Chapter 63

The group was gathered around the table when Beth and Phil came back out. Beth didn’t look nearly as angry as she did when she walked back. Phil’s face still held a placid look.

“Uh, is crow the only thing I get to eat today or can I have a sandwich, too?” she asked. She felt a surge of anger when she saw the welt below Lisa’s left eye but pushed it down.

“Help yourself,” Phil answered. He had put his hand on Hailey’s shoulder when she had started to rise to fix Beth something to eat. Once Beth passed through to the kitchen he leaned down and kissed her on the head.

“Thank you,” he said softly. Hailey didn’t know if he was talking about her staying in her seat or if he understood she hadn’t betrayed his secret.

“Sure,” she answered. It was the same for either question, she decided.

“What did you decide?” Phil asked the room at large.

“I’m going out to get my stuff,” Lisa said. “Well, Scott and I are going. We’d like Chet to go with us and the rest of you can if you would like.”

“That is entirely up to you,” Phil said firmly. “If you want us there, we’re there; if you want us to stay away, we’ll do that, too.”

Scott and Lisa exchanged glances briefly.

“We’d like for you to be there,” Scott said. “I worry that things might get heated. If Dr. Chen calls the cops, they might take his word over mine or my dad’s. They won’t take it over yours or your parents’.”

“Do you want Mom and Hailey to come?” Phil inquired.

“Yeah,” Scott answered. “I mean, it would be nice if your mom was there. If Hailey isn’t busy, she would be welcome.”

“Do you want me to call Tee?” Phil asked, going down a list in his head. “He would be there primarily to help us carry stuff but, well, he’s also as big as a house.”

“I was going to ask if you thought he might,” Lisa said. “Large black men scare my father.”

She saw Phil’s frown.

“That’s not the only reason,” Lisa cut in quickly. “He’s nice and, well, he might be able to keep the rest of us from losing our tempers. He never gets mad.”

“And the more he carries the less we have to,” David said with a laugh. “I saw him carry a mattress up stairs by himself. I tried to lift the thing and almost got a hernia.”

“OK, when do you want to go?” Phil asked.

“Now!” Lisa said.

“I want to run upstairs and get the court cases I used,” Hailey said. “They show you have a right to anything given to you as a present or purchased primarily for your use. Give me just a minute.”

“Hang on and I’ll run up there, too,” Phil said. “I have just one more thing. Does everyone understand that this is Scott and Lisa’s show? They might ask our opinions but no one does anything without asking them first. Are we agreed?”

Phil purposefully did not look in his mom’s direction but saw her nod out of the corner of his eye.

“OK, we’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” Phil announced just before he followed Hailey out of the apartment.

“I didn’t say anything to your mom,” Hailey said as soon as the door closed behind them.

“I know and I’m sorry I jumped to that conclusion,” Phil replied. “I know how she gets and I know she’s not above using professional retribution to change personal behavior.”

“Yeah,” Hailey admitted. “I mean, she didn’t threaten me or anything. She just frowned at me and gave me the dead-eyed stare. I still told her that you’d asked me to keep a confidence until later in the day and I had agreed. I wasn’t willing to go back on my word to you.”

“You really are special,” Phil said softly as he put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m lucky to have you in my life.”

Hailey’s laughter caught him off-guard but she didn’t explain it. She just told him to ask his father. Hailey opened the door and headed back to the room where her belongings rested.

“We might have to move out of the apartment down there,” Phil told her when she returned with a folder.

“I thought as much,” Hailey admitted with a smile. “I saw Lisa eying up the dimensions. I know they are going to stay at Scott’s for a few days but they worry with the younger boys there that they might set a bad example. I said it’s not like the boys are five and six. They’re 14 and 15 years old.”

“The males of that family are all really jaded,” Phil told her as they headed back down. “I think Chet is worried that the boys will be unhappy at having a female there more than he worries about it affecting their psyche. He’s trying but it really hurt them all when she just left. The youngest, Noah, was only eight. He was the first one home from school and he found the place in a mess. She had taken anything she wanted. She left them with almost no furniture and no money in the bank. I heard she was shocked as shit when she had to pay back half the value as part of the divorce. She said she thought it was her due for putting up with a houseful of males for 15 years. Thankfully a judge didn’t agree. But they were broke and they refused to accept any help.”

Phil shook his head bitterly as they exited the elevator.

“It was a rough time and it hurt those boys terribly,” he concluded. Then he tried to put it out of his mind. He had enough anger at Dr. Wei Chen that he didn’t need any residual hate for Linda Finley to add.

