front and back. The same lengthy driveways, deliciously wasteful in their use of space, curves wherever straight lines would more efficiently serve. The gate had been open as she drove up—to make it easier for package deliveries and staff, Kate guessed.

  Since the Jade Mountain incident, as she’d started to refer to it in her head—in a series of internal monologues that had been growing both in frequency and length at an alarming rate—Kate had yet to say anything to Denny. She’d initially assumed that the news would travel to him quickly, perhaps even before she arrived back home that day from the park, a quickly typed text or frantic phone call sharing the calamitous knowledge that the wife—hey, that was her!—now knew what he’d been doing, sexual relations and job abandonment and child endangerment and all. Kate had wanted Denny to suffer on his way home as she had, in quaking fear over his silent phone and the righteous stance she had earned, unequivocally so, as the Wronged Wife. But when he arrived there’d been no change in his demeanor, no apologies, no anger. It was just the same old Denny, regular as always, and she had felt her insides knot.

  To confront him, she kn
ew, would be to toss him the competitive edge—the same error she had made when she was a teenager and threatened Stanley with killing herself, after he’d smashed her Walkman following a confrontation over what constituted an acceptable time frame for washing a pan used for scrambled eggs. She’d locked herself in the bathroom for hours with a paring knife, running the tap for authenticity, as she excitedly envisioned Stanley in a panic on the other side of the door. Only to emerge hours later, to find him watching TV in the family room, a box of stir-fried udon noodles in his lap.

  “I knew you wouldn’t do it,” he called over his shoulder. Kate understood then that it had been a mistake to crack. She should have at least cut into her wrists, drawn blood. The suffering would have been worth it.

  As the week drew to a close, little changed with Denny. Each day continued undisturbed in its routine banality, and even Slippers on maximum sensitivity failed to track anything out of the ordinary in his movements. Kate was almost certain Camilla knew—she questioned Ella closely every night now about her day’s activities, and each time her daughter had been emphatic that she had not seen her “Auntie,” aka the nanny Isabel, who, much to Kate’s chagrin, she seemed to miss. For Denny to continue to exist in ignorance had to mean that all other parties possessed full knowledge, and Kate had become intensely curious about Camilla Mosner, who, on top of sleeping with Denny, was actively depriving her of the satisfaction of going batshit in the exact manner she felt she deserved. Camilla Mosner was someone who would have slit her wrists, Kate decided. She would have sliced deep, to ensure an impact.

  Finally there came the point where she could no longer take the waiting, and she freed herself to search online with abandon. She found only a few images, all from the same event, the 2014 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony. A tall, thin, blonde in a silver asymmetrical goddess gown serenely posed next to a bearded older man in a gray suit. Camilla and Ken Mosner, the caption read.