Chapter 17 #3
April stood up, unsure what to do other than to flee. But Cristiano grabbed her by the arm.
“Let go of me, Cris.”
“Did you really think that I wouldn’t be able to tell?” Cristiano said. “How dumb do you think I am? How long were you going to keep this up? April . . . what’s wrong with you?” He asked this last question pointedly, staring at her like she was crazy.
“I’m going for a drive,” April muttered, yanking her arm back.
As he released her, Cristiano’s shoulders slumped. “What hurts the most is that you would keep something from me that is actually
so amazing for us. I don’t understand why you hate me so much, April.”
Without looking back at him, April walked out of the house. It looked like it was going to rain.
As she drove, she thought about Cristiano’s words. When April had first discovered she was pregnant a few months after Lunar
New Year, she had no idea how to feel. Numbness consumed her, and it still perpetuated within her.
At first, she nearly told Cristiano many times. But each time she opened her mouth, something stopped her. Maybe it was because
she knew he would run off and tell Roses, or that he might use this baby to bind them ever closer together.
But there was another reason, deep down, why she could not bring herself to tell him. So deep that April herself was not sure
it was.
After some time, April pulled her car over to the side of the road, the Pacific Ocean roiling with wind beyond the cliffs
of Palos Verdes. Over the past few months, she came to this scenic overlook whenever she could no longer bear to be around
Cristiano; this patch of grassy knolls backdropped by the sea had become her refuge of safety and happiness.
Sure enough, her refuge was already there, waiting for her.
Breathing in the scent of vanilla and sandalwood, April walked toward the woman with the long silvery lilac hair blowing wildly
in the wind, sitting on the park bench facing the infinite horizon.
“April!”
Chinoiserie Fan’s face lit up at the sight of her, like an inviting hearth beneath the dark clouds brewing in the sky. April
fell into her arms, and the two women kissed lovingly, holding each other close.
But when April pulled away, there were tears on her cheeks. “Oh honey, what’s wrong?” Chinoiserie asked, instantly concerned.
“He knows, Serie,” April cried, placing a trembling hand on her belly. “Cristiano knows about his son!”
Outside of a nondescript concrete building in Venice Beach, Hyacinth placed her palm against the biometric scanner next to
its black glass door. With a beep, it slid open to the pleasant synthy beat of a Bonobo track.
She turned around and smiled, a true beam of joy that shone from every corner of her perfect face. Are you ready, Middle Sister?
Wearing an uncharacteristic smile of equally blissed proportions, Iris nodded back. I’m ready, Little Sister.
Together, the younger Sun sisters entered MiNT Wellness.
Following the trickling water moat that flowed toward the welcome desk, Hyacinth and Iris approached the stunning receptionist,
who was dressed in the same outfit as them: very demure metallic gray tracksuits that were zipped up all the way to their
chins.
“Hello, Shannon,” Hyacinth said to the receptionist.
“Lovely to see you again, Shannon,” the receptionist replied back to her, with a playful toss of her blond bob. “You as well,
Shannon,” she said as she nodded sweetly at Iris. “You ladies can go right in for the ceremony. SANTI is waiting for you.”
“I love coming here,” Hyacinth sighed as they headed down the hall past the receptionist, descending deeper below Venice,
passing other beautiful women dressed in tracksuits.
“Yes,” Iris replied dreamily. “Coming here always renews my Sense of Self.”
“Welcome back, Shannon,” one of the lounging women called out.
Hyacinth gave a little wave to her, then turned back to Iris. “I know I keep saying it, Middle Sister, but I’m so glad that
after all these years you’ve finally started coming here with me.”
“Why, hello there, Shannon!”
Iris sighed. “After what happened with Weiwei, I had nowhere else to go. I just appreciate that you shared this special place
with me, Little Sister.”
Hyacinth put a comforting arm around Iris, ecstatic at the validation. “We all have to hold space for ourselves to heal. You
are no different. How many times was I a wreck over Isaac and his shenanigans? And how many times did MiNT Wellness heal me!
And look at Isaac now! Look at what transformation he’s brought to MiNT, as blessed by SANTI himself!”
“I’ll follow you to the ceremony, Shannon!”
“Truly,” Iris said with a bit of wonder. “If even MiNT has changed as much as you’ve said it has, our possibilities are endless.”
At this point, Hyacinth and Iris, along with a group of cheerful women all in gray tracksuits, arrived to a lush indoor garden,
where koi fish glittered under UV sunlight in a lily-padded pond.
