Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford Read Free Book Online

ask if they'd let me look around. They found a lot of old things in the basement. Things from the war years. "

    Marty finished chewing. "Looking for some long-lost jazz record, perhaps?"

    Henry ducked the question, not wanting to lie to his son, who knew he'd been interested in old jazz recordings from a very young age. But that was about all Marty knew of his father's childhood, though he did know that his father had had a hard time of it as a child. Why? He never asked, it somehow seemed sacred, and Henry rarely shared.
    In return, his son probably thought he was quite boring. A man who had cared for every detail of his wife's last years but had no surprises in him. Mr. Reliable. Without a bone of rebellion or spontaneity. "I'm looking for something ," Henry said.

    Marty set his chopsticks on the edge of his plate, looking at his father.
    "Something I should know about? Who knows, Pops, maybe I can help."

    Henry took a bite out of an egg custard tart, set it down, and pushed his plate away. "If I find something worth sharing, I'll let you know." Who knows, I might even surprise you. Wait and see. Wait, and see.

    Marty seemed unconvinced.
    "Something
    bothering
    you? You're the one who looks like he has something on his mind--aside from studying and grades." Henry thought his son was about to say something, then Marty clammed up. Timing seemed to be everything in Henry's family.
    There had always seemed to be a right time and a wrong time for discussion between Henry and his own father. Maybe his son felt the same.

    "He'll deal with it in his own way, and in his own time," Ethel had said, shortly after she learned she had cancer. "He's your son, but he's not a product of your childhood, it doesn't have to be the same."

    Ethel had taken Henry out on Green Lake, on a boat, beneath a sunny August sky,

    to tell him the bad news. "Oh, I'm not leaving anytime soon," she'd said. "But if anything, when I go, I hope my passing brings the two of you together."

    She had never stopped mothering her son, and Henry for that matter. Until the treatments began, then everything got turned around. And seemed to stay that way.

    Now father and son waited in silence, ignoring the carts of dim sum that rolled by.
    The awkward moment was interrupted by the crash of plates somewhere in the kitchen, punctuated by men swearing at each other in Chinese and English. There was much to say and ask, but neither Henry nor Marty inched closer to the subject. They just waited for their server, who would soon be bringing more tea and orange slices.

    Henry quietly hummed the tune of an old song--he didn't know the words anymore, but he'd never forgotten the melody. And the more he hummed the more he felt like smiling again.

    Marty, on the other hand, just sighed, and kept looking for the waitress.

    Lake View
    (1986)

    Henry paid the bill and watched as his son waved good-bye, loading an enormous to-go bag into the front seat of his silver Honda Accord. The extra goodies had been at Henry's insistence. He knew his son did okay with the food on campus, but they didn't have anything that compared with a dozen fresh hum bau--and besides, steamed pork buns could easily be reheated in the microwave in Marty's dorm room.

    Content that his son was well on his way, Henry stopped at a flower stand, then stood at the nearest bus stop, where he caught the Number 10 to the far side of Capitol Hill--within walking distance of Lake View Cemetery.

    When Ethel died, Henry had sworn he'd visit her grave once a week. But it'd been six months now, and he'd been up to see her only once-- on what would have been their thirty-eighth wedding anniversary.

    He placed fresh-cut starfire lilies, the kind they grew in their flower garden, on the small granite headstone that was all that reminded the world that Ethel had once lived. He paid his respects, sweeping away the dried leaves and wiping the moss from her grave, where he placed another small bundle of