Family Trust

by Kathy Wang

  “I’m making a big fuss,” Kate assured him. “I’ve asked to speak with management.” Stanley had always demanded to speak with a manager when unhappy with service.

  Another impatient tap. how much urine?

  She bent down and examined the bag. “Lots. And good color too. Not too dark.” Stanley nodded and laid down his head.

  She was late for a meeting. It was a busy time for the Labs; they were close to launching an actual product, a powder called Grommix (Sonny himself had dreamed up the name—a jarring marriage of the words grog and mix, much to the marketing team’s despair). Grommix, when combined with water and fastidiously consumed eight times a day, was touted to provide as much caloric sustenance as an ideally balanced diet of fruits, proteins, carbs, dairy, and vegetables; the product manager Kate had assigned to it estimated its yearly revenue as somewhere between zero and $2 billion.

  Kate went outside to call Fred. The first time he’d visited the ICU, right after his return from Asia, he’d pulled her aside and whispered in heated aggravation what he’d learned from Stanley in Hong Kong. After what she’d seen in the hospital, however—the misery of the unending lights and noise, the air of desperate futility that hung in the rooms of terminal patients—Kate couldn’t inspire in herself the same levels of indignation. Who was to say what continuing with chemo would have achieved? It was clear now that this was going to have been the last stop all along; the rest was merely buying time.

  “I’m on my way,” Fred said when he answered. “Did you talk to Dad about the will?”

  “A little. To be honest he was pretty cagey about it, though I’m not sure if it was from the meds. I couldn’t get any details, except that he said the ‘plan hadn’t changed,’ whatever that means.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “Did Dad ever confirm with you how much he was planning to leave us?”

  She felt his hesitation through the phone. “What did he say to you?”

  “As you recall, I stated he told me a million each. I was very open and clear about our conversation. What did he tell you?”

  “He . . . he didn’t say anything.”

  “Fred, this is ridiculous, if you can’t trust—”

  “Did he have accounts in Hong Kong?” he asked, cutting her off. “Mom was asking if we found out anything.”

  “He’s incredibly uncomfortable and disoriented. I’m not sure this is the best time.”

  “There is no best time in a situation like this. Why aren’t you taking this more seriously? It’s almost as if you’re on Mary’s side!”

  “Of course not! I’m as pissed as you are. I don’t trust her at all. But for now I just want Dad to be comfortable. You’ve seen him; it’s nearly impossible talking to him in this state. Can’t we wait until we get him home?”

  “That’s where I’m coming from. It’s why I’m late. Dad’s office was in complete disarray when I entered; at first I thought he’d been robbed, that’s how bad it was. There were papers and files everywhere. Mary must have gone through everything.”

  Kate stopped to consider this. “Why would Mary do that? It’s not like he keeps any actual money in there.”

  “Who the hell knows? That’s why you have to ask him about the accounts and find out about the will. Right now.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree.”

  “Okay, forget it.” His voice was filled with disgust. “I’ll do it when I get there.”

  Outside the lobby entrance, Kate spotted Mary. She sat huddled with a small group on a bench, conferring over a phone. Before Kate could approach closer, Mary hurriedly stood and waved her over, introduced the strangers as her two sisters and one of their husbands. It struck Kate that she had never seen these people before. Was that normal? To have never met your father’s new family?

  One of the sisters looked closer to Mary’s age, while the other—the one wearing a shiny leopard-print blouse tucked into tight black pants—appeared significantly younger, though in a blunt fashion that brought to mind her friend’s husband’s warnings on thread facelifts. Both women offered regretful murmurs while the husband looked at the ground. Stanley had always said that he preferred the prettier of the sisters; Kate assumed he meant the one in leopard. “Are you here to see my father?” she asked in halting Mandarin.

  “Yes, yes,” Mary said, alert. “Is he awake?”

  “No,” Kate lied. “He’s been asleep the whole time. Fred is coming later.”