“Look, there she is!” Hyacinth cooed, looking adoringly at the person in the center of this garden. She was joined in by a
chorus of the other MiNT women, all of them clamoring to praise the precious sight.
“The Shannon! Oh, look at the Shannon!” they cheered, clapping their hands.
Sprawled underneath an imperial bonsai tree, draped in shimmering gold that parted just enough to reveal a flawless bump on
her belly, the expectant mother graciously received her admirers with an outstretched hand.
Like a resurrected Eastern goddess of fertility, Shannon Shoo was resplendent in her newfound glory.
As soft drops of rain dotted their bodies, April and Chinoiserie leaned against each other, stroking her burgeoning stomach
as its inhabitant kicked and turned. Far into the distance, a lightning storm danced on the surface of the Pacific, flickering
at the horizon.
“Oh Serie, what am I going to do?” April sobbed. “He wasn’t supposed to find out yet.”
Chinoiserie ran her hand through April’s hair, massaging her scalp soothingly. “Just breathe, honey. Everything is going to
be okay, I promise.”
Sniffling, April sat up. “It’s my fault. I got sloppy and revealed us. Then again . . .” She looked down forlornly at herself.
“It’s pretty hard to hide now.”
As carefully as she could with her impeccably long nails, Chinoiserie wiped April’s wet eyes. She nodded solemnly. “Yes, this
was inevitable.”
April shook her head. “I’m so sorry to drag you into this mess, Serie. I don’t know how you put up with me. I should have
left him a long time ago, but . . .”
“April, you are in an impossible situation. I don’t fault you at all. You’re thinking about Meadow, and how leaving Cris would
affect her. And Cris is also the father of this baby boy. Honey, it’s complicated!” Chinoiserie stroked April’s cheek as the
women stared into each other’s eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry. We’re going to figure this out.”
April laughed through her tears. “I guess the greatest fault of all was falling for you all over again.”
“I told you it was fate that we met again,” Chinoiserie replied, her warm brown eyes twinkling.
“I wouldn’t have made it these past eight months if it wasn’t for you, Serie. Being loved and protected by you,” April said.
When April missed her first period a few weeks after Lunar New Year, she hardly noticed. She and Cristiano had just uprooted their lives, and what with finding a new school for Meadow and moving in with her bewildered in-laws, April had figured it was just stress.
But by the time she missed her third period, April was on the precipice of panic. She drove to the nearest CVS where she took
the test in a restroom smeared with graffiti, and this was how she found out. She and Cristiano were fighting every day, and
even though she knew that this baby could be exactly what he had wanted—and indeed, what Roses had wanted all this time—she
could not bring herself to tell him, and certainly not her mother.
But unable to hold onto this crushing secret herself, she reached out to Chinoiserie. Like a guardian angel, Chinoiserie rushed
back to April’s side, steadfast and unwavering as ever. She did not judge April for concealing this pregnancy; she knew all
too well any child of the exiled Sunfang princess had to be protected.
Especially since, as April found out on a surreptitious visit to her ob-gyn, this child was going to be a boy.
Yes, unknown to everyone who had disowned and forsaken her, April was carrying a great-grandson of Big Boss Sun, and her pregnancy
was months ahead of Bessie and Shannon.
April Sun’s baby boy, the leading heir to the Sunfang Trust, was due in two weeks.
The rain began to fall faster, and Chinoiserie reached into her bag and took out a Christian Dior umbrella adorned with her
namesake design in blue and white. She opened it above them with a pop.
April giggled as she looked up at the umbrella. “Even your rain gear is couture.” The umbrella depicted an intricate scene
of silk-clad royals frolicking beside a stream during ancient times. “Serie, you are the chicest knight in shining armor.”
Chinoiserie laughed too. “Even in distress, we need to look cute!”
April rested her head on Chinoiserie’s shoulder, her worries melting away. The rain all around was now coming down in torrents,
but their umbrella shielded them, with the warmth of their bodies pressed together. “These past few months are such a blur.
I sometimes wonder when it was that we fell in love again.”
“I know what you mean,” Chinoiserie replied. “There isn’t an exact moment I can pinpoint. Spending all this time with you,
it’s like I just fell into you again.”
“This is not just anytime! I’ve been disowned by my family and I’m pregnant with another person’s baby. Serie, no one else
would do what you’ve done for me. What you’re still trying to do. I didn’t just fall in love with you again . . . I fell even
deeper!”
Chinoiserie kissed her on the forehead. “Loving and protecting you is what I was put on earth to do, April Sun. And Meadow . . .”