Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Teddy
Don’t mention Helen’s suspension.
Don’t mention we aren’t really dating.
That’s the chant running through my head as the doorbell fades and the deadbolt clicks. I’m terrified I’ll be the one to rat her out. Why is it that when you’re keeping secrets, it feels like they’ll be the first thing out of your mouth?
Helen’s parents live in the hills of Laguna Beach, with an ocean view that belongs to a reality TV show.
From the outside their house looks like a 1970s ranch, but when her mom opens the door I see a set of stairs behind her that must go to a lower level.
The smell of roasting turkey and fresh-baked bread hits before I step over the threshold.
“Helen! Teddy!” her mom sings out, giving us each an equally tight hug.
Balancing on my crutches, I extend the bottle of white wine I got on the way here.
Helen said it wasn’t necessary, but I explained that my own mother would have my head if she found out I’d been invited for Thanksgiving dinner and hadn’t brought a gift.
“Come in! Come in!” Helen’s mom ushers us through a bright entryway filled with houseplants. Leaves rustle as we walk past, and flowers bob their delicate heads as if they’re saying hello.
This must be where Helen gets her green thumb.
We move into a kitchen with flat front white cabinets and beige granite countertops. The kitchen shares space with an octagonal breakfast nook that has wide windows framing an elevated view of the Pacific Ocean.
California’s version of November feels more like June.
By this time in the late afternoon, the morning fog has burned off, leaving behind bright sunshine and an endless blue sky.
From up this high the water looks calm, but the last part of our drive was along Pacific Coast Highway.
I’d rolled down my window to let in the ocean-scented wind and to hear how hard the waves crashed into the rocky coastline.
Farther out, surfers took on one swell after another in a calculated sort of chess where the ocean came out ahead more often than not.
I watched them with a gut-twisting mix of anxiety and envy.
I had a strange sort of flashback. Day turned back to night.
Light to dark. I’m falling, sinking beneath the water.
Down, down, down to the sandy ocean floor.
There’s the distant echo of someone laughing, but that can’t be right.
Can it? No one had been with me when I almost drowned.
I focus on the memory, try to sharpen it, solidify it, but it slips through my fingers.
“When the EMTs brought me into the hospital, they said I was surfing alone, right?” I had asked Helen, who was driving since my cast wouldn’t allow me to do it.
She’d glanced over, a furrow in her brow. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” I’d told her. I’d tried to dismiss my uneasy feeling, even though it clung like salt on skin.
Now I stare at the spot where the ocean meets the horizon out the window and force a smile. “Beautiful view, Mrs. Chu.”
“Call me Linda,” she replies, her grin widening as a short, stocky man enters the kitchen. He has gray hair and a gently lined forehead. Wire-rimmed glasses can’t hide the fact that he looks like Helen. Same straight nose, full lips, slightly pointed chin.
“You finished at the hospital early!” Linda says, lighting up as he places a kiss on her cheek.
“McAllister discharged most of our patients yesterday,” he mutters, his voice low and efficient. “Besides, had to rush home to see my favorite daughter.” He crosses to Helen and plants the same kiss on her temple, which makes her blush furiously. "Hey Bǎobèi. I'm so happy you're home."
Helen rolls her eyes with fondness. “I’m your only daughter, so by default your favorite.”
He chuckles and swings his gaze my way. His eyes narrow. No smile when he says, “You must be Helen’s new boyfriend.”
Guess I’m not getting a kiss on the cheek.
I swallow down my nerves and remind myself that one of the few talents I have is charm. I smile widely and extend my hand, trying not to wobble on my crutches. “I’m Teddy. Pleased to meet you, sir.”
Fathers, I’ve learned, like to be called sir.
Not Helen’s dad apparently.
He grips my hand just a little too hard, his fingers tightening around mine in a hold that felt less like a greeting and more like a test. I cover my wince, keeping the smile plastered on my face. An uneasy silence follows when he releases me.
Helen’s gaze bounces between us, her forehead knit with a worried frown. Her mouth twitches like she’s about to say something, but then her dad’s eyes drop and lock on the massive bruise that covers Helen’s thigh.
His brows snap together, doctor and father both rising to the surface. “What happened to you?” His voice sharpens as he leans in, peering at her leg like he’s already cataloguing the size and depth of the wound.
Helen brightens, trying to wave it off. “It’s so cool! Teddy’s teaching me how to surf.”
“Surf?” Phillip straightens, his gaze sliding to me.
There’s no mistaking the steel in his eyes, but it isn’t just the father sizing me up now, it’s also the physician calculating risks.
He exhales once, slowly, as if fighting to keep his voice level.
“That’s dangerous, especially for someone who’s never been on a board before. ”
“No, no.” Helen makes a placating gesture, her palms lifted to the ceiling. “It’s just in the living room for now. We haven’t even gone into the water, but I’ve graduated to kneeling on the board. Soon I’ll try standing.” She rises onto her toes and grins, excited.
Unimpressed, he folds his arms. “That doesn’t explain the bruise.”
“I slipped off the board,” Helen says, her voice softer now. “Banged my leg on the coffee table.”
Her explanation does nothing to ease the tightness around her dad’s mouth.
He stares at her leg, then at me. Unease coils in my gut.
I’d hoped to win him over, but so far I look like a reckless idiot who body-checks his fake girlfriend into furniture.
Not exactly the first impression I was hoping for.
“Teddy,” says Linda, her voice loud in the awkward silence.