  “Ahh.” A look passed among the women. She should stay, Kate thought. The words of Aisha echoed; there was something strange in how they looked at her and then each other, as if trying to telepathically discuss a course of action. But then she remembered she had to go home. She was horribly behind at work, and even Sonny had begun to give her the evil eye when she left early to go to the hospital in the afternoons. Fred would be there soon, anyway.

  In her kitchen, Kate wiped down the counters and put away clean dishes while she assuaged Sonny’s latest complaints. She needed a new headset, one in which his rants didn’t come across so shrill. He was convinced it was only a matter of time before the other chieftains at X swooped in and snatched away the idea for Grommix, as they had Slippers; he had called her immediately following the end of a video conference with the sales team, right as she’d decided to open a bottle of Pinot Noir.

  “Didn’t you already present to Alexei? It’s on record, Sonny. Grommix is the Lab’s from beginning to end.” She left unsaid the most compelling argument, that she didn’t know who would want to steal Grommix in the first place; the rest of the executive team was too busy building cloud empires and data centers.

  “I’ve been getting bad feelings,” Sonny said with a moan. “Nasty, nasty, vibes. Grommix has the potential to be big. Like the Gates Foundation, but even more substantial. Because all they have is money, and we have a real resource.”

  Kate gave an involuntary wince; in the past, when Sonny had pierced this level of paranoia, delusion had followed shortly after. “Alexei loved it,” she cooed in her most soothing tones, as she scrubbed at a red wine stain on the marble. “You have nothing to worry about. You should be feeling good about yourself. More than good, great.”

  “You don’t think Alexei liked it a little too much, do you? Because this younger generation, they’re all thieves. They think stealing ideas is just a part of business. No social code, no honor! Alexei called me old man the other day, did I tell you? Is it okay to call me dot head, because I’m Indian? Yet such ageism is acceptable from our very highest leader. Where is the accountability? The morality?

  “And then, just the other day, I see Alexei dare show a preview of Slippers on CNBC, just a little ‘teaser,’ he says, with no mention that I was the man who inspired its very creation! And after that,” Sonny continued, his voice lowering ominously, “when I go to look for the sample Fujihara gave me? I find it’s vanished! I know I put it in my office, I remember exactly where, but Marissa says I am mistaken, that it was never in that drawer. Do you think she’s secretly working for Fujihara, to inform him of our projects? Or perhaps Alexei himself. Because that is how the Russians work. They can come to America, maybe they’re even born here, but they retain the knowledge from the motherland, you can’t escape it.”

  “I’m sure Marissa is loyal to you,” Kate said. She felt a twinge of remorse about Slippers, though Sonny was wrong about the office—even Kate was too frightened to snoop through his private domain. The units had come from the supply closet. She vowed to replace them soon; they were of no use to her any longer, anyway.

  After Sonny, there was one more call. Kate had to fumble through her desk to find the number, which she’d stashed in the very back, among a pile of blank index cards. The phone was answered on the second ring.

  “Is this Isabel Gorgas?”

  “Yes.” Isabel sounded joyful, as if she had just stepped away from a lively conversation. “Who’s calling?”

  “This is Kate Huang. We met at the park, a few weeks ago. Ella’
s mother.”

  The voice that eventually responded was firm. “I haven’t seen your daughter since that day. I am at home, with my family. I have nothing more to say.”

  “I understand, and I’ll be quick. That’s not why I’ve called.”

  “Anything else, any questions, please talk to Ms. Camilla.”

  “Ms. Gorgas, I’m calling to offer you a job. Whatever Camilla Mosner’s compensating you, I’ll add $15 per hour. And pay for your mileage to and from our house. The responsibilities would be heavier on the childcare side, but I can assure you that our home is much smaller than the property you are currently working with. We never entertain, and I’m back every day by five thirty p.m. I’ve just emailed you reference numbers for the past three nannies who worked for our household. Take your time, and think about my offer.”

