Page 28 of Not Your Valentine
I can’t help feeling a touch guilty. I just introduced my family to this nice man, and in a month, we’ll “break up,” and they’ll probably never see him again.
I push that feeling aside.
“Was tonight okay?” I ask as I start driving toward Finch. Taylor seemed comfortable, but I want to be sure.
“Yes, it was great. Thanks for having me.” He already said that to my parents, but he’s repeating it again to me, and the tone of his voice says he really, really means it.
I sneak a glance at him. His expression says it, too.
“I always wanted to have family gatherings like that,” he says, “but it was just me and my dad.”
I hesitate. “What about your mother and her family?”
I’ve never asked before. I assumed he didn’t want to talk about it, but he mentioned his mother’s other kids on our first date, and somehow it feels like it’s the right moment to ask.
When he doesn’t immediately answer, I’m about to take back the question, say it’s none of my business. Perhaps what I already know is the extent of what he wants to tell me.
But then he speaks. “I don’t remember my parents ever getting along. They didn’t divorce until I was eight, but they should have done it earlier. I think my mom saw marrying my father, a Chinese international student, as a way to rebel against her family. I don’t think she ever truly loved him for him. Then I was born, and I wasn’t what she wanted me to be.”
“What do you mean? How could she think that?”
Yet even as I ask the question, I know the answer.
He tells me anyway. “I didn’t look like her—I’ve always favored my father in appearance. Having an Asian husband was one thing, but having a child who didn’t look white…she wasn’t prepared for that. She didn’t bond with me, and she didn’t like that my father wanted me to learn Mandarin, wanted to speak it to me from the time I was a baby. Maybe she wished for me to look a bit ‘exotic’ but be, fundamentally, white. I don’t know. When my dad asked for sole custody, she didn’t fight it. I’d go to see her a few times a year, but that was all. A few years later, she married a white man. Their daughters get the mother I didn’t have and—Helen, what did you say?”
Shit. I was muttering curse words under my breath. And I’m gripping the steering wheel like I’m trying to crush it in my bare hands, in an attempt to control my rage.
How could she do that to him? What a despicable woman. Taylor is one of the most easy-to-like people I know, and she still rejected him? Or has he made himself very likable so no one can do what his mom did?
But that can’t protect you from racism.
“As you can imagine,” he says, “it gave me some rather fucked up views on race when I was young.” He’s speaking very matter-of-factly, despite the pain it’s caused him.
I’m still struggling not to show the rage I feel. “Do you ever see your mom’s family now?”
“They have a big backyard barbecue every Canada Day weekend, with all the extended family. Sometimes I go, even if it’s clear that my grandparents and many of my other relatives don’t think I should be invited. But it satisfies my curiosity, and my cousin and I are close—he’s a year younger than me. I see him throughout the year, but no one else.”
“Does your dad have any family?”
“He has a sister in China. I’ve met her a few times. His parents died a long time ago.”
I can see how a family like mine would be a novelty to him. Yes, sometimes they annoy the crap out of me, but I do love them. And I watched my mom and dad grow up without siblings or cousins or parents nearby, and I saw how hard it was for them, which is part of the reason I want to stay in Toronto. Pursuing a career in academia would have made it more difficult, and that did factor into my decision, even if it wasn’t the main reason I quit my PhD.
My heart squeezes when I think of what Taylor went through. I want to bring him to see my family again, but…this isn’t real.
A wave of sadness washes over me.
I wonder how many people he’s told about his family. I’ve known him for a long time, and he never said anything to me, so I’m guessing it’s not something he shares often, probably because it’s painful. Why did he feel comfortable talking about it today?
When we’re stopped at a light, I reach over and squeeze his hand. “Your mom and her family—they’re assholes. You turned out great, no thanks to them. My parents liked you.”
“Did they?” He sounds hopeful.
That hope does something to me.
I swallow. “Yeah.”
We don’t speak for the rest of the drive to Finch Station. After I put the car in park, I lean over the console and give him a hug—a longer hug than I usually give him at the end of the night. It’s like the hug at the bowling alley…except, no. That was a different sort of hug.
