The Last Heiress

Chapter 6 - My Father's Wishes

Chapter 6

Oslen, now that was a name I did remember. His father had been friends with my father when they were younger. I recalled something about a broken marriage, a mental illness, and relying on a brat of an only son to run his father's empire. Even as those distant details returned to me, my mind drifted to thoughts of my father.

My father was the child of a generation who knew a great deal of turmoil, starvation, and fear. He grew up in the aftermath of a World War, and as much as he tried to be modern, there was always a generational disconnect between him and me. Nowhere was this more obvious than his love of telling disturbing and tragic stories.

My father loved nothing more than puffing on the stump of his forbidden cigarette (a habit he was so desperate to quit because he didn't want to be seen as old-fashioned). As he did so, he would often recount to me the time his mother made him chop off the head of his favorite hen because the neighbors complained about the amount of waste falling from their balcony-dwelling chicken coup. (He always seemed to forget, no matter how many times I reminded him, that he had told me that story before, and I didn't need to hear it again.)

Then, once he saw that I wasn't adequately shocked, he'll start wagging the end of his cigarette at me, lecturing that I never knew what it was like to be so hungry that I had to strip the bark off of trees and gnaw on them like stale beef jerky. Despite all that the government took from us during Mao's revolution, my father was better off than some. He hid a small satchel of jewels that belonged to his father's rich aunt behind a loose shingle over the chicken coup. My father always hesitated before saying "jewels" as though he meant to say something else. It was one of the many mysteries in my family that I could never truly figure out.

It would only be many years later when I started to read about my family's history, that I would realize my father's family had been wealthy once, very wealthy.

They lost all that money by backing the Emperor of Manchukuo and picking the wrong side during the ill-fated war in 1934. My father's presence in my life had never been consistent. He came and went as he pleased, leaving me to a variety of aunties, both hired and distant blood relations, to raise me. Sometime before he had me, he regained some of the fortune his family had lost. Whatever he reclaimed, it never seemed enough, and he was always away on business. My mother was no help either, as she ran away with her vocal coach when I was ten. Last I heard, one of my aunties told me the woman was trying to make it in Cannes as a singer.

Now my father was gone too. All I had left of him was this black briefcase. What could possibly be inside it that ensuring I had it in my possession during that flight out of our home country mattered even more than delivering a proper goodbye?

My train of thought was interrupted by the sound of Orion clearing his throat. I noticed that he was fidgeting with his cell phone, tapping it against his thigh, as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to speak to me or to go back to pretending he was texting someone else.

I supposed that my body language of pressing myself as far up against the car door wasn't enough to deter him from trying to speak to me. Trying to recall my manners, I struggled not to let out the aggravated sigh brewing in my throat.

He had shown up at the airport to escort me to my grandmother's house. I owe him the favor of not snapping at him for clearing his throat without my permission.

Orion's family was wealthy, and so was mine. That was where the similarities ended. Orion seemed to enjoy making up for his lack of familial guidance by dressing with as much nouveau riche flair as he could possibly carry on that 6'1" frame of his. Perhaps it was because my father grew up in a time when the elite ended up with a bullet in their heads for luxuries as simple as owning a pet dog, but my father always shied away from shows of wealth.