"Li!" Lucien called.
"Coming!" a voice returned to him.
Lucien fidgeted as he waited.
Li swung herself around the corner of the door, "What's up?"
"I… um." Lucien cleared his throat. He had written this all down and practiced it in his head but now that it was actually time to say the words his mouth was dry. He licked his lips. "I've invited Mrs Beazley to join us for dinner Saturday night," His eyes searched her face for a reaction.
"Oh, ok," Li's eyes narrowed, "Is it her birthday or something?"
"Uh, no. Just thought it would be nice."
Li nodded, "Ok, what are we having?"
Lucien was taken aback at Li's easy acceptance and he stuttered, "Um, not sure yet."
"You should make that chicken curry again. Didn't you say she liked that when you took it to her?" Li flashed him a smile and turning to go back to her room she grinned. Wait till Mattie hears about this!
Jean looked at herself in the mirror. What were you supposed to wear to tell one of your students that you're dating their dad? Her critical eyes moved over the cornflower blue dress with the small white polka dots. The dress was casual, but fun, and she hadn't had a reason to wear it in years. She shook her hands a few times to try and shake some of the anxiety she felt, out of her body. The cast on her wrist had been removed a few days ago, and she was still getting used it, it still felt odd to have her hand free. Despite it healing well it still gave her a twinge at certain angles, but the doctor, and Lucien, had assured her that would fade, as she built her strength back up. Her hands skimmed the soft fabric at her hips and she stuck her hands in her pockets, flicking the full skirt back and forth. Her stomach churned nervously as she wondered, not for the first time, if this was the right thing to do. She schooled her face into a stern look and looked into her reflection.
"You can do this," she uttered under her breath. She inhaled deeply and let her breath out slowly. Fluffing her hair, she rummaged in her makeup bag for a lipstick. Pulling her hand out she barely glanced at the bright red, before putting it straight back in, her hand searching for something more subtle. Wear the red! Her brain helpfully supplied. Be confident! Jean pulled the red out once more and looked at it. Maybe she'd just see what it looked like. She could always take it off and find a nice dusky pink if it was too much.
A knocking at the door made Lucien jump. He'd been nervous all day and finally the moment was here. He wiped his hands on his trousers and skimmed his eyes over the table, ensuring everything was in place. He wanted this to be perfect so that the whole night could go smoothly.
"I'll get it!" Li's voice came from the other end of the house and he heard her footsteps thud down the hallway.
Lucien chastised himself inwardly. He should have insisted he get the door, to put Jean at ease immediately. What if Li made things awkward?
"Hello Mrs Beazley, come in," he heard her say, and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Whatever happened from here on, there was no turning back now.
Jean appeared in the doorway and she met his eyes and smiled nervously.
"Jean." Lucien breathed, "So lovely you could join us."
A beeping noise from the kitchen broke their moment, as did Li calling "That's the rice. I'll get it!" disappearing into the kitchen leaving Lucien staring at Jean. He took her hand in his gently and quickly pressed his lips to it with a soft kiss. "You look lovely."
"Thank you Lucien, My stomach has been in knots all day."
"Mine too," Lucien admitted. "Shall we do it before dinner? Get it out of the way?"
"I think that would be best. Not sure I can eat with it still on my mind. Plus if Li really hates it, I can excuse myself and go home." She pulled a face, "Rehearsal tomorrow could be awkward, but we'll push through it."
Lucien cupped Jean's cheek and stared into her eyes, "Don't do that. Don't go there Jean."
"Lucien I…"
"DAD! Come and check this rice, it seems hinky to me," Li's voice once again interrupted whatever Jean was going to say.
Lucien grinned at Jean. "Guess I'd better go check the rice," he squeezed her hand and turning, disappeared into the kitchen.
The rice was indeed hinky. With Lucien's mind wandering he'd obviously put too much water in the rice cooker, so he stirred it and then flicked it back on and went to join Jean and Li at the dining table. Sitting next to Jean they shared a look and Jean gave him the tiniest of nods. He took a breath. "Li, we wanted to talk with you."
Li's face fell and all excitement faded away. In that instant she forgot her confidence in her theory that they were dating, and immediately assumed the worst. "Is it about my grades? I know I got a B in chemistry, but that was one test."
"No it's nothing to do with school, or the musical," Jean assured her gently, "Plus, I have it on good authority that it was a hard test. And, you got the highest score in the class. But you didn't hear that from me." Her eyes sparkled as she mimed zipping her lips.
"This is more… personal." Lucien reached out and put his hand over Jean's on the table, watching Li's eyes follow the movement. "Li, the truth is Jean and I…"
Three even knocks at the door disrupted the explanation and Lucien cursed the visitors timing. He lowered his eyes and sighed heavily. Squeezing Jean's hand he let go and stood up. As he made his way down the hallway he wondered at who was knocking at their door on a Saturday night. He opened the door with a tug intending to tell whoever was there to buzz of, but the words dried in his throat as he took in the sight before him.
