Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [47]
She had no intention of dishonoring anyone. She just wanted to live her own life. She had a college degree now and a career in banking. Maybe it was just an entry-level job as a loan officer in a downtown bank, but she thought of it as a stepping stone to a future in high finance. She would not live hand-to-mouth as her mother had done. She would not have to sew late into the night to make enough money to eat, or sell precious pieces of her soul, as her mother had sold her paintings, to keep a roof over their heads. Someday she would have plenty of money and she would buy her mother a big house, and it wouldn't be anywhere near Chinatown.
The familiar smells were already turning her stomach. She usually made her mother meet her downtown in a café where they could eat with a fork, drink Diet Pepsi, and munch on potato chips, instead of sipping tea and using chopsticks to scoop up endless piles of rice. It wasn't that she didn't like Chinese food. She did. She'd grown up on it. But she had a love-hate relationship with everything Chinese.
Sometimes she wondered what kind of ethnic background her father had. Was he Italian? Irish? German? English? Was he a mix of something like she was? The only thing she knew for sure was that he wasn't Chinese.
Crossing the street, she quickened her pace. She didn't know why her mother had asked her to come so early, but the tension in her voice had persuaded her not to argue. Still, she didn't want to be late to work. She took her job seriously. She supposed she took everything seriously, but she didn't know how else to be. It had become clear early in her life that she had not brought joy and lightness into the world with her birth. She had to work hard to make that better. To be worthy of being born.
She took the steps to her mother's apartment two at a time, grateful for the tennis shoes she wore to work. They might look silly with her business dress, but they were comfortable. At work, she would put on her heels and add three inches to her five-foot-two inch frame. Then she would be ready to deal with the world. But that world would have to wait, at least for a few minutes. She had this world to deal with.
Her mother opened the door before she could use her key.
"What's wrong?" Alyssa asked quickly, sure now that something was up. It wasn't that her mother was crying or looking stressed, but rather that there was an unusual light in her eyes, an energy in her stance, maybe even a bit of anger in the tilt of her chin. Anger? That wasn't Jasmine Chen. Her paintings could be angry, but she was always quiet, complacent, accepting of her fate, her penance, her punishments. Sometimes Alyssa wanted to shake her mother, tell her to get mad, to tell her family to go to hell—that she didn't deserve to be treated like some lesser human being just because she'd had a child outside of marriage.
"Come in." Jasmine took her hand and pulled her into the apartment. "We must talk."
"You're not sick, are you?"
Jasmine shook her head. "No. It's not that. I wasn't going to say anything, but somehow they know. I don't know how they know, but they do. They'll come to see you. I couldn't allow that to happen, not without talking to you first."
Alyssa couldn't make sense of what her mother was saying. "Okay, start over and slow down. Who knows what?"
"Your father."
"My father?" Alyssa asked in wonder. She'd asked her mother many times to tell her about her father, to describe him, identify him, but Jasmine had always refused.
"He is hurt. Hurt badly."
"You know where he is? I thought you didn't know where