Family Trust

by Kathy Wang

  “Mmm.” As far as Kate was concerned, the story so far was fairly generic; the part she really wanted to hear about was the bit with the Asian.

  “Before this year, Ken had never dated an—a Japanese woman before. From what I knew of his dating history—and believe me, I did my research—he was strictly Aryan, no black, no brown, nothing but white. To be honest I was the same, though I’m not sure that’s something we should be calling attention to about ourselves these days. Once we moved here, though, started going out and attending events, we both noticed it. Why were there all these white men with Asian women? They were everywhere! We would be at dinner, and the entire restaurant would be filled with couples like that, except for us.”

  Camilla suddenly broke off and looked at her. Kate met her gaze. Was she waiting for her approval or just checking that she wasn’t offended? “Go on,” Kate said. She brushed some crumbs from her lap.

  “Ken, he likes a certain body shape and look. Big breasts. Tall. Blond. When we first got married, I was a brunette, and then I slowly started going lighter and lighter, because it was like there wasn’t a concept of too blond for him. Or too large a pair of breasts, though I never did the surgery, thank God. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel the pressure. The hints, they never seemed to stop! And now all of a sudden, the first person I hear that he’s with after our divorce, an actual girlfriend—she’s miniature, with black hair. Five feet if that, shaped like a tiny surfboard. Can I say that it makes me go what the fuck? What is this, a thing? We’ve all seen it. We discuss it all the time, the women here.”

  “The women you talk to are all white, I’m assuming.”

  “Well, yes.” Camilla blushed. “I’ll admit it’s a little embarrassing. I’m from Arizona, right? The diversity profile is different there. But why does everyone here make such a big deal about not being racist?”

  “Probably because they are. Who cares? Besides, you really think I would know the answer to your question about your ex? On the sole basis of, what, my being Asian? Maybe the chick is a data center expert and prepares gourmet meals.” Like me. “Is this why you keep talking to me?”

  “Of course not!” Camilla cried. “I just think you’re so interesting! I’ve never met anyone like you here before. I’m just sorry we had to meet in such a way. I’m so, so sorry!”

  Kate ignored her entreaties. “Is this, like, some sort of sexual thing?”

  “No! Can’t you just accept that it’s hard for me to find women I like to spend time with? Why is that so difficult to believe?”

  Kate groaned. Inside the store, Ella spotted her and jumped up and down. Linda was next to her, holding a stack of thin Little Golden Books. She peered at Camilla and gave a tentative wave. Linda probably liked the look of Camilla, Kate thought, since she looked educated and moneyed; her mother generally felt that most of Kate’s friends were a few rungs above losers. Linda also worried that Kate’s good friends were almost exclusively Asian—as with neighborhoods, she felt that an ideal balance included a good number of whites, preferably Jewish.

  “Hey, how’s your dad?” Camilla asked. “I heard a little about that.”

  “He’s fine. Doing better, actually.” Last week she’d finally managed to coordinate with the palliative care team at Kaiser and bring Stanley home. The day his breathing tube had been unceremoniously yanked, Stanley had been almost happy; since then, he’d made a remarkable recovery. Key vitals had improved, and he was able to keep down three small meals of various porridges and smoothies a day. The only aspect that hadn’t improved was Stanley’s mood, since he was now largely confined to the makeshift hospital bed downstairs. Though he managed to get up twice a day to avoid bedsores, these excursions were limited to short walks around the house, on the first floor.

  Whenever Kate visited, Mary fluttered about nervously, offering her food and Stanley sips from his water bottle, which he usually waved away, irritated. Next to the bed on a flimsy stand was a vast arrangement of various pills in their containers, which in Stanley’s weakened state he found enraging to open and decipher. Kate had solved this by placing each dosage in clearly labeled plastic bags—Tuesday a.m., with water, Tuesday lunch, with food, Tuesday dinner, with food, Tuesday evening, before sleep, with water. She was due back this afternoon to refill the next few days; Stanley didn’t trust Mary to read his prescriptions correctly.

