Chapter 32
The Parents
Lenzin
It’s Tuesday, and I managed to keep my two ladies busy enough that they didn’t notice a little project I started on my own yesterday.
I wasn’t fully happy with some of the changes, but by the time the crew left today, the room finally felt right for her.
No longer an empty space that was ‘good enough’.
Not a corner of the house where Hildy had been trying to wedge her life between piles of books on a tiny desk that never quite held everything she needed.
This will give her that space, and a bit more.
The desk alone does most of the talking.
Solid walnut, wide, deep, the surface polished smooth enough that the light from the windows glides across it.
The kind of desk that belongs in an old university reading room.
Something meant for serious thought, long nights, unfinished drafts, stacks of books that seem to breed when you turn your back.
Behind it, floor-to-ceiling shelves line the wall. Empty for now, but not for long. Hildy has enough books stacked around here to fill at least a couple of shelves.
I stand in the doorway for a minute after the movers leave.
Trying to imagine it the way it will look once she claims it. Her books are everywhere. Papers spread across the desk. That habit she has of pushing her hair up into a messy knot when she’s deep in something.
My intelligent, stubborn, wildly attractive future wife sitting right there, surrounded by the work that will eventually gain her a doctorate.
The image settles in my chest in a way I didn’t expect. Then my brain betrays me.
Because it isn’t hard to imagine her standing behind that desk, leaning over it with that focused little crease between her eyebrows. Glasses sliding down her nose. Pencil tucked behind her ear.
Or sitting on the edge of it, long legs crossed, explaining something to me that she assumes I won’t understand.
Which, to be fair. Then there’s the far less academic version of that mental picture.
Hildy sitting on that desk while I stand between her knees, papers shoved carelessly aside, the whole library aesthetic suddenly much less scholarly and much more stimulating, for me at least.
I drag a hand down my face.
“Focus,” I mutter to myself.
Because she hasn’t even seen the room yet, and I’m already turning her office into a fantasy.
Down the hall, Lucy’s room is a completely different energy. Bright. Open. Color everywhere.
I lean against the doorway and look around. Foam floor mats. A low table for projects. Shelves are already filling with books, puzzles, and little science kits that promise to teach children about volcanoes and magnets.
There’s a reading nook by the window with a pile of pillows like the one we put together upstairs
“This is a school,” she declares.
“Sort of,” I tell her.
“For me?”
“For you,” I say. “And maybe some other small people someday.”
She considers that seriously. “Like the babies?”
“Possibly.”
She nods as if this is obvious and immediately begins organizing colored pencils.
She is so perfect. As much as I can’t wait to meet ours, there is a big part of me that wishes we had more time with just the three of us.
I’ve been reading about adoption, and children could feel pushed aside when others come, even in traditional family situations.
We’re far from traditional, and I’m going to make sure she never feels that way.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, the security system app alerting me that the front door has been opened.
Hildy calls out, “Anyone home?”
“We’re doing math!” Lucy calls.
I hear her coming down the hall and look up over my shoulder from my position on the floor when she stops in the hallway.
“We got all the way to ten blocks.” Lucy smiles as she tries to put an eleventh one on the tower, and it falls down.
“What is this?” Hildy asks, looking around with a beautiful, surprised smile.
“It’s school, and play, and books, and colors, and all the things we love.” She pushes up on the floor, and I notice she’s using her casted arm a little more now.
She runs over and, instead of hugging Hildy, takes her hand and pulls her. “Come on, let me show you what Daddy did for you.”
“What did you do?” she asks as she’s pulled down the hall.
I push up and slowly make it to the doorway, where I am gifted the ability to see her take it all in. The desk. The shelves. The reading chair angled toward the windows. The brass lamp already glowing softly on the corner of the desk, as if it had been waiting for her.
“You…” she breathes.
I lean against the doorframe. “You needed an office.”
Her eyes move slowly across the room. “You built me a library.”
Her hand slides across the desk. “This desk probably costs more than I imagined my first car could.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Lenzin.”
“You’re writing a dissertation,” I say simply. “You get a desk. You want a car, you get the safest money can buy.”
She looks at me then, really looks. “I’ll never leave this room.”
I wink at her, “The desk is sturdy, we’ll make do.”
We’re doing dishes when my phone rings.
Hildy glances over at the counter, where it’s vibrating, then at the screen. Her eyebrows lift.
“Well,” she says dryly, nudging me with a hip check that nearly knocks the plate from my hand, “I faced mine this week.”
I glance down, it’s not the group chat, it’s my fucking father.
Of course.
Hildy flicks soap from her fingers and nods toward the phone. “Your turn.”
I exhale slowly. “You mind if I take it in your office?”
She rolls her eyes, “Go.”
I lean down and kiss her forehead, breathing in the faint scent of her shampoo and dish soap. “Love you.”
“Love you.” I grab the phone and walk down the hall.
For a moment, I pause in the doorway of her office, feeling like I’m going to fuck up the vibe in here by dealing with this, but it must be done.
I swipe to answer.
Their faces appear immediately, both framed in the kind of lighting that suggests they had a staff member arrange the call.
My father begins before the greeting even finishes. “Lenzin.”
