Family Trust

A Novel

Kathy Wang

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780062855268
• eBook ISBN: 9780062855275
• Subtopic: Drama

“A globe-trotting, whirlwind, tragi-comic family saga that wrings tears from absurdity and laughter from loss.  A joy to read from start to finish.”
   — Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize

The Nest meets Crazy Rich Asians in this sharp comedic novel about a Chinese-American family's attempts (or not) to fulfill its dying patriarch's final bequest.

Some of us are more equal than others....

Meet Stanley Huang: father, husband, ex-husband, man of unpredictable tastes and temper, aficionado of all-inclusive vacations and bargain luxury goods, newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For years, Stanley has claimed that he’s worth a small fortune. But the time is now coming when the details of his estate will finally be revealed, and Stanley’s family is nervous.

For his son Fred, the inheritance Stanley has long alluded to would soothe the pain caused by years of professional disappointment. By now, the Harvard Business School graduate had expected to be a financial tech god – not a minor investor at a middling corporate firm, where he isn’t even allowed to fly business class.

Stanley’s daughter, Kate, is a middle manager with one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious tech companies. She manages the capricious demands of her world-famous boss and the needs of her two young children all while supporting her would-be entrepreneur husband (just until his startup gets off the ground, which will surely be soon). But lately, Kate has been sensing something amiss; just because you say you have it all, it doesn’t mean that you actually do.   

Stanley’s second wife, Mary Zhu, twenty-eight years his junior, has devoted herself to making her husband comfortable in every way—rubbing his feet, cooking his favorite dishes, massaging his ego.  But lately, her commitment has waned; caring for a dying old man is far more difficult than she expected.

Linda Liang, Stanley’s first wife, knows her ex better than anyone. She worked hard for decades to ensure their financial security, and is determined to see her children get their due. Single for nearly a decade, she might finally be ready for some romantic companionship. But where does a seventy-two year old Chinese woman in California go to find an appropriate boyfriend?

As Stanley’s death approaches, the Huangs are faced with unexpected challenges that upend them and eventually lead them to discover what they most value. A compelling tale of cultural expectations, career ambitions and our relationships with the people who know us best, Family Trust skewers the ambition and desires that drive Silicon Valley and draws a sharply loving portrait of modern American family life.

 

Chapter 1

Stanley

Stanley Huang sat, naked but for the thin cotton dressing gown crumpled against the sterile white paper in the hospital room, and listened to the young doctor describe how he would die.

It had begun six months earlier, the first time he grew concerned about his weight. He’d arrived home to San Jose via shared shuttle bus—the concluding act to his latest vacation, a two-week pleasure cruise through the Mediterranean—and strode straight for the master bathroom upstairs. Followed closely by his wife, Mary Zhu, as she harped on about shoes worn inside the house—a gross violation of the clean room–like conditions she worked so hard to achieve before each trip.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just do this one thing I ask,” she complained. “Just kick your sneakers off by the door; you don’t even have to put them away! You always want everything to be spotless, but you have no idea how hard it is to keep a home clean.”

Stanley ignored her, as he could. It was his house, not hers.

He took the stairs two at a time. He was eager to visit his bathroom. The amenities of the lower-tier cabin they’d inhabited for the past two weeks had included a small porthole with a view of the ocean and daily replenished cologne-scented toiletries, but no bathroom scale. Stanley had made a habit of weighing himself each morning after his first urine for the past twelve years, ever since his divorce from his first wife, Linda Liang.

The screen blinked. 145. A four-pound loss.

There was a brief wave of pleasure before the undertow arrived; 145 couldn’t possibly be correct given the events of the past two weeks, where he had willingly and pleasurably gorged at every meal on the Hidden Star, alternating between the butter garlic shrimp and poached flounder mains each evening. Normally Stanley ate with a moderate interest in health, taking care to consume meat sparingly and forcing himself to order at least one steamed vegetable plate when dining out. The one exception was on holiday, especially an all-inclusive already funded eight months in advance, on a vessel specifically selected for its bounty of complimentary food options and relative absence of hidden fees and surcharges. The Star Grill—the onboard steakhouse—featured a chocolate fondue, which he ordered unique combinations of each night. Dark with almond slivers. Milk with toffee chunks. Add a splash of Amaretto.

Stanley came off the scale, waited for it to reset, and stepped back on. The number still read 145. A year earlier it’d been 170. His weight loss since then had been gradual, pleasing—the result of increased exercise and improved diet, he had thought. Some mornings he skipped the routine with the machine altogether, stringing together days of abstinence until he once again strode on, jubilantly expectant, on each occasion happily gratified by the result. Another two pounds lost. Three! Controlling one’s weight was easy, he crowed to Mary, who struggled with her figure and who, given his aggressive hinting, had ceased eating dinner most days altogether. All you needed was self-discipline. Eat enough vegetables, and you could indulge in anything else you wanted.