  “Don’t you want to know anything about Denny?” Kate asked. Absurdly, Camilla was the only person she could talk to who knew all the intricacies of the situation.

  “Not really.” Camilla examined a nail. “I haven’t spoken with him. Do you want to share something?”

  “I told him that I knew.”

  “Ooh. What was that like?”

  Kate flushed at the recollection: their whispered screaming match, which had continued downstairs, the two of them penned in the laundry room since it was farthest from the kids’ bedrooms; Denny’s departure with a packed bag, the front door slamming with a violence she’d never before seen from him. Suddenly she didn’t want to repeat his words and shook her head, willing the scene to reshape itself. It was how she dealt with bad memories in general—locked away and stowed, to be removed only in case of emergency. “I asked him to leave the house.”

  “For good? Where’s he living?”

  “One of those furnished extended-stay complexes. My suggestion. I thought there would be lots of single and divorced men there, but it turns out half the people are families waiting out remodels.” Kate wondered why she bothered to sound so nonchalant. Wasn’t it her freebie as the scorned wife to indulge in a little melodrama? “They serve a buffet breakfast, as well as a different soup each night. Denny’s probably in heaven.”

  “Oh. Then why is his car still in front of your house?”

  “You went to my house?”

  “Just once late last week,” Camilla said defensively. “I thought maybe I’d find you alone, and we could talk. But Denny’s car was there, behind a black Porsche.”

  That was Linda’s, a recent acquisition. She’d sailed up in it a few weeks ago, the vehicle long and sleek, all black both inside and out, like a polished piece of agate. Ella and Ethan had climbed in immediately, as Linda laughed off Kate’s attempts to have them remove their shoes. When asked what had inspired the purchase, Linda had said that she just felt like a new car. “I wasn’t going to buy one of those Lexus SUVs,” she said. “What am I, a real estate agent?” Kate felt that her mother had been acting strange lately. But her immediate priority was Stanley; Linda would have to wait.

  “He dropped the car off back at the house after he moved his stuff and then took his bike. We told the kids he was on a business trip, so it wouldn’t make sense if his car was gone.” That’d buy them at least a few weeks, Kate figured, before they’d have to figure out something permanent. She gestured with a thumb toward the bookshop. “The Porsche is my mom’s. She’s been coming over more, now that Denny’s gone.”

  “Ah.” Camilla eyed Linda, who was sitting in one of the rocking chairs by the window, with a respectful gleam. “And of course you have Isabel now, to help out.”

  “Yup.” Kate shut down the apology that naturally swelled and pushed to be released. Even if an insane series of events were to occur and she were to become friends with Camilla, she would never relinquish Isabel. She and Denny had used weekly cleaning services for years, but Isabel had brought the house to a whole new level of order. She had appeared ten minutes early on her first day with documented pay records for the past six months, reconfirmed that she’d be matched with a $15 hourly increase, and requested that direct deposit be set up as quickly as possible. She’d been horrified when she examined Kate’s neatly arranged stash of store-brand cleaning supplies and had created her own in empty bottles, mixing vinegar, ammonia, and rubbing alcohol, adding lemon peels and lavender for scent.

  “She’s really quite excellent, isn’t she? I’m glad she finally has some children to play with. Ella’s a very sweet girl
. I never met your son, but I assume he’s lovely too. Though that wasn’t very nice, what you did. Isabel told me about the additional bonus you offered if she quit and started with you the very next week. Of course I tried to match it; I said I’d double everything you offered, but she said she honored her agreements. What about your agreement with me? I asked. Doesn’t longevity carry with it any benefits? I had an event that Tuesday! Anyway, I worked with an agency, and they replaced her the same week. I’m planning on adding another helper full-time, just in case, so that there’s always continuity of coverage.”

  “Must be nice. To have such resources.”

  “Yes.” Camilla glanced over. “It is. What are you going to do? Are you still paying for everything with Denny?”

