Chapter 18 #2
limbs reaching every corner of the wall. April was already winded from that short run, breathing hard.
“Who do you talk to all the time?” Cristiano demanded. “Why do you seem so different whenever you come back?”
“Look at the way you’re talking to me!” April said. “Who would want to come back here?”
Cristiano stomped down on the floor so hard that the entire house shook. “Why won’t you answer me, GODDAMMIT!”
April gasped, her back falling against the wall. “Cris, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m the one who’s scary? You know what’s actually scary? Hiding a fucking pregnancy from your husband!” Cristiano yelled.
But finally, he stepped aside, letting her pass.
April took the opportunity to go to Meadow’s bedroom, but when she got to the doorway, she did a shocked double-take. The
room had been completely ransacked, Meadow’s stuffed animals flung out of their neat formation like casualties on a battlefield,
her little clothes strewn everywhere, her twin bed stripped of its mattress and sheets. But what horrified April the most
was a nondescript shoebox that had been discovered by Cristiano and placed on the bed, opened to reveal sonogram photos and
medical documents.
“Now you know,” she said quietly, her back to him in the hall. “Yes. It’s a boy.”
But then she heard him crying.
When she turned around, Cristiano was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands. “Cris . . .”
Cristiano looked up at her, his eyes wide with torment. “Is there another man? Is that why you didn’t tell me?” He held open
his palms. “Am I not the father, April?”
With much difficulty, April sat down as well, facing him. “No, you’re definitely the father, Cris.”
He began to sob. “Then why!? Why did you hide it from me? Do you know the torture it’s been, having you shut me out all these
months? What did I do to deserve this?” He stared at her, and it struck her how scared he looked. “April, why do you hate
me so much?”
April reached out to take his hand into hers. “Cris, I don’t hate you. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“This was everything we wanted,” Cristiano said. “I don’t understand why you’ve made it so bad.”
“It’s everything you and my mom wanted,” April said. “No one has ever asked me what I want.”
“You kept him though,” Cristiano said. “Can I feel?”
April nodded and leaned back, letting Cristiano touch her for the first time since Lunar New Year. Slowly, her husband reached
out and placed his hand on the steep curvature of her abdomen. April did her best not to flinch.
“A little boy,” he breathed. “Finally.” This time, he took her hand, gently kneading it. “Ape, am I not a good father to Meadow?
Was I not a good father to Lewis? Why are you pulling away from me when we should be closer than ever?”
“You are an amazing father,” April relented, because it was true. “But as a husband, I don’t . . .”
“You still don’t trust me, I understand,” Cristiano said. “But you can at least believe me when I say that all the mistakes
I made, I made for the good of you and Meadow.”
April looked down and nodded. “I believe that.”
“You have to forgive me now, April. We’re going to be parents again.”
April let out a deep sigh, incredibly conflicted as she looked at Cristiano. She was thinking about Chinoiserie. She wasn’t
sure what to do.
But as she sat in Meadow’s wrecked room, she felt an immense guilt about how her daughter would deal with a divorce, especially
after she had already been so roughly torn out of her life in Malibu. For the sake of her daughter, April realized that she
needed to know exactly what was going on with the Suns before she made any more life-altering decisions.
April Sun let out a long sigh. “We should go to Wayward’s baby shower.”
There are only a handful of skyscrapers in Los Angeles.
Standing atop his, Sunfang Global President Wayward Sun could see miles and miles all around.
Squinting from the evening sun, he put on his sunglasses.
Behind him, to the east, were the San Bernardino Mountains in the hazy distance, where he and his family would be celebrating his baby in a couple days.
Then he turned to the south, easily spotting Gardena nestled in South Bay. He had not seen April, Cristiano, and his goddaughter,
Meadow, since Lunar New Year. He knew how stubborn April was, that she likely blamed him just as much as she did Roses for
her current situation. But he also hoped that she had taken into account what he had said to her in the desert.
It was inevitable that Roses was going to find out about Wayward’s deception and the true gender of his baby. But Wayward
had heard the rumors—sightings of April around town looking like she might be pregnant.
If April had indeed taken his suggestion and was truly pregnant, and if she was carrying a boy, then perhaps Wayward could
pull off the greatest feat of all: Sun Clan reunification. Roses would get the grandson she had always wanted, leading to
a reconciliation with April. Wayward and Jamaal would have their daughter, and hopefully Roses would forgive him enough to
allow him to continue to lead Sunfang Global so that he could carry Promessa to term as well.
