The Second Son's Daughter

She was alone in the apartment, which was not an unusual occurrence. Even in childhood, in the long bygone years when she had still lived at home during elementary school, more days than not had been solitary. In those years, the boundaries had been firm, though, and she would never have done what she was doing now. Her father’s bed took up more than half of the room, yet left a space just wide enough for a locally sized human being to wedge through. Said human being could then sit on the edge of the bed and look out the window which took up half of the far wall and peer out at the city. It was doubtful that they would see much, though, given that the family’s apartment was tucked away some forty floors above the congested streets. The bedroom’s door, always firmly shut during her childhood years, after she’d been permanently barred from seeking parental comfort and replaced with an auntie turned stepmother, had been left ajar on this day. On this day, the afternoon after she had returned home on only hours’ notice in the wee hours of morning and let herself quietly into the unit like an unwelcome thief who just happened to know the main door’s passcode. 

“Oh, my daughter, you came back home? How nice. Tonight, let’s eat and drink together.” Her father had said when he’d noticed the extra pair of shoes by the entrance and popped into her childhood bedroom to discover a form on her bed. “Our first time since even before the pandemic.” 

“Have a good day, Papa.” She had dragged herself up to semi bow to her father before promptly falling back on to her bed to sleep the exhausted, burnt out sleep of the living dead. 

Her slumber had been short before she was again awakened, not by a manager or childhood chum who had noticed her recent activity on social media apps. No, she had been awakened by her stepmother. A deliberately reverberating slammed door had snatched her back to consciousness faster than an ice bath. 

A permanent fixture in the young woman’s life since the age of nine, the older woman had begrudgingly accepted her presence for one reason and one reason only. And that reason was not her father’s resolute determination to stand up for her. No, rather, it was the strongly expressed and unwavering stance of her grandparents. Her father was the only son in a family with three daughters preceding him, and the young woman was his only child. Period. Burnt out with the drama that comes from having a baby’s mama before marriage, he’d never sire another heir. So, though long transplanted and settled in a new country, her grandparents clung tightly to their traditional beliefs. If the older woman wanted anything resembling a blessing of the union, then she accepted and took care of everything in the home that they’d given generous financial support towards establishing for their beloved son, including the kid. 

Once she was certain that she was indeed alone, the young woman had dared to leave her bedroom and happened up the ajar door. And perhaps out of defiance or spite, who cared which? She had not lived regularly in this apartment in many years, having found a way out through some series of dumb luck and misfortunate events turned good by determination, while still a schoolgirl. Still she was not entirely welcome, so cared little for the former boundaries. She crossed the threshold into the forbidden realm of her parents and took in the scene. The bed, the window, the small two-seater divan placed awkwardly in a corner, and the nightstand that stopped the door from opening completely. 

There was nothing special about the nightstand, a lantern style lamp atop and iron claw style feet holding it up. What was in its’ drawers? Why did she care? Maybe it held her father’s will, the bankbook that would finally give her some idea of his actual net worth, or even some special magazines the prudent parent wouldn’t want their child’s precious eyesight soiled by. There was no allure at all. But looking at it had caused something to appear in the corner of her eye, her vision made fuzzy by nearsightedness, so she needed to lean down to see clearly. 

It was an envelope, well-worn and yellowed to brown, tied shut with a wound string instead of a metal clasp. Her father had stuck it between the mattress and bed’s wooden frame on his side of the bed, leaving only a tiny corner visible. Soon the whole envelope was out in the light of day and the string unwound by the careful, delicate fingers of a trained instrumentalist. And the young woman sat on the edge of her parents’ bed pulling from the envelope’s depths the first oddly textured things her fingertips brushed. 

A family portrait, that much was obvious, was an era long gone past and decades before her own lifetime had begun. It was sepia and grainy. A dour face woman sat in a wicker chair. Two children about the same size and close in age stood on either side of her. On her lap was perched a moon-faced infant with sparse hair defying gravity. She looked more closely at the two ambulatory children, one female and the other male, both only just approaching school age. The girl had hair in a short bobbed style with a single pigtail on the very top of her head, while the boy’s hair was closely cropped. She turned the picture over. 

Last New Years Festival, 1967.

Her grandparents had gone off to the mythical Land of Opportunity nearly a decade afterward. At the time, her father would have been a mere toddler, still preferring to be carried rather than put his own chubby legs to good use. This imagery of her family’s known history in her mind was so far removed from the faces from the past staring out at her from a 50+ year old relic. Automatically, she began to run through the known dates and birth order to herself, quickly reaching a conclusion. There was no way. The man this boy would one day become was not the same man who slept atop the mattress under which his childhood photo was concealed from prying eyes and curious minds. Never one to rock the boat or overtly test boundaries, the young woman replaced everything exactly as she had found it and hastily took her leave from the forbidden city within her own childhood home. Even the door was left in precise pre-entry position.

That evening, her father came home early, much earlier than his usual pre midnight return. In the two decades since he had come back to his country of birth with his only child in tow he’d become little more than a well paid mid-level corporate slave, putting his parents’ countless sacrifices and foreign education to great use. Her stepmother took out her unexpressed resentment over a blazing stove and clanging pots while father and daughter sat on either side of the living room’s coffee table, a standard deck of cards and bottles of liquor between them. In between hands, they took shots of smooth but heady clear spirits. Though she had learned how to drink during the years she had spent away, she had learned how to do it so well that she easily kept pace with him. 