But that afternoon, back from the cruise and awash with jet lag and joint pain and the telltale facial bloat of twelve days of gastronomic bacchanalia over international waters, Stanley was worried. The loss simply didn’t make sense. Never before had he been so light; were he to continue dropping at the same rate, he’d soon be the same size as his early days in high school, at the number-five-ranked Boys’ Institute in Taipei. He decided he needed to schedule a medical appointment, a chore he usually enjoyed. Stanley was seventy-four and took a considerable interest in the medical miseries of his peers; doctors’ visits accomplished the dual tasks of both occupying his day and providing reassurance that his health continued to be in top form.

What followed next, a full week later—the earliest Kaiser Permanente could secure an open slot with his general physician—wasn’t the quick dismissal Stanley expected. Instead, there came a series of drawn-out diagnoses. First the rather vague gallbladder disease, which the specialists were only able to initially elaborate on in terms of statistics: 50 percent an inflammation, 40 percent a problem with bile flow, 10 percent cancer. After that last horrifying word was set loose, left to hang stinking in the air, the theory then moved on to diabetes, a condition that would have ordinarily terrified Stanley but which, compared to cancer, seemed eminently reasonable, a diagnosis that managed to be lethal only when one was too poor or too stupid to follow basic medical and dietary guidelines. Then diabetes was set aside for a peptic ulcer, which had seemed positively benign in comparison with everything else. And that had been the end of it, until today.

“Pancreatic cancer,” the doctor said, “is something we can’t rule out at this point.”

His name was Neil Patel, a baby-faced Indian man whom Stanley had met once before, back when the presumed issue was still his gallbladder. The CT scan showed something that looked to be a mass near the head of the pancreas, Dr. Patel said, though they couldn’t be certain. Additional tests were needed, likely a biopsy. The doctor was quick to add that this wasn’t a diagnosis but merely a possibility—one of many potential outcomes, and thus no impetus for a panic.

“Please don’t obsess,” he said. “At this point it isn’t necessary or helpful. There’s always the chance it could be nothing serious.” Yet his face betrayed the true nature of his sentiments, the youthful features marred by somberness. The harsh, bright sterility of the room amplified the grim atmosphere. Stanley closed his eyes, though the fluorescent light still rained through.

After he provided initial guidance for what was to follow, Dr. Patel left the room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “Please think of any questions you might have.”

As the door closed, Mary reached for Stanley’s shoulder. “Should we call your family?”

“Fred only,” Stanley said. He patted his lap as he searched for his phone and wallet, before realizing he wasn’t wearing pants. They must be in Mary’s bag, he thought, but didn’t want to make eye contact. He wanted her gone from the room; he wished he were completely alone and had never entered this place. His stomach rumbled. Somewhere inside, nestled deep within secretive cavities, small portions of his body were actively betraying him.

“Fred!” Mary cried. Fred was her least favorite of Stanley’s children. “Don’t you mean Kate? Daughters are always better in these situations, aren’t they?”

When Stanley was silent, she charged on. “Besides, if you’re worried about having to tell people, Kate will handle that for you. She’ll call Fred, and the rest of them.” Them to no doubt include Stanley’s ex-wife, Linda, a source of both mild dislike and eternal fascination. Though Mary liked to ask Stanley about Linda on occasion, he had never once answered any of her questions to her satisfaction.

“Fred,” Stanley said. “Call him now.”

Chapter 2

Fred

At Saks Fifth Avenue in Palo Alto, the premier department store of the increasingly upscale Peninsula Shopping Center, designer handbags were the biggest movers. While for multiple seasons fashion magazines and pundits had proclaimed the death of “the It bag,” in the Bay Area—the land of athleisure and yoga pants, where there existed precious few avenues for distinguishing apparel—the designer bag still reigned supreme. In response, the merchandising powers at Saks had dedicated nearly half of the first floor to the celebration and consumption of said accessory, and it was here that Fred Huang sat, slouched over on a leather padded bench, waiting for his girlfriend to sell a $62,000 watch.

Erika Varga stood a short distance away, in the relatively diminutive space of the fine jewelry department, gently flirting with the older man facing her. All around them the lights were dimmer than in the rest of the store, to accentuate the glints of precious stones while softening the sags and jowls they adorned. The soft gray cardigan and black pencil skirt Erika wore were too warm given the weather—come the end of her shift, Fred knew she’d remove the sweater as soon as she walked outside, to better enjoy the balmy heat and sun-soaked palm trees that dotted the open-air shopping center. Though the formal skirt and high heels would still give her away. In this part of Palo Alto, especially in late summer, only retail workers dressed in black and patent leather.

“It’s because you have taste,” Fred could hear Erika say, her laugh ringing softly.

The watch wasn’t tasteful. Even from a distance Fred could see the flash from the diamonds circling the elephantine dial, much too ostentatious a look for Silicon Valley. As Erika moved to close the sale, she took care not to alienate the customer’s age-appropriate wife, nearby examining an Elizabeth Locke bracelet. Each time Erika mewed a coquettish reply to the man, Fred could see her simultaneously cast a conspiratorial glance at his partner: These men really are just grown-up boys, aren’t they?

The wife, resplendently casual in an embroidered field jacket and a gold curb chain wound around her neck, smiled pleasantly without bothering to meet Erika’s gaze. She appeared to possess ample experience when it came to her husband and the techniques of luxury shop girls; she continued to stoically finger the diamond-encrusted toggle while her other half belched a series of chortles and quips. After a particularly jolting guffaw, she checked her watch and released a sigh of resigned endurance.