"Hello Lucien."
The ringing in Lucien's ears was so loud he barely heard Jeans voice call, "Who is it?" He swallowed heavily.
"My wife," he barely heard his own voice whisper an answer he knew no one else could hear.
"May I come in?"
Lucien snapped out of the trance he was in. "Of course of course," he stepped aside and indicated her inside. She smiled at him nervously as she wiped her feet and stepped inside the house. Lucien barely registered the door closing behind him and he watched her, opened mouthed, as she toed off her shoes in the hallway.
"Where do I…?" she trailed off as she glanced down at his still shoed feet and gave him a confused look "Lucien?"
"Mei Lin," her name felt strange in his mouth. "That's not necessary," he couldn't stop his staring.
"Dad, who's at the door? And what are we doing with this rice? I think it's ready!" Li's voice came from the kitchen.
Mei Lin's face shot up, "Li?" she gasped as she moved quickly towards the voice.
Li looked up as a dark-haired woman appeared in the doorway.
Mei Lin gasped. "Li!"
Li looked at her and her eyes widened, "Mama?"
With a sob Mei Lin covered her mouth and rushed toward Li, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. Li went stiff as a board as her shocked eyes met Lucien's over Mei Lin's shoulder and they stared at each other for a moment, then everything went black.
Lucien caught Li as she fell, "Jean! Can you get a wet cloth please?" he called as he carried her to the couch.
Jean, who had been patiently waiting at the dining table, unaware of anything going on outside the room, jumped up. "Lucien?" she frowned at his panicked tone. "Are you alright?"
"It's Li, she's fainted again!"
Jean ran to him and was stopped suddenly, as a woman stepped in front of her.
"Excuse me. Lucien, who is this?"
Jean felt the woman give her a once over, her dark eyes narrowing at the red on Jean's lips.
"Uh, this is Jean, she's… one of Li's teachers… and… a friend." Lucien took a slow deep breath and met Jean's eyes. "Jean. This is Mei Lin… Li's mother... my wife."
Jean felt the bottom of her stomach give out as she gasped. "But…"
"A cloth Jean, please!" Lucien pleaded. "Or a flannel or… something!"
"I don't need a cloth. I'm fine," Li's groggy voice came from the couch as her eyes flicked open. She frowned in confusion first at her teacher, then her dad, finally her eyes moved to the face she'd almost forgotten. "What the fuck?"
Jean clapped a hand over her mouth as, despite the drama unfolding in front of her, she held back a shocked grin.
Lucien however was not as amused, and his and Mei Lin's voices overlapped each other.
"Li, language!"
"You watch your mouth young lady!"
Li raised a quivering hand and rubbed it across her eyes as they blearily searched the faces in front of her. Finally they focussed on a face with angry stern eyes and small pursed lips. Those eyes. She had not seen them in years. Immediately she felt small and scared. Her heart felt like it was going to leap out of her chest, and her whole body was shaking.
"You're trembling," Jean moved towards Li but was stopped again by a hand in front of her.
"I shall tend to my own daughter, thank you," Mei Lin nodded curtly at her and Jean obediently stepped back.
"Li," Mei Lin stepped closer to where Li lay on the couch and spoke a long sentence in Chinese.
Li frowned as she looked to Lucien, "Dad?"
"Mei Lin, We don't speak Chinese here. We haven't in a long time."
Mei Lin narrowed her eyes at him, "But that's her culture, her heritage."
"Which we haven't been a part of in, what seven years? Since… you disappeared."
Jean was watching all of this slightly stunned. She began to back away, "Maybe I should go."
Dark suspicious eyes turned to her, "Yes, maybe you should."
"No Jean. Please stay. I need to talk with Mei Lin, and I need someone to keep an eye on Li. Can you do that for me? Please?" Lucien raised pleading eyes to meet Jean's confused ones.
"Of course I can Lucien."
Lucien pulled on Mei Lin's hand and she followed him into one of the old consulting rooms. Closing the door behind him Lucien sat Mei Lin, and pulling a chair close, placed himself opposite her. "Mei Lin. Where have you been? What happened to you?"
Lucien sat and listened to a voice he was once so familiar with, explain being kidnapped and imprisoned because she was teaching girls to read. How she'd been held ransom by mercenaries and finally been rescued.
"And then when I returned to Singapore, I found our house sold and no one knew where you had gone. I tracked down Nanny and she pointed me to Melbourne. But when I got there, they sent me here. And now I've finally found my family and everything can go back to the way it used to be. Oh Lucien, I've missed you!" She fell into his arms sobbing.
