Chapter 17
Cynthia was sitting in the center of a domestic hurricane and trying her very best not to get sucked in.
“I thought when you said you’d be coming early, you’d be helping with dinner,” her mother said, moving gracefully from a burbling dishwasher to the seven-burner stove where she expertly flipped sizzling eggplant slices in a white Le Creuset frying pan before floating back to the kitchen table to wipe an invisible speck off a gold-rimmed serving platter.
Perched on a barstool at the oversized kitchen island, Cynthia’s head spun as she watched her mother whirl about, and she gripped the edge of the granite countertop for good measure. “I put out the dinnerware and set the table,” she pointed out. “Besides, you know I don’t cook.”
Sipra was already back at the stove, her arm deep in a pot of biryani.
It was always a shock to Cynthia’s system, watching her mother, the wife of a millionaire, toil away in the kitchen when so many of the affluent clients she worked with relied on hired cooks or had food delivered daily.
But for all her parents’ luxury vehicles, teams of gardeners to tend to their sprawling lawn, and monthly trips to Vancouver to shop for the designer brands they loved, nothing could beat the taste of home.
And while Cynthia appreciated the home-cooked meals, she’d never desired to learn how to make them, much to her mother’s disappointment.
“It’s not too late to learn,” Sipra said. “Who knows…”
“Spare me,” Cynthia interrupted with a flippant wave of her hand. “I don’t need another lecture on how cooking is an important wifely duty.”
Her mother’s back stiffened but she didn’t turn away from the stove. “I wasn’t going to lecture you. I think we both know you’re not interested in what I have to say.”
The dullness in Sipra’s tone took Cynthia by surprise. She was used to razor-edged disapproval, sharp reprimands. “What were you going to say?” Cynthia said tentatively after an uncomfortable silence.
“What I was going to say,” her mother said, “was that you never know when learning how to cook will come in handy.”
“How so?”
“Well, these are the foods you grew up with, that you enjoy.” Her mother’s voice was soft over the clatter of a wooden spoon against metal. “And I won’t be around forever to make them for you.”
“Is that why you learned to cook?”
Sipra flashed her daughter a quick, faint smile. “My mother and I were very close. Cooking was an interest we both shared.”
Cynthia studied the hypnotic rhythm of her mother’s arm moving in smooth counterclockwise circles.
She’d heard similar words before, from both her mother and grandmother, but in the past they’d often been part and parcel of the interrogations about who she was dating, when she would get married, and at what age she planned to have children.
But right now, the words seemed different, loaded with something as indecipherable to Cynthia as the spices in her mother’s most complicated dishes.
They doused Cynthia in the same kind of sad longing that washed over her whenever she inspected the collection of framed family photos her mother kept on the mantel over the family room fireplace.
Those pictures were arranged chronologically and told the story of a young couple who had decided to move across the world in search of a better life together.
After that first sepia-toned wedding portrait of a serious groom next to his wide-eyed, beautiful bride, Cynthia was clearly the star of the story, from pictures of an animated little girl, looking happy and carefree with a golf club in one hand, her father’s hand in the other, to an awkward teenager, looking stiff and uncomfortable standing alone under a tall oak tree in a plum-colored sari.
A part of Cynthia wanted to stand up and bridge that weird, impenetrable gap that seemed to hold her and her mother at arm’s length.
She tried to picture herself at the stove, at her mother’s side, her hands clumsily reaching for the wooden spoon.
Given her impatient nature, she would probably burn dinner but at least she could learn. Or, at the very least, listen.
Cynthia still felt like that stiff, awkward teenager and she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Oh, she wanted to but that wasn’t her. Besides, even if she did, they’d probably end up arguing as they often did.
Or her mother would make some veiled, passive-aggressive comment and Cynthia would storm out, leaving it up to Sipra to recount the story of why their headstrong daughter was skipping family dinner.
