Page 43 of Love In Translation

But he needed more. “Were your parents that bad or did your childish imagination make it worse than it was?”

Kids had a way of exaggerating; he’d done it himself. Some days he thought his nine months spent dragging his tired ass around was the teenage equivalent of being a prisoner. Other days he thought they weren’t bad, just deeply boring. It depended on his mood and emotional buoyancy.

“I don’t know,” Rheo replied, lifting her shoulders to her ears.

His parents had taught him to be independent, but they’d also distanced themselves from his emotional needs. He found it difficult to form bonds. He tended to keep everyone at arm’s length, and it came at the cost of a deeper connection. This was the first time in—well, shit—forever that he wanted to dive deeper. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to understand. Understandher. To do that, he needed more information.

“Tell me about them, Rhee.”

“My parents? What more can I say?”

Rheo looked off into the distance and he waited her out. She would either talk or not. He would wait till later to work out why he was going against the habits of a lifetime to learn everything about her.

Much, much later.

“I’m more like Paddy than like them. She’s organized and thoughtful, and she’s an incredible planner. As I said, I came to live with her when I was thirteen, and my world, for the first time, made sense. I had a routine, a bed that didn’t move, and a view that didn’t change. I was so grateful to feel settled that I emulated her in every way I could. Paddy planned, so I planned. Paddy read and spoke languages, so I did the same. She’s been my role model and I’m terrified of disappointing her. When she finds out how I screwed up and had to take a sabbatical and that I’ve been living here—”

The moisture in her eyes suggested she was getting emotional. “Take a breath, Rheo.”

“—she’s going to lose her shit. And Paddy losing her shit is not a fun experience.”

“Aren’t you overreacting?”

“I wish I was,” Rheo replied, sounding glum. “Paddy has higher expectations for me than she does for the rest of the family. I’m like her, the one who’s living life the way it should be lived.”

Right, she was back to sounding judgmental. There was more than one way of living life, but Paddy, and her granddaughter, had obviously missed that memo.

“People have a right to live the way they want to, Rheo.”

“Paddy doesn’t believe that, but I do,” Rheo agreed. “But you have to be able to pay for the life you lead.”

Fletch scratched the side of his neck and made the connection. “And your parents didn’t do that?”

“No, while they lived very frugal lives, they still never made enough money to pay for their way of life. Instead of doing something else,anythingelse, they borrowed money from family and friends, frequently ‘forgetting’ to pay them back. And if the demands for repayment got too loud, they borrowed money from someone else to repay that loan, with a little extra, and the snake started to eat its tail.”

“Did they borrow money from you?”

Rheo nodded. “More times than I can recall. I worked through high school and college so I had money to send them. They promised to repay it at the end of the week, the end of the month. Then they stopped making promises. Months would pass, they’d ask for another loan, and the cycle started again. Eventually, I just accepted I’d never get the money back. Love was tainted with resentment, respect with disappointment.”

“Something else happened.” He knew there was more to her story. “What else happened?”

Rheo threw her hands up, bemused. “How do you see what I don’t want you to?”

Easy to answer. “I keep telling you, you have an exceptionally expressive face. What else pissed you off?”

“You are so persistent,” she complained.

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t do what I do. Spill.”

Rheo traced a crack in the table with the edge of her thumbnail. “My father borrowed quite a bit of money from Paddy. He promised her, faithfully, hand on his heart, he’d repay it. I had my doubts and so did Paddy. He didn’t pay it back.” Rheo wrinkled her nose. “During one of their arguments, my father demanded to see Paddy’s will. He wanted to know what he was going to inherit from her. She was furious and refused to talk to him until he apologized for being so crass and greedy.”

“And did he?”

“He admitted to asking her about her will, checking that she had one and that her affairs were in order. He insists he never asked toseeher will.”

It sounded like a special type of bullshit to him, and they all needed their heads knocked together.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, Fletch, itisridiculous,” Rheo told him, rubbing her hands over her face. “But you can predict future behavior by past behavior. My parents have never saved, and they are getting older, and even my Peter Pan parents have to, at some point, start thinking of the future. The easiest way to fund their future is through inheriting money from Paddy. Paddy’s pissed because she worked damn hard for the money she’ll leave behind, and my parents, in her eyes, haven’t worked at all. She feels my father is being dishonest because he won’t admit to asking to see her will.”

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