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Jia had told Mimi not to bother picking her up at the airport, she’d grab a taxi. What was most important was that her grandmother
was there staying with Dennis until his loved ones could arrive.
Until Henry could get there.
It had been hard seeing Henry opposite her at the meeting. His cool, unflinching demeanor frightened her a little. It was
opposite to the warm Henry she’d come to know . . . the man with the heart beating under that suit. Danced with grandmas,
made poop sticks for ailing elders, held her tight, and overwhelmed her in every way.
But she held on to the belief that they had come to understand each other. That he knew why she had to be a part of the lawsuit.
And that he knew she knew why he had to show up and fight it.
The driver dropped her off in front of Mimi’s where there were more cars than usual parked on her street.
As she let herself out she looked to her front door and then to Dennis’s.
Where should she go first? When she’d last checked in with Mimi, Dennis was sleeping comfortably, pain meds in tow and no lasting damage.
Still, it would hurt for a while, and Jia hated thinking of Dennis in pain.
She’d drop off her stuff and then go visit him.
When she opened the door, she heard the voices. More than just Mimi’s. And some that didn’t sound familiar . . . at least
not in this space.
She stopped in her tracks.
“Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?” she said as they turned to face the guest in the house.
Immediately, in the presence of her parents, Jia reduced herself to a guest here. They’d invaded this space that she’d for
weeks felt safe in.
She had trouble getting a breath in. But she’d long known how to behave in front of her parents. She shrunk inside herself.
Closed the windows and doors to her heart so that the emotions would be shut in. Without even having to remind herself, she
put the mask on and hid behind the expressionless version of herself. She snuck a peek behind them where Mimi sat on the couch,
much the same.
And for some reason, that made Jia angry more than anything.
“Jia, we could ask you the same. I think we specifically told you to head straight to Florida and not come back here.” Her
mother’s voice had a practiced and produced lilt to it that created ambiguity around her background. Jia remembered people
asking her mother where she was from. And she’d let them list their guesses—England, Singapore, Hong Kong. She would never
come out and answer she was a second-generation Korean American born in New Jersey.
“I’m not going to Florida. I’m sorry, but I’ve been thinking about it and that’s not where I want to go. I think . . .” Jia shook her head. No, those weren’t the right words. “Actually, I know that I want to be here.”
“Absolutely not. You’ve wasted enough time here this summer doing nothing. And that stunt you pulled with the lawsuit in New
York? Jia.” Her mom was exasperated, and possibly angry. Jia was used to the former. But as controlling and unforgiving as
they’d been with Jia’s mistakes, she’d rarely heard the latter.
“It’s my fault. I called her. One of the residents took a tumble, and I was upset and needed my Jia to comfort me,” Mimi explained.
“She was a dear and came right away.”
“Mother, Jia is your granddaughter, not your best friend. And she’s hardly capable of handling issues in a crisis. Why you
feel you need to turn to her is beyond me,” her father said. “You’re enabling her to be rudderless, ungrounded, unemployed
with no prospects.”
Jia thought she could handle her parents’ disappointment, yet again. But for them to go hard on Mimi, it just wasn’t right.
This was her fault. She’d brought this on herself and her grandmother.
Jia nodded to the mug her mother held in her hand. “Mom, can I refresh your tea for you?” She walked over to them and gave
her mother a kiss on the cheek and a gentle, barely there hug. She turned and hugged her dad next. His back went ramrod straight,
as it always did when Jia—or maybe anyone, for that matter—initiated affection. “It’s good to see you both.”
She took the mug from her mother’s hand and walked to the kitchen.
With her back to them all, she let her head drop just an inch and tried to gather herself.
She hadn’t been expecting them here, that was for sure.
But mixed with the stress and emotion of worrying about Dennis and how he was doing, along with wondering what shoe was going to drop next from her parents, Jia was barely hanging on.
A small hand rubbed circles on her back, and she heard the whisper of Mimi next to her. “It’ll be okay.”
Jia tried to regain her composure. She didn’t want Mimi worried about her. “It will be.”
Jia refilled her mom’s tea and joined them all in the living room. She sat in the uncomfortable chair that she and Mimi had
agreed they’d donate and replace. Jia just hadn’t gotten around to it, along with the number of other things she was supposed
to have done to help Mimi this summer.
