Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“Three thousand.”
“Twenty-five hundred and I throw in a kitchen remodel.”
“Deal,” she pounced. “If you write up the contract with those terms and send it to me signed by your mother, the accountant, and the estate lawyer by the end of the week, I’ll start the following Sunday.”
“Absolutely. Not a problem.”
“Then I’ll see you Sunday.”
Click.
I jumped up and down—doing my flat-ass dance right there in the parking lot. I was all prepared for a very awkward conversation with Rhodes, Alex, and Micah on their need to fund the household staff, but it never occurred to me that wasn’t necessary because it was all handled by Appa’s estate planning and lawyers. And that didn’t occur to me because I never really understood how all of that worked in the first place.
What I did know was that my father, Jong Woo Kim, was the heir to a mini-fan empire based in Korea. As the second son, he didn’t inherit the business from his father, but he did reap the rewards with a sizeable bank account gifted to him upon marriage. And therefore, Omma was gifted a sizeable prenuptial agreement on her wedding day.
Neither one of them shared the details of that prenup with me or Sue growing up, naturally, so we got the skinny from our cousins in Daegu one summer when we visited for a wedding.
Our older cousin, daughter of my father’s sister, told us that Dad’s older brother made his new wife sign a prenup too, but it wasn’t “half as vicious as the one Omma signed.”
We didn’t know what she was talking about, but when we asked her, she just said, “If you don’t know, I’m not going to be the one to tell you, but I will say this. If a guy handed me a prenup like that minutes before we were supposed to get married, and he told me to either sign it or walk out, I’d walk out... after kicking his ass.”
Naturally, Sue and I were bursting with questions after being told that, but neither one of us was stupid enough to ask our parents about it.
We both wanted to live.
But the questions always hung in the air, especially after Appa died. Our standard of living didn’t change at all. We still had nice clothes, expensive shoes, and a house full of staff, but after middle school, and the declaration that I would run away before I ever went to the same school as Sue again, I put the Titan Prep brochure in my mother’s hands.
She agreed that it was a great school and I’d do very well there, but then she said something I didn’t understand until that moment.
“I don’t know if he’ll approve the tuition cost when there are other private schools in the area that cost half this much,” she had said, clearly forgetting I was in the room. “I’m still paying back Halmeoni’s surgery too.”
I asked her then what she was talking about, and she immediately shooed me away and told me to start on my homework.
Mrs. Prado’s remark now put all of that in sharp focus. If my mother needed joint permission from an accountant and a lawyer just to hire a flipping house manager, it meant that my father locked his inheritance down so tight, my mother couldn’t touch it even after he died.
Imagine how humiliating it must have been for my mother to have to go pleading and cajoling for the money to send her daughter to a better school? And then quadruple that humiliation when she begged him for money to care for her ailing mother, and he told her she could only have it as a loan.
From her father’s control, to her husband’s control, and now to a lawyer’s control—my mother wasn’t allowed independence a single day of her life... and now that life was ending.
“Fuck’s sake, Appa,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No wonder even your super conservative family members thought you were an ass.”
“Sue?”
I turned as Micah crossed the asphalt holding tight to Lily’s hand.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I replied, holding out my arms for Lily to jump in them. “Just wishing more men were feminists.”
That got an eyebrow raise. “Didn’t know you cared about that, but, if it helps my cause...” He flashed me that wicked, toe-curling grin. “I am.”
I ducked my head, hiding a blush in Lily’s hair. “Are you?” I shot back. “Because saying you are just to illicit the kind of favors you want to get from me, kind of proves you’re not.”
He laughed out loud—not in the least bit slighted.
I reached for the door handle and paused. Lily’s teacher waved at us from the sidewalk. He waited for a car to pass, then jogged over.
“Yes?” I asked. “Is something wrong? Did Lily forget something?”
“No, not a thing.” Charles Layton was a short, but handsome man with plump, round cheeks and a gangly frame. I didn’t know how much chasing after kids in the hot sun he did day after day, but his pale skin was tan in some places, and red in the rest. I put him at around my age. “I just wanted to let you know that I have a faculty meeting tomorrow, so I’ll be an hour late.”