  Denny was still in the attic when she finished with the kitchen. Kate took the stairs two at a time, the way Stanley always had when excited. When she opened the door, Denny was hunched over the laptop with such an eager look of concentration that for a brief moment Kate felt remorse for the events she was about to set into motion. As she moved closer, he raised an eyebrow.

  “Camilla Mosner,” Kate said. His mouth opened to form an O. “Save it. You think I’ve never wanted to have an affair? You don’t think it’s crossed my mind during our marriage, like, oh, dozens of times? What is this, a midlife crisis?”

  Denny stood, and then sat back down. “She’s not a midlife crisis,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s between her and me.”

  The fact that their relationship so obviously meant more to him than Camilla overwhelmed Kate with a mixture of pity and disgust. “What about CircleShop? Are you still working on that? If you’ve given up, it would have been nice to inform me.”

  “Of course I’m working on it,” Denny said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I know that to launch a start-up in one of the most competitive, well-funded spaces in the Valley, one should probably be doing more than taking extended naps during the day with his unemployed mistress, shoving his kids off with perfect strangers—”

  “You don’t understand a fucking thing!” Denny exploded. Kate felt herself jerk at this sudden anger. She shushed him, pointing a finger down toward Ethan’s bedroom. Denny took a deep breath and continued in a lower voice. “You think you know everything, but really—” He stopped himself.

  “Tell me,” Kate goaded. “Tell me everything I’m lacking. This is your chance.”

  Denny regarded her with a flat expression. She could see the pride as it flashed behind his eyes, blinking on and off. “You know what I’ve been wanting to say?” he finally said. “For years now, ever since we got married. Since we met, actually. X Corp was the luckiest thing that ever happened to you. It was the luckiest thing,” he repeated, more loudly. “You think you would have gotten this far at any other company? Or if you had to do it on your own, like I am? Of course you do, and I can never say otherwise, because that would make me out to be this cliché, the jerk who’s jealous of his wife because she’s more successful. Yes, I said it, you’re more successful. I know you think you’ve been so sensitive and thoughtful, never bringing it up, the fact that you’re a director of whatever-it-is dumb shit you work on at the Labs while I’m just some dude with an unknown company. That it makes you some sort of modern woman. You think that I care? Or that I might actually think you’re better than me?”

  The words took Kate by surprise. She had never thought anyone might consider her the more successful of the pair—Denny was the one with the Stanford computer science degree, the list of patents to his name. Even Linda, who never missed a chance to comment on their status as a single-income household, openly stated that Denny had superior credentials, making his choice of self-employment even more irrational. “I would never think that I’m better. I’ve always said that you’re the most brilliant—”

  “Well, that’s what everyone else thinks, isn’t it? Society? Because everything in life is so fair. Because America is such a meritocracy, and we’ve all earned our positions.”

  Kate took a deep breath. “I never claimed the world is fair. But to imply that I didn’t earn my way, while you, as a perfectly capable white male in America, have suffered from some sort of unfair predicament—”

  “Ah, of course,” Denny cut in. He looked energized, as if he’d just been reminded of a particularly compelling argument. “That’s what’s always pissed me off the most. That you don’t think your success was luck at all, that you think it was earned. You think you created it, that the fact that you ended up at a company that grew into this huge, nasty, monopolistic monster is all thanks to your skill. And that because of it, you’re qualified to opine on all kinds of shit you know nothing about. Like CircleShop, or Camilla.” Releasing the name with emphasis. His eyes were green and unyielding, and in that moment Kate could see how little regard he had for her.

  “Well, I want to make one thing very clear, Kate. The reason you got where you are isn’t because you’re so smart. It isn’t because you made such great decisions. It’s because you and a few thousand other people got lucky. So fuck off.”