Cynthia could just picture her father shaking his head, his eyebrows lowering like the standards he had long ago set for his daughter.
It was hard to get it right with her parents, to be herself with them without upsetting invisible lines drawn shakily in the sand.
With a little sigh, Cynthia ducked behind her phone as the sharp pinging of the timer sent her mother hustling to the oven. When Cynthia let out a little squeak, her mother glanced around wildly, trying to locate the second timer she’d forgotten about.
“What? What happened?” Sipra asked when Cynthia squeaked again. She hurried to the counter, her eyes lasering onto the phone in a death grip in her daughter’s hands.
But Cynthia was heedless to the questioning slant of her mother’s eyebrows, the way she braced her hands on the other side of the large kitchen island, palms pressed into its granite surface, as she leaned forward expectantly. Cynthia saw none of that, so shocked was she by what was on her phone.
“I…I…” The words trailed off as Cynthia’s brain cells fought to formulate lucid thoughts. “Where’s Dad?”
Her mother pulled back, her face pinching for a fleeting second before her usual cool mask was back. “In his study.”
Phone clutched in hand, Cynthia slid off her stool and hurried to the entryway, where her father’s office sat to the left of the front door. His door was cracked slightly, just enough to give Cynthia pause.
As a child, she’d spent countless hours in her father’s office, playing with Hot Wheels cars at his feet as he single-finger-tapped on an ancient computer, or sitting across from him at the glass-topped desk, completing her homework, her chest puffed up at the thought of doing something as important as “working” with Daddy.
She’d been his little shadow; he’d been her best friend.
Until she’d allowed teenage hormones and the thrill of having a hot older boyfriend cloud her judgment, prompting her to abandon everything she’d worked so hard for.
Hanging out with Jimmy after school had been much more tempting than fighting to keep her number one spot on the track team, late-night phone calls more satisfying than studying for perfect grades.
For three and a half lovesick months she’d ditched her father, and after that, time spent with him depended on her mother’s presence, family events, and the odd, quiet car ride.
For all of Cynthia’s affinity for getting right to the point and speaking her mind, she’d never known what to say to her dad, whose admiration she’d lost as quickly as Jimmy Reilly had dumped her via text message.
Cynthia glanced down at the phone cradled in the palm of her damp hand and reread the last line of the email her father had forwarded to her just a few minutes ago. Let’s chat about this together , it read.
Together.
That one little word propelled Cynthia forward on feet numb with anticipation and enough nervousness that she didn’t poke her head through the crack in the door as she initially planned but practically fell in, the crown of her head charging forward as if busting through a finish line.
Wonderful.
Her father’s head snapped up at her fumbling intrusion, eyes blinking owlishly. “Cynthia! Are you all right?”
Cynthia’s cheeks burned as she straightened and swiped at a clump of hair that had found its way into her mouth.
Holding her phone aloft, she pointed at the screen.
“You wanted to chat? Together?” The last word sounded pitifully hopeful, and she wondered if he’d even heard her over the thundering of her heart as it tried to escape the confines of her chest.
Rich stared at her phone blankly for three long seconds. When he finally spoke, his voice was incredulous. “I didn’t mean we needed to chat tonight .”
The phone slipped a bit in her palm’s sweaty grip, prompting Cynthia to fold her hands together in front of her. “No time like the present,” she said brightly. Moronically. “Your email said you have a client you wanted me to work with?”
“Ah, yes. Ben Schaffer. He’s an old friend and client of mine who owns a chain of luxury spas. They’re located in Kelowna, Kamloops, and…” Her father trailed off, squinting at the ceiling as he tried to remember.
“Invermere,” Cynthia blurted out. She could have listed the names of all three spas, which one was the most expensive to visit, and the names of all of Ben Schaffer’s three daughters, two of whom Cynthia had gone to school with.
As far as Cynthia was concerned, knowing her father’s business—understanding every nook and cranny of Kumar Construction—was her duty if she was going to take over one day.
