Chapter 142

With Dad’s cash infusion, the next few months would be less burdensome. Add to that the fact that we found a buyer for the house, and you can see that things were finally starting to look up. However, despite all that, I still couldn’t shake the feeling I had after that positive conversation with Dad. It just felt… off.

So, over the next few days, I called him, deciding to dig a little deeper. I wanted to get some insight into what my mom might have told him—enough to not only convince him to give me money early, but also to add her name to it. That being said, as soon as he picked up the phone, the conversation took a completely different turn. Because the first voice I heard wasn’t his—it was a kid’s.

Instead of asking about the conversation he had with my mom, I asked him if he had ever wanted to have a child with her.

The tone was set. This conversation was going to get very personal. After some time, he responded. He said he wasn’t sure what he wanted back then. He recounted the sequence of events I mentioned in Chapter 1, then went a bit more in depth. He said he had wanted to stick around, but that my mom was just too much to deal with. Then he added that if he had stayed, I would’ve ended up like him—a deadbeat with no career prospects.

He told me that he currently held the best job he’d likely ever have: working as a janitor/receptionist at a hotel in rural New Zealand. I had no idea how he ended up there, but I didn’t really care. It seemed like he knew this was the end of the road for his career.

While his honesty was revealing, it wasn’t the answer I wanted. I guess I was hoping for something—anything—about him fighting to stay by my side. Or maybe some regret about leaving my mom and me behind. But he just kept insisting that my mom was intolerable, and that if he had fought for custody and won, I wouldn’t have become an optometrist in Canada. He said he wasn’t a good father figure. That’s a fact I can’t argue with, but still—what a cowardly answer. I was annoyed that the decision seemed so clear-cut to him, but I digress.

Next, I asked about his current life and whether what my mom said about him was true. That’s when I found out she was right—he had a family in New Zealand. I had two half-siblings on his side. They weren’t exactly a complete family, but they were a family of sorts. From what I gathered, he and the mother were separated. He lived far away and sent money their way from time to time as support. I guess, after the trial run with me, he at least learned some responsibility—enough to pay child support to Family #2.

The last thing I still wanted to bring up was why he had stolen from my trust fund when I was little. But right before I asked, I stopped myself. That would’ve been incredibly antagonistic, and I couldn’t do that to someone who had just wired a sizable amount of money my way. It felt like it would be in poor taste. More than that, I was a little afraid of what the answer might be.

So, I let the conversation die out. A short while later, the phone call ended.

I got a bit more information from Dad. That’ll have to be enough—for now.

A few days later, I got a call from Mom. Her reason for calling? She said we should probably burn some paper and talk with our ancestors.

This was a cultural thing—you burn things, and that supposedly sends them into the afterlife, where your loved ones would have access to them.

My initial thoughts about her reason for calling were: Really? Did you want to tell our ancestors how you wasted away all their money and assets and ruined my future inheritance as well? You want to tell them how your greedy little egocentric mind took charge of our family’s hard-earned generational wealth and squandered it all? I wanted to say all of that, but on that day, for some reason, I just didn’t.

Fine.

A few days later, I went over to my mom’s place. It was now February, and snow was piling up everywhere. In the soon-to-be-sold house, there was a metallic bonfire pit in the backyard. We chose this spot to burn the paper. I really liked the smell of wood burning—it was just such a nice scent. But today, I couldn’t just make a fire and enjoy the smell. We had to get through this incredibly tedious and subtext-filled afternoon.

It was wet outside and cloudy. This wasn’t a huge issue since we had enough firewood lying around, but getting the fire started would take some time. As I worked on the fire, I was reminded of a story from middle school—something between my mom and me.

Sometime during the middle of 7th grade, my mom got mad at me for something academic. From grades 1 to 6, I had gone to an elementary school. Grades 7 and 8 were considered middle school and were held at another location. The new school was bigger and scarier, and I honestly had a hard time adjusting. The most daunting effect came in the form of lower grades.