  Kate started to get annoyed, before recalling all the personal questions she’d asked Camilla. “Well, we are still married. I haven’t thought much about the rest.” Which was a lie. As of late, finances had occupied a significant portion of her mental stress load—the Palo Alto Home Suites charged a usurious $5,800 per month, and taking into consideration the costs of preschool, Isabel Gorgas, and the mortgage on Francie, they were now running a negative balance each paycheck. Given Stanley’s improved condition she berated herself for even still thinking about the possibility of a trust; a million dollars would provide a good deal of breathing room, however, should a divorce come to pass. Kate realized she didn’t know the answers to even the most basic of questions. Would she owe Denny alimony? Child support? She couldn’t imagine he’d ask for sole custody.

  “It doesn’t seem very fair, does it? That he’s sitting in a nice quiet apartment while you’re off making all the money and managing most of the childcare. It’s almost as if you’re being punished, for being a working mother. I wonder what the situation would look like now, if you’d stayed home.”

  “Maybe the Japanese girl has big breasts.” Kate couldn’t decide whether she was fascinated by Camilla or wanted to claw her eyes out. “Japanese women sometimes do, you know. Maybe she’s from Stanford and voluptuous.”

  “Oh no. I’ve made a study of her. Aki Yamaguchi. I told you, body like a surfboard. Good education, though, you’re right about that. Caltech. I’ll share something embarrassing with you: before we moved out here, I’d never even heard of Caltech. Right after we moved we were at this event that Manesh was hosting, and some guests were in a debate about what the top schools were in California. Because their children were all applying, you see, and I remember thinking, I can’t believe we’re eating with couples old enough to have kids in college! And people were saying well there’s Stanford, and UC Berkeley, and UCLA, and then someone brought up Caltech. I have a cousin who went to Cal Poly in Pomona, and that girl is pretty dumb, so I mentioned how surprised I was that Cal Poly made the cut. And then everyone just looked at me with these awful blank faces.

  “The worst was Ken, after we got home, he just couldn’t let it go. Hadn’t I ever heard of Caltech? The California Institute of Technology? He’s the sort of man where if you look bad in a photograph he can’t help but keep looking at it, again and again. It’s not like he went anywhere special—he did his undergrad at Arizona just like me, and then an MBA at Thunderbird—but he treated it like this horrific offense. And the thing is, I know I’m smarter than Ken, I was always quicker than him, but he just adapted so much better to living here.”

  “Well, Caltech is a very small school,” Kate allowed. “I think I only know a few people who went there, and I could probably list at least thirty from MIT.”

  “I could only name one from MIT,” Camilla said. “That jerk Manesh Das.” She sighed and wrung her hands, and Kate felt an ache of jealousy, that she could make a mundane gesture look so lovely.

  “Who was that woman you were talking to?” Linda asked. They had exited Little Acorn, and Ethan and Ella triumphantly held their bounty in their hands. (While Linda had held true to her $20 allotment, she refused to pay the fifteen-cent charge for paper bags.) “No one lose their books, yes? Because Wai Po won’t buy more.”

  “Just someone I know from the neighborhood.”

  “Your area? Really? I haven’t seen her before. She has kids?”

  “No, none.”

  Linda studied the bench where they had sat, as if there was still a lingering whiff of Camilla she could analyze. “Must be because of the husband,” she concluded.

  That night, Kate crushed a sleeping pill and downed it with a mug of water. She’d had two glasses of wine earlier, which were fast becoming a daily indulgence. Usually she couldn’t sleep well after alcohol; her body would tremor and she’d invariably wake up after an hour of flat dreaming.

  The pill did its work, however, and she slept until late morning. She went downstairs and found Ethan already dressed and pouring cereal for himself and Ella. The scene seemed surreal: her two children sitting calmly, eating Cheerios, no adult supervision required. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she said. “Did you just learn?”

  “Wai Po always has me make breakfast,” Ethan said. “No big deal.”

  “Ah.” Kate looked for the kettle but couldn’t find it. Then she remembered she had placed it in the sink the night before, to wash.

  “Mama, are you sick?” Ethan asked. Hopeful, so that maybe Linda would come help for dinner; she usually brought over pizza and clam chowder.

