by Jackie Lau
I’m not angry at Courtney. I know she was just doing what she felt she needed to do. I know she was trying to save herself.
I need to show her that she doesn’t have to do it all alone.
* * *
“I don’t need jook,” I say, “and I certainly don’t need to learn how to make it.”
“You’re sick,” Po Po says. “You need jook.”
“I’m not sick, and I’m not in the mood for it.” Right now, I’d much prefer a greasy burger and fries over rice porridge.
“Heartbroken, sick.” She waves her bony hand in the air as she putters around my kitchen. “Same thing. But you will make jook and get healthy, and then you will win her back!” She beams at me.
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Vince said you would do it.”
“Why do you listen to anything Vince says?”
Po Po pulls out a large pot. “I’m eighty-nine. Want great-grandchildren, and Courtney is a nice Chinese girl who helps you have fun. You must make this work. Then you can cook her jook when she’s pregnant. When I was pregnant, I could not keep much down. Just jook.”
I stare at her. This is all a bit much. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“I know. First I must plan the wedding.”
“No. You’ll make the entire playlist Chinese opera.”
She chuckles. Then she raises a finger in the air, as if to make an important declaration. “You must make Courtney happy. If I do not hear this by next Saturday, I will come to your office every day. Play Chinese opera, bring new girl. Until you’re so annoyed, you’ll do anything to get Courtney back.”
* * *
I’ve blocked off Sunday morning in my calendar for “brainstorming.”
As in, brainstorming ways to get Courtney Kwan back.
I don’t know if this will work. Maybe I’ll end up being subjected to endless opera music and a parade of eligible Chinese women.
It better work.
Because I really love Courtney.
And I really hate Chinese opera.
I stare at the blank sheet of paper, then finally write down one thing: Call Naomi. Courtney’s close with her sister. Maybe she can help me.
But I think I should have some kind of plan in place before I get to that step.
I tell myself not to get distracted, but soon I’m turning on my laptop and looking through all the pictures again. I particularly like the one I took of her laughing when we were at Mosaic. She’s so luminous.
The photos give me one idea, and I write it down on the sheet of paper. Just looking at the word makes me groan, but it is a pretty good idea that requires only a little damage to my dignity and involves neither clowns nor a petting zoo.
However, I’m not a workaholic for nothing, and I write down forty-seven other ideas in the next hour. My brothers are right. I need to try.
I like a few of the ideas, but I think the key is to ask Courtney what she needs and listen to her. Develop a plan together to deal with her depression so I know exactly how to support her. Naomi might be able to give me some input, but I need to have a proper discussion with Courtney when neither of us is angry, when I really listen to everything she says. She’s the one who’s lived with this for years, which is such a painful thought, but it’s the unfortunate truth. She’s the one who’s developed strategies to deal with it. Not me.
I’m going to do everything I can for her, if only she’ll let me.
I realize now that, although I thought I was a hundred percent committed to this relationship before, it wasn’t quite true. I think part of the reason I struggled with my previous relationships is that I was subconsciously afraid to get too invested in someone, fearing it would take away from my work and my ability to be the responsible son. Even once I decided to give it a go with Courtney, some of that feeling remained.
But no longer.
I am completely committed to her. She is my priority, and that doesn’t scare me at all.
She also makes me feel like anything is possible. I know I can still do a good job of running the company; however, I won’t allow it to take over my life.
I’m going to need a little help, though. I have to stop trying to do everything on my own. It’s not possible. And besides, life is meaningless if I have no time for anything but work, and if I keep it up, I could easily burn out before I’m forty.
There’s something I’d like to talk to my dad about, and as luck would have it, my parents arrive at my door only five minutes later.
I want to have a chat with my father, but not like this. Not when my parents are loaded down with food and looking at me like I’m an injured wild animal.
“Vince said Courtney broke up with you,” Mom says.
“You don’t need to bring me a truck full of food. I can take care of myself, plus I already have a pot of jook, thanks to Po Po.”
“The only girlfriend you’ve had in ages, and it doesn’t even last a month!” Mom clucks her tongue, then starts putting the food on the kitchen island. “But Vince says you’ll fix it. Please do. We like Courtney.”
“I’ll try.” I pause. “Dad, I have to ask you something. I’d like if you could come back to work—”
“Yes,” he says, before I finish.
“Thank heavens!” Mom says, looking up at the ceiling with her hands clasped.
“Just a couple days a week,” I say, “in an advisory position. Not full-time of course, and I will still be in charge, but I could use some help. I don’t want to work eighty-hour weeks on a regular basis.”
I have a lot of responsibilities, and I’ll never work only forty hours a week, but I can do better. Perhaps it’s also time to consider re-organizing senior management. I’ll still be CEO, but I don’t need to be CEO and president. Someone else can focus on overseeing the day-to-day operations.
Dad nods. “I was bored at home. I have my work at the Toronto Chinese-Canadian Center, of course, but I still had too much free time. It was nice being back at the office. I don’t need to play golf five times a week.”