I lean back in the chair behind Hildy’s desk. “Yes.”
“We’ve been made aware,” my mother says carefully, “that the woman has apparently managed to become pregnant.”
There it is, the way she says, woman. Not Hildy, not the person I love.
“And,” my father continues, “we’ve also been informed that she’s been… digging into family history.”
My grandmother’s history. Secrets that had been buried long before I was born.
“Information,” my mother adds, “that even we were unaware of.”
I fold my hands on the desk. “You’re going to watch how you speak about the woman I love.
” They aren’t used to that tone. “And before either of you decides she’s done something wrong,” I continue evenly, “you might ask yourselves why Grossmutter didn’t trust you with that information in the first place. ”
My father stiffens slightly. “That’s not—”
“You have always had more money than perspective,” I say quietly. “You spend like the world is permanent and uncomplicated.”
My mother’s lips press together.
“And yes,” I add, “so have I, but the difference is, I also make every penny I spend.”
Before the conversation can tighten any further, the office door creaks open and Lucy wanders in like a small storm cloud, climbs straight into my lap before either of my parents can react.
Her face appears suddenly in front of the camera. “Oh, hi.”
My parents simply blink.
Lucy beams. “Hi, I’m Lucy.” She pats my chest proudly. “And this is my Daddy.”
I don’t look away from the screen, just hold their gaze and give them a clear warning.
Be very careful.
Behind Lucy, Hildy rushes into the room. “Lucy, remember the office is for business and—”
Lucy cuts her off cheerfully, and I’m suddenly grateful she can’t see the expressions flashing across my parents’ faces, the tight, brittle kind of almost anger they’re not used to holding back.
“But Daddy does business on the couch and on the ice.”
“She didn’t do a thing wrong,” I kiss her cheek as Hildy scoops her up.
She smiles as she scoops her up off my lap, “And sometimes he has to have adult conversations.”
Lucy giggles, “He didn’t even tell me that.”
As soon as the door shuts and my father leans in close to the monitor, the lighting becomes natural and shows his age.
“This,” he says carefully, “is precisely the sort of complication we were concerned about.”
I lean back slightly in Hildy’s chair. “Which part?”
My mother answers first. “The part where family matters that were intentionally buried are suddenly being… investigated.”
She says, investigated like a curse, as if the woman carrying their grandchildren has betrayed them.
“That history,” I say evenly, “is not yours alone to decide the fate of.”
My father’s expression tightens. “It was your grandmother’s decision.”
“Yes, and it affected more than just her.” I rest my forearms on the desk. “It affects generations.”
My mother exhales slowly. “You’re being dramatic.”
“No,” I reply calmly. “I’m being realistic.”
I glance toward the door Lucy just walked through. “It affects my children. It affects Anna’s children. It affects every generation that comes after us.”
Neither of them says anything.
“So, tell me,” I continue, “why exactly should Anna not know the truth about her own heritage?”
My father shakes his head. “Because dragging something like this into the light serves no purpose.”
“No purpose?” I repeat.
“It complicates things that were resolved long ago.”
I hold his gaze. “Resolved for who?”
My mother folds her hands together. “For the family.”
I study them for a moment. Then I ask quietly, “What does heritage mean to you?”
They both look slightly confused by the question.
“Is it the name?” I continue. “The money? The estates? The land? The reputation people attach to our family?”
My father shifts. “That’s an oversimplification.”
“Is it?” I ask. “Or is heritage the history behind all of that? The truth of how we became who we are?”
Neither of them answers.
I continue before they can redirect the conversation.
“If it’s only the comfortable parts that matter, the wealth, the reputation, the legacy people admire from a distance, then I suppose pretending the rest doesn’t exist would be convenient.”
My mother’s patience thins.
“You’re speaking as if you understand decisions that were made long before you were born.”
“I don’t,” I say simply.
That stops them.
“I have no idea why Grossmutter made the choices she did.”
And that’s the truth. I don’t know what she carried. What she saw. What she feared. I only know she chose silence.
“But I do know one thing,” I continue.
“What?”
“That whatever the reason was, it doesn’t belong to her alone anymore.”
My father’s expression darkens. “You’re suggesting we simply hand family history over to anyone who digs for it?”
“I’m suggesting,” I say calmly, “that it belongs to the people it affects.” I pause. “And Anna is one of those people.”
The silence stretches again.
My mother finally says, carefully, “You’re allowing that woman to pull you into something she doesn’t understand.”
I meet her gaze without hesitation.
“Hildy understands more about history than anyone in this family.”
They don’t respond to that.
“More importantly,” I add quietly, “she understands that history doesn’t disappear just because it makes people uncomfortable.”
My father exhales sharply. “You’re risking a great deal.”
“Maybe.” I lean back in the chair. “But if heritage only means land and money to you, then I suppose this conversation will never make sense.”
Their expressions harden slightly.
“To me,” I finish quietly, “heritage includes the truth.”
No one speaks for a moment.
Finally, my mother says, “We will discuss this again.”
“I’m sure we will.” I end the call before they can add anything else.
For a moment, I just sit here in Hildy’s office, surrounded by empty shelves and the desk she’ll soon fill with books and notes and arguments strong enough to shake entire historical narratives.