  “No, I don’t think so.” She cracked her neck. “Just tired.” What was it she had dreamed of the night before? It had been so clear when she woke, but the plot was already gone, and all she could remember were insignificant pieces. Her mother dying, her father already gone. And a blonde walking away, calling out about server farms.

  Chapter 14

  Linda

  Linda had heard about Stanley’s house for years, though in her opinion her children were always too stingy with the details. Kate and Fred claimed this was because they rarely actually visited Stanley at home, meeting him instead directly at cafés and restaurants (a habit Linda had never approved of—besides the health implications of excessive dining out, why marry a younger woman from China if you weren’t going to get some decent homemaking?). Over the years Linda had been tossed a few mere snippets, each of which she’d carefully stored and extrapolated on.

  There were the furnishings, the majority purchased during a dedicated shopping trip to Guangzhou, the selections not making their arrival until half a year later, via container ship (the cheapest delivery option). What kind of furniture? she’d asked. Was it wood, and what kind? How large was the bed? “Cheap” had been Kate’s only response. The artwork, which on the first floor was portrayed as generic but which in the upstairs bedroom apparently included several portraits of a redhead in the nude. (Why a redhead? Stanley had never expressed an interest in them.) A baffling story about a coffee table with neon track lighting, which Linda had trouble envisioning and thus didn’t fully believe.

  Then there was the layout, described simply as bizarre. Upon entering one was immediately confronted with the distant view of a beige toilet, which belonged to the guest bath Stanley insisted on keeping the door open to at all times. The staircase to the upper level stood in the very center of the house, which was terrible feng shui, an ancient art Linda believed in solely for its ability to influence real estate values. Stanley had also apparently deliberately selected a home with all the bedrooms located on the second floor so that there was no chance of Mary’s gouty, wheelchair-using mother moving in. On this last point Linda had agreed. Why should Stanley care for Mary’s mother? He had bought himself a nurse, not agreed to become one himself. Though it was ironic that it was this very lack of accessible bedrooms that meant Stanley now slept in the downstairs family room, for all to see.

  When Linda finally came to visit, the week after Stanley arrived home from Kaiser, she found his house exactly as she’d imagined it, in her most gleeful of nightmares. The living room was a vomit of cherrywood, which she recalled Stanley had always considered the finest of materials. Along i
ts walls were built-in cherry shelves, stacked with leather-bound books whose sole purpose was to occupy the space; in the middle sat two cherry chairs and a sofa, each upholstered in the same scratchy yellow-and-red-patterned tartan. A low table was positioned in between, made out of cherry, and to the side of the sofa was a small side table, on top of which sat a desk lamp, both cherry. Tucked in the far-right corner was a tall wicker basket, which held a collection of walking sticks and canes—after selecting the most ornate staff, constructed out of a dark burled wood (possibly cherry), Linda examined its silver handle and discovered it to be made in China.

  She felt safe to snoop at her leisure, at least for a little while. Mary was gone from the house—to buy groceries, or so she claimed. Linda made a note to check the receipt if there was an opportunity, after she returned. She was probably tacking on store gift cards to her purchases with the credit card Stanley provided for “essentials,” a trick Yvonne had discovered via one of Jackson’s paramours, back when he had a girlfriend in Santa Clara. Apparently, the hussy had saved up enough in Nordstrom gift cards for a Fendi handbag.

  Linda continued her exploration. If the living room was Stanley’s fantasy of an English gentleman’s sitting quarters, then certainly the family room he now occupied was a modern-day bachelor pad born of the same deranged mind: shades of lunacy cast in black and reflective silver. The pièce de résistance, a seventy-two-inch flat-screen television, hung on the wall tethered by invisible hooks, while on either side of it stood two identical floor lamps, their spindly lengths forged in full chrome. The couch, recliner, and coffee table were all black leather. At one point, the lacquer tray on the table had probably held TV remotes and the books Stanley was always pretending to read; now, it was filled with adult diapers and baby wipes. When Kate began to fuss with the blankets, Linda knelt and ran her hand around the coffee table’s base until she felt a switch. When she flipped it, a ring of fluorescent lighting lit the table from below. She sank down on the carpet. She found she was too depressed to move.