The group stood at the front of the Chen house as Lisa and Scott went forward and rang the bell. A police officer and an attorney from the city prosecutor’s office accompanied them. Everyone agreed that if Dr. Chen relinquished Lisa’s belongings there would be no need for legal interference. If he balked then things might get messy – not only for Dr. Chen but for Lisa, too. She had, after all, taken his wallet and keys.

The doctor opened the door and scowled at his daughter.

“You are no longer welcome here, Xiaojing,” he said in Mandarin (or what passed for Mandarin from a man who was born and raised in SouthPointe).

“Speak English,” Lisa told him. “You make an ass of yourself when you butcher your second language. That’s why your wife is always laughing at you – well, one of the reasons.”

“We’re here to pick up Lisa’s belongings and then we will be on our way,” Scott said firmly before the meeting devolved into name calling.

“She has no belongings other than that which I have provided,” Chen said, crossing his arms.

“Dr. Chen, you need to be reasonable,” Scott said. “Do you see the police officer back there? He’s here because of what you tried to do to Lisa this morning. Do you see the man with the blue tie? He’s from the city prosecutor’s office. If Lisa insists, you will be taken from here in handcuffs and we will remove her belongings while you try for bail on kidnapping and assault charges. The law says she has a legal right to items purchased by her, for her or for her primary use. We are here for those items.”

“She stole my car and wallet this morning,” Chen declared. “I have not seen her all day. She is lying.”

“I’m about ready to knock you on your ass, old man,” Scott said in a quiet, angry voice. “You think the kick in the balls you took this morning was bad, wait until I get you down and start laying the boots to you. You tried to kill my child this morning, you arrogant piece of shit. It’s only because of your daughter that you’re not dead right now. You should thank her, let us in and let us go on our way. Otherwise, things are going to be real bad for you real quick like. Take a look at who else is back there. You see Terrence, the big guy? We told him you hate black people. I know you recognize Elizabeth Barton-Warner. Lisa had to talk her out of ruining you financially.

“My dad suggested we just drag you out here and beat you until you stop moving and David – that’s Elizabeth’s husband – was all for it. But the one you need to watch out for is me. Someday, somewhere, I will find you. You will pay a steep price for what you tried to do and there is no one in the world who can stop me. Now get the fuck out of my way or I will start right now.”

Wei Chen’s eyes went wide at the menace in Scott Finley’s voice but he wouldn’t back down.

“Officer, this man threatened me!” he yelled.

“I didn’t hear a threat in his words,” the prosecutor interrupted. He stepped forward to the porch. “Mr. Chen...”

“I am a doctor,” Chen interrupted.

“How wonderful,” the man stated. “Mr. Chen, your daughter has a valid legal right to her belongings. They will be removed from here today if you agree or if you don’t. It is simply a matter of whether you will watch from a chair or from a police cruiser.”

He handed across a copy of the state court ruling but Chen simply tossed it aside.

“It is my house,” he declared. “In China, a man’s home is inviolate!”

“Oh, bullshit!” Lisa said angrily. “How in the fuck would you know what a man’s house is like in China? You’ve never been further east than New York or further west than Los Angeles. Ask your wife what life is like in China, you idiot.”

“I will not be spoken to in that way!” Chen yelled.

“Mr. Chen,” the attorney tried again, “there have been serious accusations made against you. Your daughter claims you and two associates removed her forcibly from this house early today and drove her to an abortion clinic. When she escaped and fled, you assaulted her. There is evidence of the assault on her cheek.”

“She stole my car and wallet,” Chen said. “She lies about me. She is a thief as well as a whore.”

The attorney caught Scott’s arm as he drew back to swing.

“Mr. Chen, let me explain this to you,” he said in angry tones. “If you wish to charge your daughter with theft, I won’t stand in your way. It will force me to pull traffic cams from SouthPointe and the city. Those will tell us quite clearly who was driving and at what time. You claim your daughter stole your car from here. If that is true, I can check the camera at the next block and have charges laid against her in about an hour. Of course if it shows someone else driving things will get sticky. Do you wish to lodge a complaint against your daughter? Please know it will make absolutely no difference in how this afternoon proceeds. Her belongings will leave the house today. What is your answer?”

“No,” Chen said.

“You will have to be more specific,” the attorney said.

“I do not wish to see her charged,” Chen said bitterly.

“Miss Chen, you have accused your father of kidnapping and assault,” he said. “If you pursue these charges I will have to check surveillance cameras from the city. If you are found to be in possession of his car at any point it could go badly for you. Do you still wish to convey charges?”

