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The thought of Dad sitting in his office, alone in the dark, as he flipped through funeral catalogues rips me heart right out of my chest and I burst into tears again.
"He didn’t tell me, because I wasn't his child." I blurt out.
Nathan looks shocked that I would even think that, let alone say it. "What? No! Oh, sis, that's not it at all. I promise."
"You can't promise, because you didn't know."
He reaches out to touch me, then thinking better of it, pulls his hand away. "There was nothing to know. He didn’t even want me to know. I promise you he didn’t. He fought it for days. But he heard me calling around to his doctors, and that was not the kind of rumor that we needed going around. So, when he finally admitted it, he begged me to keep it a secret. He got down on his knees and begged me, Kiara." Nathan eyes shine with tears as he recalls it. And I don't know how not to believe him.
I don't know what to believe anymore.
"I just wanted to stop being the source of pain for him."
Nathan smiles at me through his tears. "That's just it. You never were."
When we get home, I don't go to bed, I avoid the patio where he sat, I try not to see the teacups left there from when he sat waiting for me just a few days ago to confront me about Kylian, and I go up to Mom's room.
Dad never moved a thing in her room in the entire year she was gone. The bed still has the indent from the last time she sat on it, to pull on her shoes to go to the hospice from which she never came back.
I curl up in the arm chair at the side of her bed, where I sat listening to her sleep, my heart stopping every time her breath became too quiet for me to hear. And I'd get up and watch her chest rise and fall.
"Why did you tell me, Mom? What did you think it would achieve? Did you even imagine that it would derail my entire life and I would spend ten years trying to find myself?" My voice starts out quiet, but then builds and builds until I'm standing there screaming at a bed that lost its owner a year ago.
"You made a mistake, mother, when you had that affair. And then you made the second mistake of telling me. That was your burden to bear. I hope if nothing else, you felt lighter for unloading it because it did nothing but weigh me down.”
I slump at the foot of her bed until Nathan comes and carries me to my bed
"I'm sorry, Kiara. Your life was so much harder than mine ever was. I'm so sorry. I've done a shit job of protecting you."
"If you hadn't tried so hard, I might not have been so intent on running away. I understand why you did it. But it's time to let me go, Nathan. You have to let me make me own decisions based on what I think is wrong or right and what I think won’t disappoint you. Please. We let Dad go, now you have to let me go, too."
He lays down next to me on the bed and for just a while, we pretend we're kids again, that our parents are watching TV downstairs, and we're talking about all these things we're going to do when we grow up.
We plan the funeral for a week away, on a Sunday, so there's time for all the people around the world who want to make it back, can. To say goodbye to a giant. My dad, Dennis Yin.
I busy myself with making plans, the wake, the service, the speakers. Nathan takes care of the invitation list. He has a mountain of other details to take care of on the business side.
But two nights after we come back from London, we meet in Dad’s closet and find the outfit he'd asked to be buried in. It’s the suit he wore on his wedding day. We pulled it out from the storage wardrobe of his suits that he didn't wear anymore, and took turns hugging it to ourselves, remember how every time he wore it, he would proudly tell everyone that Mom had picked it out for him.
Still, it doesn’t matter how busy I am, I can’t stop myself thinking about the man I'd left in London. About all the things we’d said and done together, and trying to pick out which ones were lies and which ones were truth.
It’s not until I sit down to write my eulogy do I realize that I left my laptop at Kylian's apartment the morning our pictures had been plastered all over the news. They are all gone now, most of the papers are focused on my father’s passing of the flame to the new Yin leadership.
How fickle we all are.
I grab the car keys sitting on the bench and make my way out to the driveway. When I pull the door open, Kylian is standing there. His hand raised to press on the doorbell.
"Hi." His voice sounds like an echo in my ears. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. What are you doing here?"
"I brought you some of the things you left at my place."
"Oh. Thank you."
He clears his throat. “It's just your laptop, your phone charges, some clothes."
I've already said thank you. I don't know what else to say. I just stand there, holding the bag. "Goodbye, Kylian." I try to push the door closed, but he blocks it with his hand.