“Um, as you know, I was just in New York—”
“Jia, how many times do I have to tell you not to start a sentence with the word um? It makes you sound uninformed,” her mom said.
Jia had no idea how many times she’d been told this. Likely in the thousands by this point. She’d been hearing about all the
words that made her sound uninformed, uneducated, unsophisticated, and just plain unworthy since she was a kid.
“What happened with your lawsuit against the Bakerson’s Group?” her dad asked.
“What, a Google Alert didn’t come through yet?”
“Jia.” Her father’s tone had an edge of warning to it, and Jia stopped herself. She wanted to ask them why they were here.
She wanted to beg them to let her live her life. She wanted to ask them to leave so she could go and check in on Dennis. “We
shouldn’t be surprised that you’re here, and yet I had hoped that maybe, for once, you would have listened to us and gone
straight to Florida.”
“We’re actually not here to speak to you, Jia. We’re here to discuss some business with your grandmother.” Her mother only ever referred to her mother-in-law as Mimi or as Jia’s grandmother.
“Jia is welcome to stay and listen. It affects the whole family, I’d say.” Mimi’s words caused a wave of fear and concern
to run through Jia.
“Grandma?”
“Oh no, I’m fine, honey. Don’t you worry. You know that. Strong as an ox,” Mimi said, winking at Jia. Jia released all the
air she held in her lungs with relief. “But your parents here thought they’d stop by, having flown all the way across the
country from Florida, our favorite place in the whole world—” Mimi’s voice was laced with the sarcasm Jia loved “—to tell me it’s time to sell my house and
move. And get this, darling,” Mimi said, laying it on thick. She placed a hand on Jia’s knee and leaned in for a dramatic
effect. “They’ve already secured a real estate agent to help me.”
“What?” Jia’s parents were overprotective and overbearing, but they’d never actually overstepped. Until now. “That’s not cool.
Mom, Dad . . . this is Mimi’s house. And you don’t get to tell her what to do with it. What are you thinking? This is seriously
too far.”
There was a knock on the door. It wasn’t the rhythmed signal of a neighbor. No, it was the knock of an outsider. All heads
turned to the front entrance.
Jia got up to see who it could be. And when she opened the door, she wished she could say she was surprised.
“Hey, Jia. Good to see you. I was asked to come by.”
And there, waiting to come in . . . was the snake, Matthew Singleton.
“What are you doing here?” Jia asked. “Mom, Dad, did you contact Matthew behind Mimi’s back?”
“It was actually Mr. Singleton who contacted us. Apparently the market is prime right now. And since Mimi is not getting any
younger, we thought it would be more comfortable for her to move to Florida with us. It will be good for you both. On top
of it being a good financial decision,” her mother explained.
Jia’s stomach dropped. She was used to her parents trying to control her life, but they’d never really taken the choice out
of her hands . . . yet. But it seemed that was exactly what they were doing with Mimi right now. “How could you do this? Absolutely
not. Mimi, you don’t want this, do you?”
“I do not want this, Jia, no,” Mimi answered. Her voice was strong and certain.
“Oh, Jia. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s business, and it makes sense. You know the people here need more help than they’ve got.
Many of them are selling their homes, making some money, and living in assisted-living facilities where they get the support
they need. Where nurses can help them eat and move around and keep them occupied. It’s a good decision.” Her dad sounded like
he was the expert of those at Sunset Hills, when he had no idea what the residents here were like, what they were capable
of.
“Is that how you think of me?” Mimi asked. Jia grabbed Mimi’s hand and held it tight. Her grandmother was vibrant and full
of life and able to take care of herself. “Someone on the verge of death who needs some extra help just to get by each day?”
“Mother, you’re eighty-five years old. You should not be driving, forced to take care of yourself, responsible for things like medication and health care. We can sell your place and move you to a group home in Florida. We’ll be close and can monitor the staff taking care of you.”
It was all the proof Jia needed that her mother had no idea what she was talking about. Everyone knew that among the people
at The Sunset, after a certain age, you never gave the exact number. Mimi was “in her eighties,” not “eight-five.” Jia wouldn’t
allow her parents to put some judgment and an expiration date on her grandmother just based on age.
“Absolutely not,” Jia said. She would not let them do this. Did they have the power to make Mimi do this against her will?
How had Matthew gotten so many residents to sell their homes already? Jia didn’t know the legalities of everything behind
all this. And she was no match for her parents’ brilliant legal minds. They’d find loopholes in everything.