“Come help me make the salad.” I send her a relieved smile and move to her side.
Helen asks her dad something about the hospital, and they wander off in conversation filled with words I don’t understand, but Helen is lit up, focused, completely in her element.
Linda watches them go with a fond smile.
“Two peas in a pod,” she murmurs. There’s warmth to how she says it, but also sadness and maybe longing?
It reminds me of myself, of how much I adore my family and how even though they love me back, I sometimes feel left out, like they’re all tucked into a cozy house together and I’m outside, looking in through the window.
I know the feeling of being loved but lonely.
After a moment, Linda turns her attention back to me.
“Thanks,” I tell her under my breath, remembering how she just saved me.
“Don’t mind Phillip. He gets overprotective,” she says in a hushed tone. “We both do. Helen’s struggled occasionally in the past. Friends. Grades. We’ve had to jump in from time to time to help her out, and it’s made us trigger happy when it comes to shielding her.”
That description doesn’t match what I know about hypercompetent Helen. “I thought she got straight As? She’s so smart.”
“She did once she got to college and medical school, but back in elementary and even junior high school she didn’t talk much.
Refused to answer questions. Failed tests because they were on topics that didn’t interest her.
” Linda sighs, shrugs. “Eventually she figured out the system, but it took a long time to convince her that sometimes you have to jump through other people’s hoops just to get where you want to go. ”
Stubborn, I think. That tracks. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? She’s rigid when it comes to fairness, to doing things the “right” way. Structured. Literal. Thoughtful. Honest in ways most people aren’t.
“Well, she talks to me just fine,” I say, feeling a little defensive on Helen’s behalf.
Linda looks at me for a long second and then smiles gently. “Good. It means she trusts you.”
That lodges somewhere deep in my chest.
Linda’s wearing another loose dress today, this one pink with purple flowers.
Now that I’m not distracted by the fact that I’m wearing a fuzzy bathrobe, I notice how her blonde hair is thin and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
I know that look. It was on my father’s face during the six months from his cancer diagnosis to his death.
Long-forgotten dread skitters down my back.
I’ve never really gotten over my father’s death—no one in my family has.
The thought of watching another family go through that kind of grief makes me want to run out of the house screaming, but I clamp down on the panic.
I won’t abandon Helen at a time like this, not that she needs me, but still, this is a chance to prove maybe I can evolve, become a stronger version of myself.
More grown-up and responsible. The man Gwen and my mom want me to be. The man I want to be.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Linda, maintaining steady eye contact. “I hope you don’t mind that Helen told me about your diagnosis.”
Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “She did?”
I nod, then hesitate, unsure how much to tell her. I don’t want the grimness of my dad’s story to discourage her. “My dad passed away from cancer. Colon, though, not breast.”
“Oh.” Her eyes soften. “I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
She sucks in a breath. “So young to deal with something so heavy.”
I hang my head. “Yeah. It was tough.”
Tough.
What an understatement. Sorrow, decades old, crawls up the back of my throat, burns the back of my eyes.
This is what I know about grief. It comes in waves, like the ocean.
Right now, it’s a tidal wave. I angle my body away, fix my vision on the water outside the window and let it ground me like it always does.
Linda must sense my distress because she gracefully directs the conversation away from the loaded subject of my dad and back to her. “I’m doing okay. Some days are better than others.”
A moment of hesitation, then I ask a question that’s always bothered me, but that I was too young to articulate when my father was sick. “How do you handle it? Do you think about it all the time?”
I remember my dad being so sick he couldn’t get out of bed but still playing card games with me.
I’d balance on the edge of his mattress, begging in my high-pitched voice for one more round of Uno, and he’d always agree, at least until the last couple of weeks.
At the time, I didn’t give it much thought, but I think about it now, how that probably took a lot out of him. He never complained, though.
We see so many examples of heroes on TV, in movies.
They look strong and get into loud fights with guns and swords.
The older I get, the more I realize true heroes aren’t like that.
They’re quiet. They don’t need to draw attention to their strength, don’t need to boast about their accomplishments.
They’re just there for the people who need them.
Day in and day out, they show up. That’s what being a hero has begun to mean to me.
I see it now in Linda’s kind smile, her soft eyes.
I see her bravery. She’s a hero too. She answers my question, “It’s always there, like a radio playing in the background.
Sometimes the volume is so loud, like when I’m waiting on a test result or on treatment days, that it’s all I can hear.
Most days I work hard to turn down the volume, so I don’t waste a single moment on things I can’t control.
I ignore it so I can enjoy my time with my family, friends, simple things that bring me joy.
It’s funny how a cancer diagnosis makes you get rid of the fluff real quick.
Before I was a pushover, always saying yes to things I didn’t want to do because I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. I’m not like that now.”
I nod once to let her know I understand.
Helen comes bustling back into the room.
With unspoken agreement, her mom and I busy ourselves chopping vegetables and washing lettuce.
If Helen notices we didn’t get much done in her absence, she doesn’t mention it.
Instead, she slides in beside me, grabbing an onion and a knife.
Within minutes we’re both blinking through tears, laughing at how ridiculous we look.
When I swipe a Kleenex off the counter to dab the onion tears from Helen’s cheek, I try not to notice how she leans into my touch, her eyelids fluttering shut.
Linda notices, though, and the smile she gives me, soft, knowing, almost proud, makes the kitchen feel warmer, like maybe there’s a place for me here after all.