“Why are you getting your old father so drunk, my daughter?” He chuckled as he held his glass for her to refill it. 

“You’re drunk already?” She quipped incredulously. “Papa is really very old now!”

Slow yourself! She reminded herself silently. Her natural reservedness and stifling formalness went the way of the dodo bird when she exceeded her limit of alcohol.

Once her own glass was filled she held it slightly lower to his, and they clinked, downing the entire burning slug in one go. 

“Who has been in here!” 

Her stepmother’s thunderous shriek pierced the air immediately chasing away any drunk haze.

The young woman looked at her father who looked back at her equally confused. He pinched the bridge of his nose, causing his wire frames to become crooked on his face. Why hadn’t he listened to his parents about marrying a woman he’d known for less than a year? He worked himself unrelentingly towards an early grave, and yet she never failed to find something to complain about. As he rose on legs beginning to feel unsteady, his daughter forgot the words of warning she had just finished giving herself and poured herself another shot. By the time he reached the bedroom, she had downed it in a single gulp, regurgitating a bit, and shifted from sitting cross-legged on the floor to rest on her knees. It was, of course, the proper position to request forgiveness sincerely.

The envelope, with an expert wrist flick, thwacked down on the young woman’s head as she waited, regarding the two filled to the brim glasses on the coffee table with forced interest.

“Didn’t you ever hear that curiosity killed the damn cat?” Her father lectured with a tired, obligatorily stern tone. 

Twice, thrice he brought the envelope down on her head before he tossed it down on the ground beside her. Half of a single thick coiled strand of black hair now entwined with the string that closed it, the other half left behind when the envelope was yanked out of its hiding place for the second time that day.

“Pick it up!” He commanded as he resumed his former place across from her. “Pick it up and do what you did earlier.” 

But he was not angry. He did what he did out of obligation, maintaining order and the fundamental boundaries that shaped the relationship. There were just some things a kid shouldn’t do in their parents’ home, even if that kid had already come of age. 

“I don’t need to know.” She shook her head slightly. “In fact, I think I’ll go help auntie….” 

Again all out of obligation because in reality she would not move from her knees until he was appeased or got whatever trouble was clouding his eyes off his chest. Behind the harsh look keeping her right where she knelt down was something else, something completely separate from the tested boundaries of their relationship and the booze warming his blood. 

Her stepmother’s continuous nagging went someplace far away, as her father relied on his upbringing and education to put up a linguistic barrier around the grave conversation he would now share with his child. His wife’s family had never had aspirations nor means to aspire to a brighter future in some distant locale, so she remained at best fluent in a few dialects. A single switch in languages and she instantly became an outsider in her own home. 

“Tell me something, my daughter…..” He began in perfect accentless English. “What were you most grateful for when you woke up this morning?”

She knew that he didn’t really want an answer, though, so allowed him to continue after a moment or two of pensive silence, choosing carefully what he would say next.

“Your family? No, that doesn’t matter much to you. Your career? Probably, and who could blame you?” At this, he paused to pick up his full glass, the other hand stroking his closely cropped hair. “What about your health, though? What would you do if you suddenly fell seriously ill? And what if you had injured yourself during all those years you spent at the conservatory or after you got that damned contract offer ?”

The young woman dared to pick up her own glass. This was not about her. There was a point in the drunk man’s ramblings. All she could do was listen and wait.

“What if you never had any of those opportunities because your body and mind already failed you before you were old enough to realize it.” His voice softened slightly and waggled fingers gestured for the still untouched envelope. “And the parents you take for granted decided you weren’t worth a penny’s investment?” 

Her father pulled from within, not the family portrait which she had studied earlier, but a much smaller wallet sized picture. This he held out to her, and she was afraid to take it, despite recognizing the same handwriting from the other photograph. However, after several seconds, she accepted it turned face down and read the writing. The personal name was one unknown to her, although the family name was the same as her own. 

“What are you waiting on, my daughter?” Her father made his glass touch her glass at a slightly higher angle, then emptied within a split second without waiting for her reaction.

Last visit, September 1975 the writing read.

She took her own shot just as rapidly, sensing she would need it, and turned the picture over.

How had she not seen this earlier? Her heart was sick, although this picture was also almost fifty years old. The flat face, unfocused eyes, small low set ears, and slightly protruding tongue. 

A question started to form on her lips and she reached for the bottle to drown it. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t need to know.

“So you’re not the only son?” was all she could manage to say to her father.

“I’m the only son that matters, my daughter.” He snorted. “The only one your precious grandparents will ever mention. But that’s not what you wanted to ask.” 

Where had this secret son gone?

She put the small picture down on the coffee table and slid it back across to her father. 

Before he could object, a high-pitched banshee screeched. “Dinner for the drunk is served!”

In the few seconds her eyes were turned away, the picture disappeared, and turning back to see it gone, she knew instinctively it would never see the light of day again. 

“Pretend you never knew.” Her father instructed as he finished winding the string back into place and flicked the envelope into her chest. “Put this back where you found it…..and be glad you don’t know what it’s like to know your parents chose you to thrive at someone else’s expense.”