Chapter 4 #3
a bit pathetically. “Same as it is in the West.”
Her niece downed her glass and grabbed at the bottle, only to find it empty. “Well, too bad for Mom, because not only did
I fail as her protégée, but I also failed as a mother! She has never gotten what she wants out of me, so now her only means
of happiness is to torture me!” She slammed the bottle of wine onto the table.
A snippy restaurant host suddenly dipped his head in between them rather forwardly. “Can I get you two the check?” he asked,
but it was not really a question.
Iris nodded apologetically at him as April blew her nose with the tablecloth. “She can go FUCK herself,” April snapped. “I
don’t care if we all starve in the afterlife or whatever shit it is that Master Chu says!”
“April, pull yourself together and listen to me!” The sternness in Iris’s voice surprised them both.
Iris leaned toward April and grabbed her by the hand. “Your mother is not trying to torture you. It is far worse than that.
She is cutting you out completely.”
“Cutting me out of what?” April looked confused. Iris was squeezing her hand hard and it was hurting.
“When is the last time you spoke to Wayward?” Iris demanded urgently.
On the top floor of the Sunfang Global Building, Wayward nervously entered Roses’s lavish office, lit gold by the magic hour outside.
He found his aunt seated on her couches in the center of the room.
Next to her sat her old pit bull Houyi, who stared solemnly at Wayward as she brushed his snow-white coat.
“Roses, let me just say—” Wayward began, hesitating at the doorway.
“Come sit, Weiwei,” Roses interrupted and motioned next to her, calling him by his Chinese name.
Wayward sat next to Roses, attempting to pet Houyi, but as usual the dog bared his teeth at him. So he leaned back instead,
hoping he didn’t look too nervous.
“Roses,” he said again, “I know that I lost my cool back there, but that Mr. Tung—”
Roses cut him off again. “I have told you many times that while it is true that you are my nephew and a grandson of the founder
of Sunfang Global, you are not of Big Boss Sun’s paternal bloodline. This may not seem like a big deal to your generation,
but to old Chinese traditionalists like Mr. Tung and his cronies, they will always be able to hold this against you.”
Wayward hung his head. “I let my temper get the best of me. I was supposed to go in there to prove that I was worthy of what
you envision for me. And I let you down, Roses.”
For years, Roses had been dangling the role of company president in front of Wayward, an almost mythical post at Sunfang that
had been glaringly unfilled for a generation, ever since his Uncle George had vacated it decades before. Wayward had gone
into the boardroom today knowing that if he impressed his superiors, Roses would have the leverage to offer him the position.
He had worked for years to get to this point, and with one impulsive outburst, he had dashed away all hopes.
When his aunt did not reply, he glanced up to find that she was not looking at him, but rather past him. He turned around.
On the wall above her desk was a massive portrait of her deceased father, referred to by everyone in the corporation—and within the Sun Clan themselves—as Big Boss Sun.
Big Boss Sun was portrayed as a tall and daunting man in a black suit, with silver hair and bespectacled eyes.
Wayward would never admit this, but everyone else in his family agreed that he was the spitting image of his maternal grandfather.
He made brief eye contact with the stern man in the portrait but quickly looked down again. Indeed, the merits of Big Boss
Sun’s controversial legacy were extremely questionable, and Sunfang Global’s history reaped the rewards of many past socioeconomic
and environmental injustices around the globe. But if he were given the chance, Wayward could change that, starting with overdue
outreach and reparations. With all its influence and resources, there was so much good that Sunfang Global could do, if only
he was given that head seat at the table.
Roses finally spoke. “There are those like Mr. Tung that would say that you are the opposite of your grandfather, Weiwei.
And it is true that your politics do not align with the traditional values of Sunfang. Yet I still chose to mentor you, over
my own daughter.”
Wayward nodded appreciatively. “You took me under your wing right after the lowest point of my life. After rehab, you gave
me purpose. I’m sorry to disappoint you today.”
“Let me finish. Weiwei, you are more like Big Boss Sun than you realize. You are both passionate and unafraid to fight for
what you believe in. You are both perfectionists who inspire those around you. And most importantly, you are both innovators,
boldly taking risks where so many are complacent.”
“Roses . . . what are you saying?”
His aunt finally broke eye contact with the portrait of Big Boss Sun and turned back to his grandson. “I’m saying that these
are all qualities that I see in a future leader of Sunfang Global.”
Wayward leaned forward. “How did you do it, Roses? Yes, you are the eldest child of Big Boss Sun, but you are a woman in a
patriarchy. How did you make yourself CEO of this company?”
Roses suddenly laughed, surprising him. “Nephew,” she replied, “now you are asking the right questions.” She stood up and
walked to her desk. “I made myself . . . undeniable.”
Wayward pondered this as he looked after her. “How do I do the same?
Roses sat down at her desk, folding her hands together. “Wayward, it’s time we talk about our family,” she replied. “And your
lineage.”
April sat there aghast, her mouth wordlessly wobbling like a dying fish, as she listened to Iris’s explanation of what Roses
was planning with Wayward. By the time Iris concluded, April had sobered up completely. She took a sip of cold tea.
“And you’re sure of this?” April asked softly. “How’d she even get the idea?”
