Even though my mom never loved talking too much about my dad, she did tell me the story of how they met and would bring it up casually at times. Maybe she was avoiding the topic of my dad being this fraught, angsty thing in my life. They met their first week at ArtCenter, a top art school in Pasadena.
“Yes, they did,” Sunny says. “And you know your mom had to be won over by your dad, right?”
“Obviously. Mom loved that part of the story.”
She smiles, but it’s sad. “I’m sure she did. But do you know why she resisted him?”
“She thought he was annoying,” I say automatically. “He came on too strong.”
“Maybe he did,” she says, her voice quavering again. “But the real reason was…” Her voice trails off and her gaze goes to my bar cart. “Can I have something to drink?” She gets up before I can answer and walks briskly over to the cart, grabbing the first bottle she can find—whiskey. I watch as she pours herself a very full glass. With nothing else. “Whoa,” I say.
After tossing half of it down, she looks me in the eye, still standing. “Your mom didn’t like your dad because…because she knew he was her fated.”
“Sunny. What are you saying?” I ask, my voice sounding way calmer than I feel.
After my mother died, her life was a cautionary tale. When I was ten, my ballet class was performingSwan Lakefor our big recital, and I was deeply disturbed by the story. The couple weeks leading up to it, I had fallen into a melancholy that my grandparents couldn’t snap me out of.
Then, as Halmoni helped me get ready for the recital, I confessed to her that I was afraid of being left behind by everyone in my life. I thought of the prince who plunged to his death once he realized he couldn’t be with his true love. How they could only be together in death.
“People who find their fated don’t die alone,” Halmoni said to me firmly while plaiting my hair into a braid, then pulling it up into a tidy bun. “We are fated to find our person.” The unspoken words were that my mother, having abandoned her fate, had died without a person.
My father.
Sunny looks like she might throw up. “I am saying that, when your mom met Matthew, she knew who he was. Because Halmoni had read Evette’s face when she turned eighteen and given her his name.”
“No, no that can’t be right,” I say. “Mom rebelled—she rejected all of this!”
“Yes, she did. But Halmoni insisted Evette should know so that she didn’t end up with one of the bad boys she was always drawn to. So, Evette knew who Matthew was when they met, and wanted nothing to do with it. With him. But he was persistent. He was completely smitten by her.” Her voice softens and I don’t know how to feel. What the hell is this? “They started dating a couple years into school and then she got pregnant with you.”
I clutch my chest. “But…but he left.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “He did. He couldn’t handle having a kid that young, and your mom, she wanted to have you. She told me she knew you were special, and you are!”
I ignore her attempt at kindness. “But it makes no sense! How could he leave her if he was her fated?”
Sunny looks miserable when she sits down next to me. “I don’t know, honey. We were all shocked. It was beyond comprehension that this could happen, and that it could happen to Evette, who was so rebellious about it in the first place. Their relationship already so hard-won.”
“Sunny. Everything…everythingI believe about life and love is based on fated matches.” My voice gets louder, angry. “Have you all beenlyingto me this entire time?”
“No!” She pauses after she says it. “I mean, in a way yes, but not about fateds and past lives. You have the gift, you see it for yourself!”
“Then why lie about Mom? And why tell me now?” I get up andstart pacing the room. As if sensing something, Betty follows me, swooping back and forth. It’s oddly comforting.
“Because of Ellis!” she cries out, emotional in a way that is so unlike Sunny. “I saw that fight and then I saw you talking to Ellis after. And I realized we’ve made a huge mistake keeping this from you. Not to mention your reaction to Daniel saying he wasn’t sure about being a dad. I saw how it shocked you. And I just…I don’t want you being with someone just because he’s your fated!”
“My god, Sunny—that isthe entire fucking point!” I am yelling now, my heart thudding in my chest, my skin feeling itchy and hot.
She drops her head into her hands. “I know, Cass, I know. But I owe it to your mom to tell you. I can’t let her daughter make the wrong decision because of this!”
The anguish in her voice mellows my anger and instead fills me with intense sadness. I stop in front of her. “What do you mean you owe it to Mom?”
“Do you think Halmoni would have let me wait until I was in my late forties to meet my fated if it wasn’t for Evette?” she asks.
“You mean, Mom dying?” I ask, so discombobulated.
She shakes her head. “Halmoni always regretted Evette staying with your dad,” she says, her eyes shiny with tears. “She thinks because she forced her fated on Evette that Evette…Well, all the things that went wrong were because of that. And so, with me, she gave me room to figure it out. And we decided to make it a rule that we wouldn’t read faces without explicit permission. See? If it wasn’t for your mom, I would have also been coerced into finding Stu much earlier. Much earlier than I was ready. I owe my happiness to her.”
I take in a breath, on the verge of tears. “Sunny. This is so much to take in.”