At parent-teacher interviews, my mom was told I wasn’t doing too well, and that kind of set her off. In truth, I was just a little below average in most of my classes—a feat I actually thought was decent progress, especially considering I had been ESL just a few years earlier. My mom, however, thought this was unacceptable.

Then the first report card came out. When I brought it home, she got angry. You could almost see her face turn red. Her expression was violent and dark. After staring at the report card for a while, she calmly but sternly said:

“Do you want me to go on welfare? Do I have to quit my job to make sure you study more? Why are your grades so low?”

This kind of reaction was very on-brand for her. Did she think that if she spent all her time on me, my grades would magically improve? I had no idea. I think what she was trying to say was that I needed to become more independent, especially when it came to studying.

But I also felt like she was indirectly saying I was just a burden. Like my bad grades were hurting her and forcing her into situations she didn’t want. Even at the time, I didn’t really understand what welfare was.

I think I remembered this story that day because I knew how much my family hates being a burden on others. It’s such a deeply ingrained trait that my mom even used it as ammunition to get me to study harder.

Seeing as that was just school—not a real burden—and how my mom is now a very real burden on me, I found it funny how drastically the circumstances have changed. A curious thought came to me: I wondered if my mom would’ve still tried to coerce me this way if Dad had been in the picture.

And so, as the fire began to catch, I decided to ask:

“How did your marriage with Dad fall apart?”

It felt slightly weird to ask this as someone in their late 20s, but she answered. Though… she gave me the generic response. Things didn’t work out. He was chasing a lot of women at the time. He wasn’t around, and she needed help.

“Why did you abandon me to my paternal and maternal grandparents when I was young?”

She couldn’t say.

“Did you ever even want kids?”

Her reply? She said she didn’t want me to have kids—because, as she put it, the world is dark and messed up. It’s just not a good idea to bring someone into it.

Naturally, I told her that wasn’t what I asked at all. And while she was trying to make a point, I pushed back, saying that the world seems scary to her because she couldn’t cut it—she got herself scammed. That’s not a reflection of the world; that’s a reflection of her. Also, I asked if she thought I didn’t have what it takes to be a dad. Or better yet, why should her opinion of the world affect how I live in it?

Who the f*ck does she think she is?

Sigh…

Never mind that.

I repeated myself:

“Did YOU ever want to have kids with Dad when you had me?”

And finally, she responded to the actual question.

“Your dad and I were never sure. We were just following the trend at the time.”

That’s not paraphrased; it’s a direct quote. But honestly, it wasn’t all that shocking to me. I sort of had my suspicions, and based on how things turned out, it’s not hard to see how truthful that answer was. I was born out of the trend of everyone having babies. During China’s one-child policy era, there was still a strong push for having just one child. Who knew?

Now, if you’ve read the initial chapters at the very beginning of the blog, you might know that I originally came up with a completely different narrative. That one’s probably more definitive than this account, because this version directly contributed to that reimagining. I say “reimagining,” but to be honest, it’s probably more realistic than any truths I could get from either of my parents. That’s because the version I’m referring to depends on third-party perspectives like T1 and T2. They were older than me when all the chaos went down, and honestly, they have zero personal stakes in the situation.

With that said, does this really change anything? Not really. Things that were in motion will still stay in motion. The house is still on the market, the private loans still need to be paid off. If you were to ask me what value these conversations had, especially considering their timing during the worst period of our family’s history, I’d say it’s because I needed something somewhat truthful from my mom.

All the discussions about the Bitcoin scam were so full of shame and secrecy that I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand it. Our family history, in comparison, is also full of shame, but at least there are other people involved who can tell me what was going on.

This part of the family has always been shrouded in mystery, and when our finances were in the same state… well, let’s just say I could only handle so much not knowing in all aspects of my life. In truth, I think I just wanted a little more honesty.