“Yes,” Lisa said, looking her father squarely in the eyes. “I wish to have him and his goons charged immediately. I was never in possession of his car so you can check every traffic cam and surveillance camera in the city as far as I care. I wouldn’t put it past the hateful old man to have dumped his keys and wallet somewhere to try to frame me. We parked in a garage off 12th Street in Chinatown. I don’t know which one but there aren’t many. You should check to see if he still has his car stashed there. As for his wallet? I have no idea where it might be but I’ll bet you’ll find it close to wherever his keys are.”

“You stole them from me!” Chen said.

“Really?” Lisa countered. “And when did I do that? Was it before or after you drove me to the city to force some butcher to kill my child? Tell them where exactly you lost your keys, you son of a bitch!”

Lisa’s raised voice brought a small woman to the door. Li Chen was 14 years younger than her husband. She had been purchased, essentially, from China to wed the 30-year-old doctor almost 25 years earlier. Now in her early 40s, she still had a fresh, kind face.

“Is this true?” she asked her husband. “This is where you went this morning?”

Phil was shocked. He barely knew Lisa’s mother and he had no idea she spoken any language but Mandarin Chinese. She spoke English with a heavy accent but every word was understandable.

“He told me Lisa was ill and did not want to be disturbed,” Li Chen told the attorney. “I had no idea she was not still in her room. My husband left early this morning, before I awoke. He returned, limping badly and complaining loudly, about two hours ago.”

“Be silent!” Chen screamed.

“I will not be silent, you horrible man,” Li stated. “I have sat and listened to you for many years and I will listen no more. You seem to believe China is a wonderful place. You have never been there. If you had you would know the truth. This is America. In America no woman must give up her child if she does not want. It is not for a father or a husband or the state to decide. It is for the woman to decide.

“You have no idea what it’s like there. I spent 15 years with people speaking of me as if I wasn’t there. My father was asked many times why he did not abort me and try for a son or arrange an accident after my gender was obvious. In the small villages there are four times as many men as there are jobs – and as there are women. The one lucky enough to land work gets to wed. The others go to the city where they join a gang of criminals. The one woman gets forced to wed because her family will no longer support her. If she is fortunate he is a good man.

“More often, she gets a man such as you: a pig. She would be better off working in a brothel. I wish I could tell you how many times I have wished my family had sold me to a whorehouse instead of selling me into slavery here. You have destroyed two of my children and you will not harm the third. I will kill you while you sleep if you try to hurt my child or grandchild. Do you hear me?”

“Mr. Wei Chen, I’m ordering your arrest on suspicion of kidnapping, assault and attempted assault,” the attorney said. Phil noted that the police officer was not gentle when he slammed the struggling Chen to the floor and handcuffed him.

“Take what you wish, Daughter,” Li said. “Please do not forget the mother who loves you.”

Lisa didn’t say anything to her Mom. She just walked past her and into the house she grew up in – likely for the last time.

The workday was over by the time everyone made it back to the city. Hailey asked Beth if there was anything that needed done but Beth told her it could wait until the morning. The couple met Tiffany in the elevator. She was surprised by Hailey’s casual attire.

“Don’t tell me you’re done for the summer, too,” Tiffany mused. Tiffany had worked 66 hours the previous week. Since hers wasn’t an internship, she got paid overtime for the hours. She was looking at a decent paycheck on Friday, which she planned to crow about Saturday night.

“We decided we’re just going to let you take care of us,” Phil told her, as he nudged her with his elbow.

“Are you coming up later?” Tiffany wondered when they stopped on three.

“I think we need to,” Hailey said. “We need to talk about some things.”

“I don’t care what Katelyn told you,” Tiffany said. “I did not pee in the bushes Saturday night.”

“I did,” Hailey joked. “It’s not about Saturday. It’s about a few other things. It’s nothing bad, I don’t think, but we’ll want your opinion before we decide.”

She gave Tiffany a kiss on the cheek before heading down the hall to the apartment.

“I need to hang up my suit before it gets wrinkled,” she said, picking it up off the floor where she had changed clothing before the trip to SouthPointe.

“I’ll start on the dishes,” Phil informed her. He had his hands in the sudsy water when she returned to join him at the sink, bumping him with her hip. He leaned over to offer a kiss that she gratefully accepted.

“So it looks like we get one more week to practice being husband and wife,” she said.

Phil glanced over at her and sighed.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I think Scott and Lisa will call us tomorrow or Wednesday. I almost wish I hadn’t offered this place to them. Even if things are fine with Chet and the boys, they’ll want a place of their own.”

“I don’t mind moving back upstairs,” Hailey said. “I really do love them all. It’s just ... it’s just been nice with the two of us. I enjoyed curling up naked with you on the couch and watching TV last week. I liked being able to decide what we were having for supper without getting everyone’s schedule and preferences down.”

