Family Trust Read online

  Dedication

  For my mother

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  About the Author

  Praise for Family Trust

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  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 he
r 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 the focused energy to drawing Jack out of his initial shyness than Fred was. Jack finally venturing to ask, after months of mild conviviality, over steaming bowls of beef pho in Harvard Square, if Fred had ever disappointed his parents. “My dad, he’s angry I missed my cousin’s wedding in Cap Ferrat.”

  Or while sharing a thin-crust pizza at Pinocchio’s—pepperoni with extra mushrooms, since it was Jack’s favorite—“Have you ever had the feeling that one of your professors was trying to network with you?”

  Or at the Indian buffet in Central Square, both hovering over the chicken tikka masala: “I have to fly to Singapore next week. There’s drama with the board over succession planning.”

  “Oh?” Fred would casually reply each time, taking care never to look up from his food. He had learned that enthusiasm frightened
the rich and powerful, as they recalled parental exhortations to never trust the less fortunate, who were unpredictable in their poverty. He pampered Jack in their interactions, but not obviously; feted him, but not ostentatiously. And over time Jack felt comfortable in their camaraderie, and they became friends.

  After graduation, they vowed to keep in touch, but Fred was always bad at that sort of relationship maintenance, like remembering to attend others’ birthday parties so that when the time came, they in exchange would grace his own. So it was only five years later, at the reunion, that he understood how much reassurance his friendship with Jack had provided, like a long-stowed savings bond one could recall at will. Jack was already married by then, and they’d shared a few minutes of superficial banter before he was spotted and quickly pulled away, his patrician wife tossing back a sympathetic smile as they receded. It was then that Fred knew he had lost it, had abandoned out of sheer carelessness his brief, tenuous connection to the very top of the 1 percent.

  Until that morning.

  * * *

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: Founders’ Retreat

  Fred,

  It’s been a while . . . how long since we last talked?

  On my end I’m good, still managing the family business. It’s been satisfying to see it grow, though I wish I didn’t have to live in Hong Kong. The air is shit. Sherry still gets on me for playing video games, she says I should have more serious pursuits now that I’m past forty and have three kids. Are you on Dota?

  You may not have heard, but Reagan Kwon (remember him? a year above us) and I have done a few deals together since school, and I’ve been unofficially advising him on Thailand’s economic development fund since the beginning of the year. Your name came up as a possible partner on the US side. Thoughts? It’s a few billion right now, but growing.

  Reagan and I will both be at the Founders’ Retreat this year in Bali. Hope we can catch up there!