“He’s been driving me up the wall,” Mom says.
He turns to her. “It hasn’t been that bad. I thought you liked having me around.”
“Not that much.”
A thought occurs to me. “Mom, was the whole forcing-me-to-take-a-vacation thing because you wanted Dad to go into the office so he wouldn’t be around as much?”
“Of course not! It was because I was worried about you working such long hours.” She pauses and takes my hands. “You were always serious and a hard worker, even as a child. You seemed older than your years. I think we depended on you too much at times, and after your father’s heart attack...”
Yes, my workaholic tendencies got even worse after I became CEO. I was suddenly thrust into a position I wasn’t quite prepared for. I had a lot to learn, and I was determined to make my family proud. Perhaps I was also trying to distract myself from thinking about my father’s health.
But it’s been three years now, and things are running pretty smoothly.
“Maybe we expected too much of you when you were younger,” Dad said. “You took those expectations so seriously, but we don’t want success to come at the expense of everything else.”
I nod. “I understand that now.”
“I worked too hard at times, too. Didn’t have enough time for my family. After my heart attack, I came to see things a little differently. We’re proud of what you’ve accomplished, Julian. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“Yes,” Mom says. “We’re very proud.”
I’m glad to hear that, but more importantly, I’m glad I’ve figured out exactly what I want.
I squeeze my mother’s hands. “I’ll do better at having a balanced life now, I promise.”
She smiles at me before stepping back and continuing to unload the food. “Your dad’s taken up carpentry, did you know? He’s terrible at it.”
“Am not,” Dad says.
“You are. That
chair broke the first time I sat on it!”
As my parents bicker, my thoughts wander back to Courtney.
I’ll cut down on my hours even further, at least for the next few months, so I can help her in any way she needs.
Chapter 29
Courtney
I was going to bake, but that reminded me of Julian.
I was going to go for a walk and lie on the grass in Riverdale Park, but that also reminded me of Julian.
So, instead, I’m sitting on my couch alone, eating ice cream from the tub.
Ha. No. I’m not that much of a stereotype.
I’m actually looking at pictures of terrariums online to give myself ideas. I figure making a terrarium will be a nice little project to distract me. But then a particularly phallic cactus reminds me of Joey, which in turn makes me think of Julian. I can’t help thinking of him, even when I try not to.
Damn.
My phone rings.
“It’s me,” Dad says. “I’m downstairs. Can you buzz me up?”
I do as he asks, and then I start freaking out.
Dad would never visit me without warning on a Sunday morning. What’s going on? Is Mom with him...or did something happen to her? I pace my living room until he knocks on the door, and I immediately pull it open.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He frowns. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why are you here? It’s Sunday morning.”
“I’m aware of what time it is.”
He sits down heavily on my couch, his face a mask of concentration, his gaze on his hands. My father is nearly seventy, and his hair has been gray for a while. He’s also thinner than he used to be, I notice now. I take a seat on the chair across from him.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last.
“For what?” I have no idea what we’re talking about.
“For refusing to accept that you were sick.”
Oh.
“Jeremy came to talk to me.” Dad’s not looking at me—I think that’s too difficult for him. “He said we screwed up. Me, him, and your mother. Though I think it started with me. I guess I thought...maybe if I denied it, it wouldn’t be true. You’d snap out of it. Be yourself again.”
“Don’t you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”
“I know.” He nods. “I know.” He looks down at the floor. “My father...you never knew him because he died when he was forty-eight. He threw himself in front of a train. Before that, he wasn’t well. Depressed, maybe, but we didn’t call it that.”
“Aunt Darlene told me.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “I don’t let myself think about it, but when you were...” He makes a vague gesture with his hands. “I had to think about it again, and I couldn’t deal with it.”
“Maybe if I’d gotten proper help earlier, it would have been easier. But the first time, I was only sixteen. I needed my parents to help me get treatment, and you dismissed it. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t wanted to tell you in the first place because I knew how you’d react. And when I was in university...” I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about that.
He didn’t even visit me in the hospital. Naomi came every day, and Mom and Jeremy came once, but Dad never did.
I swallow. “Thank you for the apology. It doesn’t make everything okay, though.”
“I know. I will do better in the future if it happens again.”
“It’s starting. I can feel it. Every five years...”
“Come here.”
I sit beside him on the couch. He places his hand on my shoulder, which is the most affection he’s shown me since I was sixteen. When I shed a few tears, I can tell he’s uncomfortable, but he stays, sitting beside me.
It will never be perfect between us, and it’s sad that he wouldn’t change until he heard it from Jeremy.
Still, it’s something.
* * *
“Are you okay?” Bethany asks as we head to the banh mi restaurant together.
Usually we have lunch on Friday, but she had to cancel because her son needed to go to the doctor, so we’re doing Monday instead.
“Julian and I broke up,” I say.
“Oh no! I’m so sorry.”
I don’t tell her that it was my doing, that I feel like I can’t be in any relationship at all. But do I say, “I have some problems with clinical depression.”