Lucien patted her back awkwardly. What was he supposed to do now?
"Would you like some water Li?" Jean asked softly.
Li sat on the couch staring into space, "Is it really Mama?" she whispered.
"I… It looks that way." Jeans face flushed, "I'll… I'll go get you some water." She patted the shocked girl on the shoulder and gratefully made an escape.
Once hidden in the kitchen Jean could breathe. She leant against the cupboard and tried to steady the heart beating in her chest. Feeling the tears burn in her eyes she turned the tap on and ran her hands under the cold water, brought them to her neck and wiped the cool water across the back of her neck. She snatched a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. She should leave. She should leave and let Lucien and Li reunite with Mei Lin without her interrupting. She swallowed down her pain and chastised herself. You should be happy for them. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog that had settled.
But what about you? A small voice at the back of her brain piped up. You were so happy with him. Do you think you can go back to being just friends? She took a few deep breaths and realised the rice cooker was beeping at her. Frustrated she flicked it off, but unthinkingly used more force than was necessary and sent it crashing to the ground.
A clattering noise saved Lucien from the uncomfortable embrace. "Jean?" He leapt up and without a backwards glance at Mei Lin went rushing towards the noise. When he found her in the kitchen Jean was on her knees wiping up the spilled rice.
She looked up at him and their eyes met. Jean opened her mouth to say something, but Mei Lin appeared behind him. She shut her mouth and continued to clean up the mess on the ground.
Lucien rushed to help Jean clean up as Li also wandered into the kitchen and picked up a cloth to help.
"What happened Jean?"
"I'm sorry Lucien. I honestly didn't mean to, I just went to turn the rice cooker off, it was beeping at me. But I knocked it off the bench by accident." Jean's mouth was operating faster than her brain could catch up. She needed Lucien to know she hadn't done it deliberately.
"A rice cooker?" Mei Lin's harsh voice sailed over the top of them as she stood in the hallway, arms crossed. "Lucien Blake, since when do you need a machine to make your rice. It's so easy to do on the stove. Li knew how to do it at age five."
"Mei Lin, please," Lucien pleaded, not meeting her eyes. "There are… look, things have changed."
"I can see," Mei Lin pursed her lips and made no effort to help clean up, despite the three people scrabbling on the ground.
"Was it your wrist Jean?" Lucien took her hand in his own and inspected it closely, gently trailing his fingertips over the soft skin.
"No, not at all, Just… didn't know my own strength, I guess," Jean tried to make light of the situation but as soon as she met Lucien's eyes she could feel the intensity in them. She coughed and reluctantly pulled her eyes from his. Get it together, That is his wife! Her brain screamed at her. She gave him a sad smile and moved to stand, leaning heavily on Lucien's arm as he helped her up. Mei Lin's sharp eyes missing nothing.
Jean looked at where Lucien still held her hand then suddenly released it like it had burnt her, "I should go home." She stepped away from where Lucien held her gently and picked up her bag.
"Jean…"
Walking past Li, she patted the girl on the shoulder, "I'll see you at rehearsal tomorrow afternoon." She snuck one more look back at Lucien's stunned face, and then turned, willing her legs to walk towards the door, forcing one foot in front of the other until she finally stepped out of the house. Once she was on the porch she exhaled heavily as tears spilled over her cheeks. Fighting to get her breathing under control, she wiped her eyes and walked briskly to her car.
Lucien sat at the kitchen table, feeling like a guest in his own house. He rubbed his hand through his hair. "You don't have to do that, we can just put the rice cooker back on, it will take 15 minutes, tops."
"Just as easy to do it the proper way," Mei Lin replied shortly as she stirred the rice on the stove top.
An awkward silence settled around the kitchen as Li and Lucien exchanged a look.
"I'm gonna go lie down, call me when dinners ready ok?" Li looked at Lucien who still wore a stunned 'deer in the headlights' look.
Lucien nodded and watched her leave. Leaving him with a woman he married 20 years ago and hadn't seen for seven years. His brain vaguely registered Mei Lin talking and he forced himself to tune in.
"Of course when we move back to Singapore…"
Lucien blinked himself out of his thoughts, "Wait, what?"
"Well I assumed we would go back as a family."
"Mei Lin…"
"Well you can't possibly be staying here next year. In this dump," she waved the wooden spoon about the kitchen flippantly.
Lucien swallowed heavily as he recalled the many good memories the kitchen held. "Actually I was planning on reopening the clinic."
Mei Lin made an impatient noise, "What? This worthless thing? In this nothing town? And what about Li? Her education? You can't expect her to be successful by studying at this hokey university. I mean it's laughable."
Lucien paused as he tried to keep his temper, "She doesn't want to go to university next year."
"What are you talking about, of course she must. How else will she be successful?"
"Mei Lin, will you please just listen?"