Iris decided to skirt past this, despite knowing the very troubling answer. “We all know how desperate your mother has been.”
“She really has finally abandoned me then,” April said, her face numb and her voice faraway. Her eyes were scarily blank.
Iris struck. “We need to stop her, April. We need to stop them.”
April shook her head, already beaten. “What’s the point? Roses and Wayward hold all the cards. We’ve already lost.” Within
April there was that screaming again, yet her actual voice dropped down to a whisper. “All because Lewis—” she began.
“Think about Meadow,” Iris interrupted, determined to keep her niece focused on their present danger. “What about Meadow?
If you can’t fight for yourself, fight for your daughter. Because if Roses gets her way, Meadow’s future will be compromised.”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “Shouldn’t the Sunfang Trust rightfully belong to Meadow, as the eldest of her generation,
regardless of her gender?”
Whether Iris agreed with this or not was not important; she knew exactly what she was doing. Indeed, at the mention of Meadow, April snapped back into reality. She looked back at her aunt with new eyes and nodded. “Okay, Auntie Iris. You lead,” she said. “What do we have to do?”
Iris dropped a black Amex card onto their bill with a clatter.
“War,” she snarled.
And with the promise of their alliance finally actualized, the two women bowed their heads together and began to strategize.
As Wayward slammed out of his aunt’s office, his head was drowning. Feeling the edges of another panic attack coming on, he
ducked into the emergency staircase down the hall and tried to stop hyperventilating. But his breathing only intensified as
their strange conversation grew louder in his head.
What the fuck had just happened?
When Roses had given her grand speech comparing him to Big Boss Sun, he had expected it to end with her offering him a business
plan to salvage his promotion. But instead, she had thrown him a mind-boggling curveball.
Lineage? Succession? Heirs?
What his aunt had revealed to him had been shocking—that the office of Sunfang Global president was always meant to be a role
within the Sun Clan passed down via their male bloodline, and that this succession was part of the unwritten company bylaws
that the board would always uphold.
Furthermore, as someone who was not a lineal male of the Sun family, Wayward did not qualify!
Wayward had tried his best to keep calm, but it felt like his world was crumbling in that moment. “Roses,” he managed to say,
“then why am I even here at Sunfang Global? I thought you had been mentoring me for the job all along. We’ve been talking
about the president role for more than a year.”
Roses’s eyes narrowed at him. “Wayward, I will never stop mentoring you. That is why I think there is a solution to all this.”
Wayward did not reply. Something about this all felt very wrong to him.
“When your Uncle George left this company,” Roses continued, “the board considered dissolving the role of company president
altogether. But for the good of our family, I asked them to keep the position unfilled, in case George ever had a son.”
“A son? But George has Felicia and Lola,” Wayward countered.
Roses shook her head. “It was in Big Boss Sun’s will that in the event that George did not have a son, then the first boy
born to any of your generation would be the man to continue the Sun Clan lineage.” She stared pointedly at him. “And that
is where you come in.”
“But I am a Kwok, as you just reminded me,” Wayward snapped, his heat rising. Never in his life had he ever raised his voice
at his Aunt Roses, but his current decibel was coming dangerously close. As if in response, her pit bull, Houyi, raised his
head and growled in warning at him.
“Well,” Roses said, shifting in her seat, “therein lies your grandfather’s solution. Wayward, if you can provide the next
heir to my family, if you father the boy who will one day inherit the role from you, then clearly you are meant to be this
generation’s leader at Sunfang Global.”
Wayward had been speechless. What his aunt was saying was madness, and furthermore, it went against everything he believed
in. He had hoped that this company was ready for change, but this—this reasoning was archaic and repulsive. He had actually
thought, foolishly, that his family was better than this.
Without looking back at his aunt or the portrait of Big Boss Sun, Wayward had bolted out of her office without saying goodbye.
Now he was hiding behind the emergency exit, sitting on the staircase, trying not to suffocate on the air in his own lungs.
Like before, that hellfire was burning through him, consuming him from within.
He suddenly thought of his cousin April again, but this time it was a conversation they had shared right before she quit Sunfang Global three years ago.
“You’re hoping to change this company,” she had told him bitterly, “but the only change that happens will be to you. Our family changes for no one.”
He tried to control his breathing, remembering what he had been taught at the rehab clinic.
“Five . . .”
I fucked over April for no reason.
“Four . . .”
I fucked up with Jamaal for no reason.
“Three . . .”
Fuck, I could really use a fix.
“Two . . .”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. This isn’t working.
Gasping for air, he gripped the railing of the emergency stairs and looked all the way down at forty-four flights of Escher
madness that seemed to spin along with his racing mind. For a moment, he felt beckoned.
Scared of what he might do, he shoved himself away from the edge and fell backward onto the ground, groaning in pain as he
landed hard upon the seat of his gray suit pants.
Wayward was unhappy . . . so desperately unhappy. He missed that solace, that peace, the tranquility that came with a quick
snort of sparkling silver powder up his flared nostrils. He had been clean for months now. He’d stopped cold turkey after
Jamaal left him. But now he could not resist.
Making up his mind, Wayward took out his Sunfang phone and texted Lola, hoping his baby cousin had changed her mind about
cutting him off.