I tell her a bit about my history with mental illness. I haven’t told anyone—other than Julian—in a long time. I don’t want everyone in my life to know about it, but I want Bethany, my closest friend at work, to know.
I’m not going to lean on her much, and I’m not going to talk to her about my problems on a regular basis—those conversations usually just makes me feel like shit anyway. But it’s easier now that she knows the truth and is still standing here next to me.
She gives me a quick hug when we’re in line at the banh mi restaurant.
“What are you getting today?” she asks.
It’s a joke we have, since I always get the same thing.
“Hmm.” I pretend to think real hard. “Maybe the chicken. Or the beef. But I hear the grilled pork is really good. Or maybe I’ll do something completely different and order the pork belly...”
I don’t need much from most people, and I’m aware of how difficult it is to be around me when I’m unwell. I just need Bethany to still be my once-a-week lunch friend. I need to know my father isn’t going to deny that I’m sick.
The little things add up.
* * *
Wednesday evening, I’m at Naomi’s apartment, and we’re sharing a bottle of wine as we plan our trip to New York. I’m excited for our trip, but it’s tinged with sadness because I can’t stop thinking of Julian. He’s the reason we’re able to go.
When I saw Naomi last Thursday, I told her what happened, but she didn’t make me talk about it much. Today, however, is a different story.
She puts aside her laptop and fiddles with her wine glass. “I think you’re wrong when you say you can’t have a relationship.”
I stiffen. “It’s not safe for me.”
“You can’t only do things that are safe.”
“Obviously I have to take some risks in life, but this one isn’t worth it. I’ll die if we get too close and then he breaks up with me.”
“You will not die,” she says, taking my hand. “I will look after you, I promise.”
“But there’s no treatment for my depression. It doesn’t respond to anything.”
“You can be kept safe in a crisis situation.” She pauses. “It wouldn’t have been a good idea to start dating soon after Dane, I agree, but it’s been ten years since you had a relationship, not counting the past few weeks. I think you’re punishing yourself. This isn’t only about your fear that it won’t work out and will turn out like last time. I believe you’re also letting your depression tell you that you don’t deserve a relationship.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not like that.”
“I hate to say this, because I know you don’t like the phrase, but when you tell me you can’t be in a relationship, I think, ‘It’s just your depression talking.’ You’re letting your negative self-talk get the better of you. You deserve to have someone who cares for you like that. You can have a relationship, and maybe you’ll never break up.”
“But—”
“You think he can’t handle your problems? He cares for you very much, and we all have problems.”
“Mine aren’t the normal kind of problems.”
“They’re far from uncommon. It’s not a hardship to be with you, Courtney. You have to stop thinking like that. There will be hard times, yes, but you’ll get through them. Plus, the man is a CEO. I’m sure he’s used to handling problems.”
I sigh and put my face in my hands.
I don’t know, I don’t know.
If this were coming from anyone but Naomi, I wouldn’t even consider it. But my sister is the one person who’s always been there
for me, always been supportive. If she thinks I’m punishing myself, maybe she’s right. If she thinks it’s not too much to expect a man to handle me when I’m depressed, maybe it’s true. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that possibility, but for the first time in a long time, it’s a possibility.
“You focus on what you consider the difficult parts of being with you,” Naomi says, “but those aren’t what come to mind when I think of my sister. I don’t consider you a difficult person. You’re unlucky to have the problems you have, but a man who truly loves you isn’t going to desert you because of something beyond your control. It’s not like you’ve refused to get help. You’ve tried lots of treatments, and you put a lot of effort into keeping yourself mentally healthy, always considering whether everything you do is good for you. It’s painful to see you throw something like this away when it’s clear you love Julian and he loves you.”
“Has he talked to you since last Wednesday?”
She shrugs. “He might have.”
“What did he say?”
Naomi pours herself some more wine. “I’m not telling.”
I pull the wine glass out of her hand. “I’m not giving this back until you do.”
“Fine. Be that way.” She grabs my mostly-full wine glass from the table and takes a gulp.
I laugh and have a sip of her wine.
“Just think about it,” she says. “Please.”
“I will,” I say, and I do mean it.
Chapter 30
Courtney
I sit down on my recliner with a cup of tea, two gingersnap cookies, and a chick lit novel. I dip the edge of a cookie in the tea and take a bite, and I can’t help but smile. It’s delicious. A few years ago, I tried several brands of gingersnaps and figured out which one was best, and that’s all I’ve bought ever since.
Tea, cookies, and a book, plus a long week of work behind me. I’ve already finished my laundry and tidied up my apartment.
Life is good.
But there’s an ache in my heart. Part of me feels dull and dead inside. I might be able to enjoy myself, but I’m not fully present.
I keep wondering if Naomi is right.
I’m prone to negative self-talk, and sometimes my behavior is self-defeating. Yet that was never how I saw my refusal to consider another relationship. I told myself I was being smart and sensible, but maybe my mind was twisting everything around. After all, my mind does malfunction at times.