She’d made a mess of everything. She couldn’t protect Mimi. She’d pushed Dennis too hard, and he got hurt. And she couldn’t
protect the others from Matthew coming in and pushing some of the residents out of their homes.
“Okay, emotions are running high, and clearly there’s more discussion to be had. Why don’t you guys discuss it all as a family,
and I’ll come back tomorrow to talk details for putting the house on the market,” Matthew said. He reached out and shook Jia’s
father’s hand and leaned in to give his mother a kiss on the cheek. He turned his body toward Mimi and Jia on the couch, but
they both dropped their heads, unwilling to even look at him.
“I can’t believe you’d do this,” Jia said to her parents, tears in her eyes. She’d lived her whole life feeling like she’d
disappointed them. Today, her heart broke as she realized they had disappointed her.
Jia stood up from the couch and made for the door to leave. She couldn’t be here even one minute longer.
“Jia, where are you going?” her mom called out.
“Let her be,” Mimi said. “Let her be.”
Jia rushed out the door into the pink-filled light.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Jia sat at her favorite corner where she’d watched the sunset almost every night here in Palm Springs, her safe place. After
leaving Mimi’s, she’d gone straight to Dennis’s house to make sure he was okay. She hoped that she’d see Henry there. But
he’d gone to the hospital to speak to the doctor and to the pharmacy to pick up more pain medication for his grandfather.
He hadn’t come back by the time she left.
The sky was showing signs of changing from day to night. She headed to her spot at her favorite time of day. It was when the
pressures of everything around her went to sleep like the sun. It was when she could still her mind and trust that tomorrow
would be a new day, another chance for everything to be okay. Sunset had always offered her perspective and peace. She needed
both today.
And her grandmother, Mimi, was the one to give this to her.
Jia patted the seat next to her on the curb. Mimi came and slowly let herself down. Jia watched and suddenly realized how
getting up and down from the ground might be difficult for Mimi. She reached over to help her, but Mimi shooed her away.
Jia felt ashamed that there were so many things she just hadn’t considered about the older residents here. Hadn’t she yelled
at Henry for this exact thing? And here she was wondering if she’d been blind to it all. There had to be a middle ground,
where people were allowed to live as they wanted, to their fullest potential, as they aged. And yet the world would consider,
respect, and offer help as it was needed.
“I have creaky knees and my balance is off, Jia. But I’m neither dead nor dying. So get out of your head.”
Jia smiled at her saucy grandmother.
“Are they gone?” she asked.
“Yup, left shortly after you did.”
“How long had they been there?”
“A few hours. Mercilessly trying to get me to agree to sell the place. But you know me, my love. I’m made of tougher stuff
than they give me credit for. I make my own decisions about my life. And, if you’re willing, I’d like to sign over the power
of attorney for my finances and my health to you, when the time comes,” Mimi said.
“What? I’m not responsible enough. I make mistakes with the important stuff. I’m not reliable for all of that,” Jia said.
“Get your mom’s and dad’s lies out of your head. That’s not at all who you are. You are responsible. You are reliable. But
most importantly, you lead with love. I trust you more than anyone in the world.”
Jia couldn’t stop the tears if she tried. So she let them flow down her cheeks as she leaned against her grandmother, placing
her head on her shoulder like she had since she was a little girl.
“I don’t know, Mimi. I feel like I’ve messed some shit up. I came running here to escape from my problems. I tried to hide
from my life here at The Sunset, and I ended up ruining everyone else’s in my wake.”
“No, honey. Seems to me you came here and found yourself. And in doing so, you saved us all.”
Jia let out a sob, and Mimi wrapped her arm around her, patting her shoulder.
“You’re doing great, Jia girl. You’ll figure it out for yourself.
I know you will. But you can’t do it by running away from your problems. Plus, where you gonna go?
Seems like you found your destination right here.
So plant those feet and face life head-on. ”
Her words rung in Jia’s ears. She knew Mimi was right. She just wasn’t sure how.
The sun continued its journey down to the horizon, the sky having almost completed the cycle of the colors it rotated through
every night. The process was beautiful, no doubt. But Jia came out here for more. She came out here for the promise that there
would always be another day.
What would Jia do with her next day?
And as the day turned into night, tomorrow’s plan began to take shape.