“I’m about to make your day,” the man announced. “You’ve sold me! What do you think about that!” His voice echoed out from the small space, an announcement to all nearby that a Very High Value transaction was about to go down. Typical nouveau blowhard, Fred thought. He made sure to appear as if he hadn’t heard anything, in case the man looked over.

“You’ve made a wonderful selection,” Erika replied. “You’ll have this piece forever.”

She excused herself and parted the curtains toward the back room, adjusting her walk to lend a provocative sway to her ass. A minute later she reappeared, with a half bottle of champagne and two glasses on a silver tray. “Just a little celebration.”

The sound of the cork as it popped drew all available eyeballs within a certain radius. When they looked over, they saw Erika—the second button of her cardigan now undone, with the lace camisole underneath peeking through—pouring for the customer and his wife. The man was insisting something; Erika reached smoothly underneath the podium and brought out a third glass, which the customer proceeded to fill. “Salut!” he cheered. For a brief, unhinged moment, Fred imagined he had said slut. He shook his head, and the vision departed.

This was always when he found Erika most attractive: when she was selling. The first time Fred had been made aware of the importance of selling was when he was at Harvard Business School. He’d been thirty and in a relationship with Charlene Choi, a fellow MBA and spoiled Korean princess who in four years would become his wife and in seven his ex. The student body in those days had still been obsessed with high finance—the heady days of the first tech bubble were safely behind, while the second was still in its early stages of percolation—and in class the professors had all impressed upon them the importance of salesmanship, the massive gift and rare talent it was to be able to convince agents in a free market to willingly part with resources. It wasn’t enough to possess an expertise in the emerging markets or the quant ability of a Russian Asperger’s: finance was at its heart a rough universe, a trader’s world, where a good percentage of the top bosses had grown up poor and hustling. You had to be able to sell, to be a real player.

In the beginning, everyone took the lesson seriously. The Sales Club had a flurry of enrollments, and the lone salesperson in Fred’s section, a former GE aeronautics rep, had enjoyed alpha status for nearly a week, at one point speaking for five minutes uninterrupted—an eternity in the classroom—on a case study on Jack Welch. But over the following months, attitudes reverted back to the status quo. The optional early-morning negotiations seminar lost its luster in the face of the raging hangover triggered by the late-night cavortings at the Priscilla Ball—the annual cross-dressing party—the night before, and plus, there were so many other variables that seemed to play a defining role in success. One’s parents, for example, and selection of partner. Many assumed that Harvard, with its 70/30 male-to-female ratio, was full of sexual opportunists, and while this wasn’t necessarily untrue, the excavation went in both directions. For every penniless fortune huntress brandishing an engagement ultimatum, there was a corresponding Adonis attached to a Sternman or Mortimer with lavish stables and a horseface; there were nearly as many famous last names in Fred’s class among the women as among the men.

Given his relationship with Charlene, Fred’s only attempt at striving had been strictly platonic: a close friendship with Jack Hu, the lone male scion of a billionaire family in Hong Kong. They shared a circle because they were both Asian men, a minority whose numbers at Harvard were carefully and deliberately contained each year by the administration. The fact that Jack was slightly dull, both in mind and wit, was vastly outweighed by his vast wealth, and for two delectable years Fred had imagined himself as part of this gilded orbit, one where bodyguards trailed at a discreet distance and residences were maintained at the Mandarin Oriental downtown, instead of on campus.

Of course, Fred didn’t have Jack all to himself. Billionaires were in high demand within the HBS student population, and Fred soon found himself in competition for Jack’s favor with a bevy of assorted suitors, a group that included not only the other Asian men but also the predatory women, all of whom seemed to regard Jack’s stutter and predilection for playing Civilization for hours as simply adorable. And the Asians weren’t the only problem! There were also the South Americans, Europeans, Jews, Eastern Europeans, Africans, African Americans, and regular vanilla-white Americans—each bloc eager to make the acquaintance of fascinating personalities whose families’ real estate holdings were rumored to include entire acres in Knightsbridge and downtown Sydney. All hungry, though luckily—given the numerous plum targets available—less inclined to devote th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter 1: Stanley
• Chapter 2: Fred
• Chapter 3: Linda
• Chapter 4: Kate
• Chapter 5: Fred
• Chapter 6: Linda
• Chapter 7: Kate
• Chapter 8: Linda
• Chapter 9: Fred
• Chapter 10: Linda
• Chapter 11: Kate
• Chapter 12: Fred
• Chapter 13: Kate
• Chapter 14: Linda
• Chapter 15: Fred
• Chapter 16: Kate
• Chapter 17: Mary
• Chapter 18: Fred
• Chapter 19: Linda
• Chapter 20: Fred
• Chapter 21: Kate
• Chapter 22: Stanley
• Nine Months Later
• Acknowledgments
• P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
• An Excerpt from IMPOSTOR SYNDROME
• Praise
• Copyright
• About the Publisher