  * * *

  When Camilla Mosner appeared two people behind her in line at Maggie’s Artisanal Bakery and Café in downtown Mountain View, positioned in front of the sparse remaining loaves of the nationally acclaimed Ozark Mountain Bread that Bon Appétit had proclaimed one of the best in America, Kate had been surprised, but only slightly. Though she had neglected to call her after their first encounter—had in fact willfully and purposefully thrown away the scrap of paper with her phone number that Camilla had pressed into her hand through her car window—Kate had assumed that at some point, they would meet again. Camilla just seemed like that kind of person, the sort for whom events proceeded down an inevitable path; Kate was even struck by the suspicion that Camilla had been following her, as she had chosen to make her appearance at the one point during the weekend Kate was in public alone, without kids. Ella and Ethan were in fact next door, browsing children’s books at Little Acorn with Linda, who insisted on giving each a budgetary limit for the visit instead of the one-book-per-trip policy Kate had long enforced.

  “I just don’t see why a $20 hardback and a cheap $2.99 paperback would be viewed as equally valuable,” her mother said. “It sets the wrong sort of expectation for when they grow older. Shouldn’t they know that different items have different values? Hadn’t we already given you Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch when you were Ethan’s age?”

  After Kate purchased her small coffee and Danish ($12; sometimes she hated the Bay Area), she brought them to a bench outside. A few minutes later, Camilla sat down.

  “My ex-husband, he’s with an Asian now,” Camilla said. She wore a light gray turtleneck and matching short trench and soft blue jeans; a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses was perched on her head. “What do you think about that?”

  Kate closed her magazine. “What do you mean, an Asian?” she asked after a few seconds. “Do you go around telling people you were married to a white?”

  “Oh. I meant a Japanese woman.” Camilla tittered nervously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. Do you want to try my pain au chocolat?”

  Kate scowled. Camilla’s sudden appearance had distracted her when she was placing her order; her Danish had turned out to be both savory and vegan, filled with leeks and mushrooms.

  “Anyway,” Camilla continued, “my ex, I met him in Arizona. At the time he was a property developer, had done a few big commercial projects and just finished a high-rise condo, which is where I met him. I was one of the contract girls, the ones they bring in at the end to finish all the hundreds of pages of paperwork, where the guy really should read the terms but doesn’t want to look dumb, so he just signs. This was before the whole housing crisis, of course. Once 2008 happened, kaboom! But by then I was married. We took a few years, did some traveling, and after that, Ken—that’s my ex,
if you didn’t already know his name, but if you found my house you probably do—he started to get involved with data centers. Do you know what those are?”

  X Corp operated seven of the largest facilities in the world; Kate had personally run the project management for Operation Lenin, an early-round feasibility study of what a nuclear-node-powered center would look like. “Yes.”

  “I don’t look like the type of person who’d know about solid-state memory or server farms, do I? There’s a lot that might surprise you about me. A lot,” Camilla repeated. “Then again, you already know quite a bit, which is maybe why I find you so interesting.”

  “What happened with your ex?” Kate was irritated that Camilla had not only managed to involve her in her convoluted personal tragedy but then had the poor manners not to conclude the story in a timely fashion.

  “So, Ken. He starts doing these data centers, right? On the real estate side, that is. For everything else, his partner is this guy, Manesh Das, whom he met through a mutual acquaintance. Long story short, the data centers do well, and then Manesh asks Ken if he might want to invest in this other company. Because Manesh, he works for this big venture firm called Motley Capital. And Manesh is kind of famous, he’s one of those guys who’s on TV a lot. He was also known as ‘the Maid Beater of Silicon Valley’ for a while. I’ll let you figure out the story behind that charming nickname.

  “Anyway, Manesh—he’s got this company he’s on the board of, and they need money, but they aren’t in the sexiest industry. I guess they’re having some trouble with financing, and Motley won’t put in any more cash. And the company’s desperate, and Manesh is swearing up and down, on his life, and on his wife and children, that it’s a sure thing. And Ken, even though he knows nothing about technology, ends up putting in money, quite a lot—if I’d known at the time how much I probably would have been pissed, though I’m not sure he would have listened to me, and either way the situation would have turned out poorly, at least for me. Because guess what happens after? The company ends up getting sold to Microsoft, and a few months later Ken announces that we’re moving to Silicon Valley. I guess he figures he’s a technology investor now!”