Wayward walked over to the edge of Sunfang Global Building and stared at the long way down to the ground. It was not lost
on him that less than a year ago, he had been hopeless and high out of his mind, ready to end everything right here on this
very same edge.
But now he was sober, back with Jamaal, and running his family company. A few unborn babies were all that kept everything
in balance. As Wayward stared at the edge, he made a silent prayer that he would never get to that point ever again.
“Not afraid of heights, I take it?”
Wayward turned to see the elderly man coming up the emergency stairs. “I used to be,” Wayward replied. “Until I realized something.”
Mr. Tung leaned against the massive SUNFANG sign and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “And what was that?” He lit a cigarette
and offered one to Wayward.
Wayward shook his head. “I realized that heights weren’t what I was afraid of. I was afraid of myself, that I might jump.”
He walked away from the edge.
Mr. Tung considered this for a moment, then laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Wayward asked.
“That sounds like something your grandfather would have said as a young man,” Mr. Tung replied. “You do look like him.”
“Is that why you ended up staying with me?” Wayward said with a grin. “Nostalgia?”
“We certainly had our differences, Wayward. We still do. But I stayed because I discovered something promising about you.
You’re as much a stubborn sonuvabitch as I am.”
“Glad we found some common ground.”
This truce was hard-won. On Wayward’s first day as president, Mr. Tung had declared in front of the entire Sunfang Global
board that the last act of his career would be to permanently block Sunfang Promessa from even a cent of company finances.
Given Mr. Tung’s long-standing clout, Wayward’s ambitions seemed dead on arrival.
But Wayward surprised him. Just a few months later, Wayward shocked the business world by announcing that he had independently
secured a billion dollars of funding for Promessa, successfully bypassing Mr. Tung and his office cronies.
“Are we alone?” Wayward asked.
Mr. Tung pulled out his empty pockets to show that he, like Wayward, had left his phone downstairs. “Just us and the sun,”
he answered. “We can speak freely.”
“As crazy as my situation is, you are one of the few people in the world who can understand it, Mr. Tung. I’m glad you didn’t
retire.”
Mr. Tung bowed his head slightly. “Family intrigue and phone tapping are a part of the Sunfang legacy. Having witnessed three generations of your clan, very little surprises me. Which is why when you managed to, I was intrigued enough to stick around.”
Wayward was scared to ask the question, but . . . “I look like him, but am I anything like him?”
“You didn’t know him well, did you?”
Wayward shook his head. Big Boss Sun was the type of grandfather who only saw his grandchildren long enough to pat them on
the head at holiday parties. By Wayward’s early teens, Big Boss Sun was already exhibiting signs of dementia. But something
told Wayward that his patriarchal, toxic-masculine grandfather might not have approved of his lifestyle.
Mr. Tung did not say anything for a good ten seconds. “You’re as ambitious as Big Boss,” he finally replied. “But not as intelligent.”
Wayward grinned. “Do you think he would’ve approved Sunfang Promessa?”
Mr. Tung scoffed. “Asking that old bastard for approval was like praying to God for rain. And praying is bullshit.”
“Was that Confucius?”
“Don’t be a shithead. Big Boss didn’t want us to work for his approval. He wanted us to do whatever it took to be successful.
Big difference.”
“Sounds like good leadership,” Wayward admitted.
“Wayward, I say this with a lot of gravity. Sunfang Promessa has to be a success. Confidence in your leadership is low. Your
family dramas are affecting public opinion. If you are anything less than exceptional, Sunfang Global won’t survive.”
Wayward let out a deep breath. “I know.”
“You seem to think that this windfall of yours, how you managed to finance Promessa, was sheer dumb luck. Right time, right
place, right course of action.”
“And it wasn’t?”
Mr. Tung tutted. “May Roses forgive me, but there is no such thing as luck. There are no coincidences in business.”
“Maybe I have an unseen benefactor,” Wayward said, though he felt a sudden unease.
“Come now, Wayward,” Mr. Tung said with another laugh. “There’s no such thing in your world.”
Teddy Grinspan’s mantra when it came to being Mr. Roses Sun was simple: “Ignorance is bliss.” For more than a decade as the
Sun matriarch’s unassuming husband, he ignored her family’s intrigues and lived his semiretirement blissfully as a result.
Of course, he caught rumblings of strife here and there, but he always treated them like Angelenos do earthquakes, by minding