Staff morale might’ve slipped through the cracks but as far as the bottom line went, Cynthia knew her shit.
But her father never seemed to notice or appreciate that, so she refrained from reciting everything she knew and waited.
“Right, Invermere.” Rich’s nod of approval hit Cynthia right in the solar plexus in the most pleasing way and she fought back a wide, goofy grin. “He’s looking to rebrand and so I thought…”
Cynthia pressed her lips together.
“Well, naturally, I figured you’d be the best fit.”
The best fit. Not a good fit. The best .
Cynthia wanted to squeal. Jump up and down, clapping her hands like a deranged seal.
But CEOs didn’t do that, nor did they pump their fist in the air with a resounding fuck yeah .
But, oh, the temptation was strong. There was nothing “natural” about it; her father rarely complimented her in this direct, personal way, and she couldn’t remember the last time he’d passed along a client to Cynthia.
“I agree,” she said in a voice that belied the Mardi Gras–level celebration whipping through her insides.
She sounded calm, confident, and in charge.
To her own ears, she’d never sounded more like her father at the head of the boardroom table, running the show.
“I’ll get in touch with him first thing Monday. ”
Rich nodded, his eyes flitting down to his phone, a subtle but classic dismissal Cynthia was all too familiar with.
Her feet, however, remained rooted to the spot.
The thrill of his approval—of her father noticing her and acknowledging her worth—was a high that she wanted to ride for as long as possible.
Her eyes roamed to the console at the left side of the room where three gold photo frames sat in a tidy row, angled so precisely that it was clear Sipra’s hands had played a role in styling the room.
Cynthia wandered over and picked up the nearest frame. It was a picture of her as a toddler, taking what looked to be first steps toward her father’s waiting arms.
“Wow, I was one chubby baby,” she commented.
Her father made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.
Cynthia picked up the second frame. Her again, this time maybe seven or eight years old, in a soccer jersey and long black braids, her foot balanced on a soccer ball.
“Soccer was not my sport,” she murmured to herself. She’d never excelled in team sports. Even as a young girl, she’d wanted to be everywhere at once, play all the positions, and excel at every single thing on the field.
“You were the fastest runner on the team,” her father interjected.
When Cynthia turned in surprise, he had abandoned his precious phone and had swiveled his chair to face her, eyes on the frame in her hands. Belatedly, Cynthia remembered that her father had coached her team through those two short years of outdoor soccer.
She half smiled. “Yeah, that’s why I developed an interest in track,” she said, replacing the photo carefully so it lined up nicely with the others again.
Cynthia picked up the last frame, unsurprised to find yet another picture of her. It was taken a few years after the soccer photo: she and her dad standing next to their bicycles, matching grins on their sun-kissed faces.
“We tried to do every trail that summer,” her father said, joining her at the console. With a great deal of tenderness, he took the frame from Cynthia’s hands and examined the picture. “Some of them were very challenging for an eleven-year-old, but you were determined.”
Cynthia studied her father, but he wasn’t looking at her. His soft gaze was for the picture in his hands, for a moment in time they could never get back.
“My ambitious little girl,” he murmured.
Cynthia took a small step back from the onslaught of memories lined up neatly on the tabletop and wondered why her father’s hands had been so quick to catch her first wobbly steps as a baby but not as a teenager.
Why he couldn’t look past those mistakes to see that she had learned her lesson and had worked to make herself the best version she could be.
Why the mistakes of a young woman had set the blueprint for the rest of their relationship.
Without realizing she was doing so, Cynthia’s hand tightened around her phone.
Whether she was grasping for that high that had occurred only a few minutes ago or grounding all her frustration and desperation into the poor, defenseless smartphone pressed uncomfortably tight into her skin, she wasn’t sure exactly what to say.
She wished more than anything she could change the past, change her father’s mind.
But he’d passed a client—no, one of his old friends —on to her. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
And it meant the world to her.