“Me, too,” Phil agreed. “That sort of brings up what I wanted to talk to you about. The house that I looked at is set up to where with a few modifications we could have our own apartment.”

“Seriously?” Hailey asked, her interest piqued.

“That’s what a contractor told me,” Phil said. “It would be small but it would have its own kitchen. The living room and dining room would have to share but for two people it shouldn’t be bad. The only thing I’m not sure about is that it would force the three others to share one bathroom. There is no way to run the plumbing and no space to add a second one. I have the drawings in the other room. He said it would take about two months so we’ll need to decide quickly if we want it done before school starts.”

“The bathroom could pose a problem,” Hailey agreed. “It also might feel to the others like we’re shutting them out.”

“Uh, that’s the point,” Phil replied.

“We don’t want to shut them out completely,” Hailey clarified. “It would be nice to have our own space. Somewhere we can have an intimate dinner for just the two of us without sending the others off to their rooms.”

“There is another house that is better suited for my plan but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it,” Phil told her. “It’s in a nicer neighborhood but farther from campus. It’s also more expensive. The modifications on the first house would kill the resale value, particularly if Heilman continues its on-campus housing policy. The other one is more versatile. It has what’s called a mother-in-law suite. It’s an apartment set off from the main house but still attached. It has a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a bath. It also has a private entrance. I’ve seen the floor plan and it’s pretty nice. It would be bigger than the first house. Everyone would get a bigger bedroom and there are full baths for every bedroom.”

“It sounds like it would be a lot more expensive,” Hailey suggested.

“It is,” Phil said. “It’s an investment. Really, by the time we renovated the first house – and took a loss when we tried to sell it – it’ll come pretty close.”

“Uh-huh,” Hailey said dubiously.

“Yeah, fine,” Phil laughed. “It really won’t. But close is relative, I suppose.”

“What’s the price?” Hailey inquired.

“Two-seventy,” Phil answered.

“Jesus Christ!” Hailey said. “Where is it located, Starling Hill?”

“Yeah,” Phil answered. Starling Hill was the most affluent region of the small college town.

“You’re talking about three times as much,” Hailey told him.

“And three times as much in taxes,” Phil agreed. “I know all of this. It has a pool.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Hailey asked sarcastically. “That makes it all better. We can buy a blow up pool for the other place and it will triple in value.”

“I was just giving you a what-if,” Phil defended himself. “If we want to live in proximity to the rest of the girls and not with them, we have very few options: We can spend $40,000 to renovate the house we all looked at and lose $25,000 on the resale; we can look for a small place for just the two of us and let them have the house to themselves; or we can look for a house that suits our needs better. I’ve ran this over in my head and I don’t see any other alternatives than those.”

“Can we afford to live in Starling Hill?” Hailey asked.

Phil rolled his eyes.

“Yes, we can afford to live in Starling Hill,” he said.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it!” Hailey said in an angry tone. “Fine, how’s this, Smartass: Can the four of us who don’t have more money than sense afford the upkeep, utilities and taxes on a house in Starling Hill?”

“No,” Phil replied.

“That’s what I thought,” Hailey said, wiping off the last plate and putting it in the dish strainer.

“But I can,” Phil rejoined.

“You can afford to live wherever in the hell you want,” Hailey pointed out.

“Uh, which pretty well means the rest of you can, too,” Phil added.

“No, it doesn’t,” Hailey insisted. “Not unless we want to feel like you’re the boss and we have to lick your boots because of what you’re giving us. That was one of the other things from upstairs. It was always your apartment and we were just staying there.”

“No offense, Hailey, but it felt that way because that’s how it is,” Phil replied. “If you four wanted to rent it from me, we could have talked terms. You wouldn’t have been able to afford what I’d charge you and you’d have looked for someplace else. I could rent that place for $10,000 a month easily. Hell, I could rent it out on a month-by-month basis to some companies for $15,000 a month. The house wouldn’t belong to one of us. I told you, everyone’s name is going on the deed. When we sell it, everyone splits the proceeds. I’m not planning to take the sale price out and let you split the rest.

“We’re partners. We can even form a holding company if you’d like. Hell, if you want, I’ll make you four a partner on the property management company I started last year to handle this place. If the four of you need a steady source of income, I’ll arrange it so you can alternate dealing with Rex a few hours each week. What I don’t want is to get a few months into this place and have everyone decide they hate it. Or decide it just doesn’t work for them and want to move out.”

“That might happen anywhere we go,” Hailey explained.

“It might,” Phil agreed. “It’s too late for a dorm assignment for everyone. I suppose Katelyn and Molly can go back to where they lived last year or find their own apartment. That still leaves Tiffany in the dorms. That is a possibility that I didn’t bring up earlier.”