After about ten emails, Leigh wanted to speak to Charlie. He warned her that he’d have to find a time when he was alone because he hadn’t yet told Lin Su what he’d been doing.

You just tell me when you’re available, Charlie, and I’ll make the time, Leigh sent back.

When Charlie found a private moment to call his aunt, Leigh said, “You really must tell your mother right away. This is her family. She deserves to know.”

“That’s why I haven’t told her,” he said. “Because I asked and asked and she made up stuff, like my biological father was dead, and wouldn’t talk about any of it.”

“You still have to tell her,” Leigh said. “Maybe once it’s out, she’ll actually be relieved. Pleased. I’ve wanted to find her for years. It seemed like she was so briefly part of my life.”

“But then why didn’t you look for us? We weren’t hiding.”

“Oregon was the last place on earth I expected you to turn up, for one thing. For another, my mother said that when they discouraged her from having a baby while unmarried, she went back to her Vietnamese family on the East Coast. I looked for Huang Chao. I admit, I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but I looked. I spoke to a couple of people who had also been immigrants at the same time and they made no connection. But now that I know she’s alive and well and that I’m an aunt, I want to see you both. Maybe help you put the pieces back together.”

“Why didn’t her adoptive father want to know where we were?”

“It’s very hard to explain him—he’s a selfish man. Unemotional and self-centered and busy with his life. He saw Lin Su as my mother’s idea, someone in the past. You have to understand Gordon—he was hardly ever around. When he was around, he was on his phone or in his office. He attended our graduations and Karyn’s weddings. He presides over family holidays as if we’re all close. But I don’t believe he’s ever phoned me just to chat. He’s just not much of a father.”

“I found him first,” Charlie said. “But I couldn’t find a working email address or anything.”

“He’s a retired partner now, consulting, traveling, playing a lot of golf. He has an email address—it’s one of the ways we communicate, through texts and emails. Very likely he just ignored your emails.”

Charlie laughed. “Like me and my mom. That’s how she keeps tabs on me. And if I don’t text right back, look out.”

“Tell me, Charlie—did your mother go back to her people?” Leigh asked.

“In a way. She worked for a Vietnamese family in their shop. We lived with a lot of different people I don’t even remember while she worked and went to school to be a nurse. But I had a lot of colds and bronchitis and allergies so she learned the best climates—she couldn’t take the East Coast and I couldn’t take the winters or allergens, she said. We’ve been living in Oregon since I was about four.”

“And she did all that with no help from her adoptive family,” Leigh said, a sadness in her voice. “I want you to tell your mother that I’d like to see you both. Please, Charlie.”

“Let me think about it. You don’t know her. She gets upset if I even ask!”

“Then be brave, but do it. No more living in the shadows. You have family. Your biological grandmother might be alive for all I know. I’ve read that many immigrating Vietnamese were separated from their families for many years, always searching. Have you ever noticed the number of websites dedicated to finding your Vietnamese family?”

“Where do you think I started?” he asked.

“Lin Su’s adoption was sudden and mysterious and my parents said they didn’t know much of anything about her, but I find that hard to believe. I really can’t see them adopting a child they knew nothing about. They weren’t above outrageous stories if it served their purposes. You tell your mother we’ve been in touch and I’ll reach out to my father and ask a few more questions.”

“Can’t we wait till I’m about thirty and self-supporting?” Charlie asked. “That would be a good time to tell her.”

And his aunt Leigh laughed.

* * *

Iris tried talking to her mother-in-law about this current divorce insanity, but all she could get out of Gwen was that it was about time she lived her own life. She was tired of being married to a grumpy old man who didn’t want to do anything but go to the gas station every day.

“But, Gwen, he took you on a cruise!” Iris said.

“For all the fun that was. He hardly spent a minute with me.”

“Is this about those women?” Iris asked.

“He asked the same question. Funny how that comes right to mind, yet no one wants to talk about how terrible it was.”

“You two need counseling,” Iris said. “I’ll find someone for you.”

“Well, I’m not going to counseling with him! It’s too late for that.”

“Then just tell me why? After all these years, after a wonderful family and grandchildren, just tell me why?”

“Oh, darling, it isn’t about you!” she insisted. “It’s not you or the kids or the new baby! I’ll always be your mother-in-law, sweetheart. I’ll always be Nana to the baby. And I’ll help you with babysitting, of course I will. I might get some kind of job, however.”

“Gwen,” Iris said sternly. “Why?”

“He doesn’t love me, Iris. I think he never has, but my generation... We get married and that’s it. Even if we have to live without love in our lives.”

“Gwen, Norm is a little grumpy, but he...”

“A little grumpy?” she asked, laughing outright. “He didn’t talk to his youngest son for how many years? I can’t get him to wear a clean shirt to the table! He doesn’t care about me! I’m setting him free. I’ll be going on my next cruise alone!”

* * *

“It’s the cruise,” Iris told Seth. “This is all about the cruise. Norm was delightful on the cruise. He had a wonderful time. He was very social. There were those widows who flirted with him and he loved it. Gwen’s feelings are very hurt. That’s all this is.”

“He wants to know if he can use our spare room until he finds his own place,” Seth said.