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Chapter Twenty-Eight
ONE MONTH LATER
The gravestone glinted in the pale morning light, one memorial amongst thousands scattered throughout Goldhill Cemetery. It was so early Olivia and Alina were the only ones there, and an eerie silence hung over the property like even the wind was loath to disturb those resting beneath the ground.
Olivia wrapped her coat tighter around herself, though she wasn’t sure whether the chill had more to do with November in Nevada or with the words inscribed on the headstone:Bruce Yen. Rest In Peace. 1958-2020.
Bruce Yen, her father, who’d died in a freak car accident on his way back from Vegas three months ago. While Olivia had been cavorting around San Francisco, making love to Sammy, and fretting over her job, her father had been only two hundred miles away, dying.
It was weird. She didn’t know the man, didn’t even remember what he looked like. Other than shared genetic material, they were strangers. And yet Olivia felt a deep, abiding sorrow—not for the man himself, but for what could’ve been. The father who’d never taught her how to ride a bike and would never walk her down the aisle at her wedding. The parent who could’ve been a counterweight to Eleanor’s viciousness but who’d chosen to run instead, too daunted by the demands of marriage and fatherhood to stick around.
Alina stared at the tombstone, her face pale. “This whole situation feels surreal.”
Olivia couldn’t agree more.
She’d called her sister the day she cut ties with Eleanor, and they’d had a long, hard conversation that lasted hours. Lots of tears, anger, and angst. Alina admitted that she’d confronted Richard about him hitting on Olivia, and he hadn’t denied it. Apparently, he’d thought she wouldn’t break off the wedding for all the reasons she’d given Olivia, so he’d barely apologized. That, plus Olivia’s words before she’d hung up on their last call, had been the last straw. Alina had called it quits, Richard had flipped out, and Eleanor had flown straight to California to lambast her younger daughter, even though breaking the engagement was Alina’s decision.
When Olivia told her sister what happened with their mother, including when she’d asked Eleanor to leave—not just her apartment, but her life—Alina had been stunned into silence. But she’d understood. For the first time in forever, she’d understood why Olivia did what she did, and she supported it. Alina’s own relationship with Eleanor had been strained since she called off the wedding. They weren’t estranged, but they hadn’t spoken in weeks.
From what Olivia could tell, Alina was in no hurry to resume communication with Eleanor, who’d withdrawn into icy silence to regroup after the Chicago society papers exploded with news about Richard Barrons III’s broken engagement.
“It’s ironic.” Alina brushed her fingers over the smooth stone. “If it hadn’t been for the wedding, I wouldn’t have tried to look for our father, but neither endeavor turned out the way I’d expected. No wedding, but a funeral.” Her mouth twisted. “Ironic,” she repeated.
Olivia’s breath puffed in the cold air.
During the call, Alina had let her in on a secret: she’d hired a private investigator to track down their father’s whereabouts so she could invite him to her wedding. It was sentimental, dramatic, and wholly unlike Alina, but at the end of the day, every girl wanted to dance with her father and have him walk her down the aisle on her big day.
Eleanor hadn’t suspected a thing, and the P.I. had run into brick wall after brick wall until he finally tracked Bruce down to a small town in northwestern Nevada—through police reports about the car crash. A truck ran a red light and slammed into the driver’s side of Bruce’s car; he’d been dead on impact.
According to the P.I., Bruce had moved dozens of times over the years, going from odd job to odd job—most of it paid under the table—to avoid creditors after he’d lost all his money gambling. He’d never remarried or had children after leaving Eleanor, and his car had been registered under a fake name. Ditto for his lease, though the landlord was so sketchy it was a surprise there’d been paperwork at all.
Bruce had lived a sad, lonely life before his demise, and while a tiny, shameful part of Olivia thought he deserved it for walking away from his family, a larger part of her mourned the man he’d once been. Eleanor, in a rare slip-up, once told her and Alina that their father had aspired to be a poet. He’d wooed her with his beautiful words and romantic visions of the future, and she’d married him despite the voice in her head telling her it was a bad idea. She’d been right—when Bruce’s poet dreams hadn’t panned out, he’d turned to gambling for solace and left Eleanor to raise two daughters on her own.
Perhaps it had been that fleeting glimpse of humanity that compelled Olivia to cling onto hope for her mother for so long. It’d blinded her to the reality that whatever light had once existed in Eleanor’s soul had been snuffed out long ago. For that, Olivia empathized with the woman who’d raised her—mourned her the same way she mourned her dead father, even though Eleanor was alive and well.
But there came a point when enough was enough, and Olivia had reached that point the day she opened the door and watched her mother walk out of her life.
“How are you, Linny?” she asked now, watching the only immediate family member she had left stare at the tombstone with a far-off look in her eyes.
“I’ve been better.” Alina fiddled with the diamond stud in her ear. She was perfectly put together as always in her sleek black Calvin Klein outfit and black Stuart Weitzman boots, but her complexion had lost its usual glow, and lines of tension bracketed her mouth. “I feel so stupid—about Richard, about Mom, about everything.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve believed you when you first told me about Richard. But I wanted so bad for it not to be true...” Alina’s gaze dipped. “I’m sorry, Liv. About everything. You didn’t have to come—especially when you’re so busy with school. I’ve been a horrible sister—”
“Stop. Iwantedto come. He was my father too, and you’re my sister. Though I wanted to slap you quite a few times over the years,” Olivia added with a small smirk.
Alina narrowed her eyes. “I would’ve kicked your ass.”
Shock barreled into Olivia. “Did—did you just say the word ‘ass’?”
The profanity-spewing Alina doppelgänger shrugged. “Fuck it. My fiancé cheated on me, my broken engagement is splashed all over the papers, my father’s dead, and my mother’s a bitch. I can say the word ‘ass’ if I want to.”
A laugh bubbled out of Olivia’s throat, and the pressure that had weighed on her chest for the past few months eased the tiniest bit. “Yes, you can, but no way could you kick my ass.” Silence descended again, during which a lightbulb went off in her head. “You never got a bachelorette weekend, did you?”
“Thanks for rubbing it in,” Alina said, looking miffed. She’d found Richard’s burner phone before the event.
“I have an idea.” A grin spread across Olivia’s face. Ten minutes later, after she explained her plan, Alina answered with a matching grin.
“Let’s do it.”
They glanced at Bruce’s gravestone one last time, bidding farewell to the man they’d never known and never would, and closing another chapter of their lives before they walked to the car Olivia had rented at the airport.
“You sure?” She typed a destination into the GPS and watched Alina for any signs of hesitation. All she saw was resolve.
“Hell yeah.” Alina slipped on her sunglasses. “Let’s rock this bitch.”
Olivia laughed again, still unable to believe those words were coming out of her proper, uptight sister’s mouth. She floored the gas, and they were off, speeding past dramatic desert landscapes and narrow slot canyons.
The Tang sisters were going to Vegas.
