12. Closest He’s Come to a Proper Heir
CLOSEST HE’S COME TO A PROPER HEIR
BEFORE
Standing in front of my mother’s apartment building, I feel a wave of trepidation. “Why are we doing this again?”
“Time. The first hurdle.”
“Right.” It’s likely too late to claim I wasn’t thinking clearly when, after practice one day, Lucas asked to see my weekly schedule.
I explained that most weekends—outside of Pizza Palace and our practices—I spent every minute possible with my mother and sisters.
I did groceries and meal prep, homework help and story time.
Usually, I also did the laundry, the vacuuming, and the bathrooms (because my mother had informed me already that she didn’t enjoy cleaning the bathrooms, as if anyone actually liked scrubbing toilets).
When I told Lucas, he offered to help.
“Think of it as a parallel computing problem. Every chore will take half as much time, because there’s two of us.”
At the time, it sounded logical.
Practical, even, especially given Brody was away on some dorm-wide Lloyd ski trip, meaning we wouldn’t be able to practice as a team.
But now that we’re standing here? I’m realizing this is a terrible idea.
Catastrophically awful.
Because if my abrasive bluntness and not-fun-ness hasn’t scared Lucas away, surely my mother will. And even though I told myself I don’t have time for the life complication that is dating my teammate, the reality is, it was nice to feel seen and wanted.
Unfazed by my silence and stone-statue stillness, Lucas is already walking ahead of me. I grab his hand, the first time I’ve voluntarily touched him, perhaps ever. He pauses briefly, looking down at me with a question in his eyes.
“My family can be . . . a lot.”
He tilts his head, processing, loading his next words. “Makes sense. You’re also a lot.”
I’m so anxious I don’t even laugh.
“Are they really that bad?”
I close my eyes and answer honestly. “Probably worse.”
I take a deep breath, going into full babble mode. “I maybe, probably, definitely should have given you a brief rundown of like our family situation and—”
Lucas puts a light finger against my lips. “Breathe.”
I try. I really do.
“You can tell me nothing or everything. Whatever you like.” He takes my hand and places it on his chest, where I can feel the calm beat of his heart, steadying.
I blink rapidly, trying not to think about the fact that my lips are still tingling from the brief touch, that Lucas’s innate calmness in the face of my meltdown is kind of hot.
It still takes a moment for me to collect myself.
“Short version: My father regularly cheated on my mother, who was fine with it. Staying married to a wealthy adulterer was infinitely better than being single or divorced. She blames me for not being a boy—”
“How would that have helped?” Lucas is genuinely confused, as if I just told him I’m a flat-earther who believes in reptilian humanoid shapeshifters.
My lips curve into a humorless smile. It’s almost cute that Lucas seems to have no awareness of how deeply ingrained sexism is, particularly within certain more conservative Chinese circles, ones in which businesses are supposed to be passed from father to son.
Almost cute.
Because nothing about the reality of my life deserves such a harmless label.
“My mother believes I would have saved their marriage if I’d been a boy.
For as long as I can remember, she’s called me the family’s to seoi gaa, a bad luck charm, an albatross.
Found out a couple of years ago I have two younger half sisters.
They live in China and I’ve never met them, but”—I swallow, because that was likely already too much information, but I’ve already come this far, so—“I’ve always been my father’s favorite.
The closest he’s come to a proper heir, and though we’re not close we’re . . . tangentially aligned?”
I don’t admit how much I hate this part of myself.
My father taught me to mask emotions, to notice the little nuances to other people’s behavior.
When I guessed that one of his subordinates was in the midst of a divorce, he was proud, telling me afterward that it was the perfect time to press the man for longer hours.
Another time, when I suggested one of his handsier business partners, a man three times my age who kept leaning into me, seemed like the type of man who was used to getting away with little crimes, my father gave me a copy of the business reports.
When I found inconsistencies, he was ecstatic.
He bought my mother a car, saying she hadn’t delivered a son but that I was a worthy facsimile.
“Then”—I lick my lips, because this part is still painful to think about, to admit, even to myself—“I stood up to him. It was just once. I thought he was going to—” Hit my mother.
Who told me afterward she didn’t need my help.
That a bruise or two was nothing compared to the comfort my father provided.