"No Lucien, You listen to me." She waved the spoon in his direction, "You are a surgeon, not a little country doctor. I mean really, Can you see yourself dealing with these common peoples silly little problems, day in day out? Wouldn't you rather be doing something important?"
"Their problems are important."
"So let some other, less trained, simple doctor look after them. You are overqualified." Mei Lin went back to stirring the rice, her back turned to him. Conversation over.
"Their problems are important to me."
Mei Lin didn't turn around. "And the hussy with the red lipstick? Is she important to you?"
"Jean is not a… Jean is… a very good friend. Yes, she is important to me"
"More important than your wife?"
Lucien exploded as he banged his palm on the table, "A wife I thought was dead. Mei Lin you can't expect to just waltz back into our lives and expect us to pick right back up where we left off!"
Silence fell over the kitchen.
Lucien did some deep breathing as he regained his composure. He took a sip from the water glass in front of him and then spoke. "I went over there looking for you, you know," he admitted quietly.
"What?" finally Mei Lin turned to face him.
"Li doesn't know. I was arrested. They beat me, and they threw me out of a moving car and left me for dead. I thought I'd never see you again."
The silence dragged on.
"Mei Lin, What I'm saying is, I have a life here. We have made a life here, Li and myself, and I've been single parenting our child through some of the toughest times she's had, and we've finally found a place we can both be happy." He took a breath knowing what he was about to say was not what she wanted to hear. "I don't want to go back to Singapore."
The clock ticked loudly in the still kitchen, then Mei Lin's quiet sharp quiet voice spoke.
"The rice is done. You can call our daughter to the table."
"I'll go and get her." Lucien pushed his chair out and went to talk to Li.
"So Li, what's this ridiculous notion your father tells me about you not going to university?" Mei Lin stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork and put it in her mouth. Making a face she chewed and swallowed. "Good lord what white person made this? You call this a curry?" She rose from the table and opening the fridge began to search.
Lucien sighed as Li silently pushed the chicken around her plate. He glanced over at Mei Lin. "What are you looking for?"
"You need to add some chillis to this 'so-called' curry, its barely warm."
"We don't have any."
"What?"
"There's dried chilli flakes in the pantry, or smoked paprika, but Li's friend Mattie often joins us for dinner and she's not big on the spice. And to be honest, we're not much either anymore. Taste buds have changed and all that."
Silence stretched over the table.
"You're more than welcome to shake some chilli flakes over your own food of course."
Mei Lin pursed her lips and said nothing, but sat back down at the table and after a moment continued to eat.
They ate in quiet for a few moments, no one quite sure what to say.
Lucien cleared his throat, "Li is playing the lead in the school musical."
Mei Lin didn't look at either of them, keeping her eyes trained on her plate. "I see. And your grades?"
Li's cheeks flushed, "I'm doing ok. Mainly A's. Mrs Beazley said if I start to fall too far behind in any of my classes she'll stop me from helping out with costuming."
Mei Lin's dark eyes flashed at her, "Why are you playing the main role and also helping them with costuming? Don't they have people to do that? You should be focussing on your studies!"
Li took a deep breath, "I am, and no they don't, not really. I mean Mrs Beazley does what she can, Miss Nell helps and so does Miss Agnes, and there are some other parents who are helping out with the simple stuff. Miss Harvey looks after some of the housekeeping stuff like printing and tickets, and Dad and Mr Lawson are building the set. Plus, I really enjoy doing it."
Mei Lin looked to Lucien, "Who are all these people?"
"Well you met Mrs Beazley tonight," Li swallowed a mouthful of rice with difficulty. Her mouth felt dry and her throat constricted.
"Oh yes, That was your school teacher. Figures."
Li continued, "Miss Nell is my music teacher, Miss Agnes is the nurse, Miss Harvey is my chemistry teacher, And Mr Lawson is the PE teacher. He's another one of Dad's friends."
"Li's got a lovely group of friends too," Lucien spoke, eager to show Mei Lin that their daughter was popular.
Li nodded, "Yeah, They're all in the show too. Mattie is my best friend, And Charlie is… well he's another friend." Her cheeks flushed "And there's Danny and Rose too."
Mei Lin huffed, "Well I think that all of these distractions are why you're only getting mostly A's instead of all A's."
Li went quiet. She put her fork down on her plate. "Father, may I be excused? I'm not feeling well."
Lucien's heart sank at the use of 'father' to refer to him. Where was the 'Dad' he had grown to love? He smiled gently at her, "Of course Li, I'll come and check in on you a little later, see if you need anything."
Li dragged herself to her room where she collapsed into her bed. She grabbed her phone and through wet eyes tried to focus on the screen. With a sigh she tapped out a message to her friends.
"Guys, I think I'm going to pull out of Aida."