“So he cut us off. Not necessarily permanently. He gives my mother bonuses when I do well in school or at a competition, but it’s . . . different than it used to be.”
When I went to private school.
When the bills just paid themselves.
When we lived in a house with a pool and a spa as opposed to an apartment complex where the pool is drained and covered over.
Lucas is quiet for a very long time. His hand, still holding mine to his chest, trembles a little before tightening to an almost painful degree.
“None of that is your fault.”
“I know.” I shake my head, unable to make eye contact.
“No, Lorelai.” He waits and waits and waits until my shallow breathing finally evens out.
Even then, he waits until I look up to meet his gaze.
“None of that is your fault. Your parents’ marriage, the fact that you’re not a boy and that your asshole father apparently chose to be a shit husband and fuck-awful father is not your fault. Understand? Not. Your. Fault.”
I look away again because the words are too much. Objectively, I can see the reasoning, but one man-boy’s earnest words cannot undo years of my mother telling me it’s my fault, of my grandmother assuring me that yes, it was my responsibility. It’s generations of filial guilt against Lucas.
The guilt wins. Every single time.
“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you curse.”
“I curse when the occasion demands it.”
I’m still staring at Lucas’s chest. He’s wearing his good shirt again. “If you still want to go in, we should get it over with. If you don’t want to—”
“I want to.” His fingers squeeze mine to his chest. “If anything, I want to . . . even more, now.”
“Sure.” I nod while trying to pull my hand back. Not a single middle school friend stayed with me. Girls I’d known since kindergarten. Girls who’d braided my hair and known everything about me. “Right.”
Even though I have a key—of course I have a key—I knock to let my mother know we’re here.
She opens the door on a huff. She’s wearing her nicest casual clothes and has her hair pulled back in an updo that looks effortless, but which I know, from when I used to watch as she got herself ready, is quite . . . effortful.
She’s not quite forty, and I’ve always believed that’s part of the problem.
She could pass for thirty-five, maybe even slightly younger on a good day when she’s not bloated from wine and lethargic from not enough or too much sleep.
But more than anything, my mother still thinks of herself as nineteen and hot, trapped in the fairy-tale past where she’s just attracted one of Shanghai’s up-and-coming businessmen and believes everything will be caviar and Cartier.
“Lorelai gave me almost no warning that she was bringing a friend.” She looks Lucas up and down, one hand propped at her hip to better emphasize her four-kids-and-still-tiny waist. “I had to throw on the first thing I could find.”
Lucas misses the not-entirely-subtle hint completely.
He’s likely never stopped to wonder whether women wear designer silk jumpsuits at home.
And so, instead of telling my mother she looks lovely, could practically be mistaken for my sister, he just smiles at her.
It’s unlikely he understands why my mother’s well-traced eyebrows come down, or why her eyes narrow when he tells her, “It is nice to meet you.”
My mother tries again. “I had no time to prepare a proper meal.”
To which Lucas, the Boy Scout’s Boy Scout, tells her quite honestly and sincerely, “I thought Lorelai cooked when she was home?”
We are saved, thankfully, by my sisters.
Wren, who comes out shouting, “Dumpling!”
And Harper, who yells, “Toast!”
My mother shakes her head, telling the girls to be quiet, while I hug each of my baby sisters and reply solemnly, “Dumpling. Butter and jam.”
Lucas gives me a look, and I try to hold an entire conversation with my eyes—that my sisters each have their own way of saying they love me, that it’s so convoluted I couldn’t explain its origins if I tried.
And I have tried.
Lucas’s eyebrows furrow, and I don’t have time to follow up because we’re being pulled through to the living room just as Aurora comes into the room. She’s just turned ten, and when her head dips down, her glasses slide down and almost off.
I sigh, silently, because Aurora’s lack of a nose bridge means she really shouldn’t have chosen such blocky frames. But they were on sale, and Aurora, at barely ten, is almost hyperaware of our financial situation.
“I’m Aurora.”
Lucas crouches down and touches his own frames. “Lucas. And it seems as though we have the same taste in eyewear.” I’m not sure why this elicits a smile . . . but it does. “I’m here to help Lorelai with chores—I’m guessing you’re the one who can point me in the right direction?”