Chapter 1

Kahlil Gibran once wrote in 《The Prophet》 “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you.”

When I was young I couldn't understand that line. It just sounded like a writer sighing over nothing. It wasn't until I was past fifty that I discovered it was the cruelest truth in the world.

Parents of our generation worked ourselves half to death for money. We turned ourselves into steel and turned our homes into barracks, believing that if we just laid down enough gold bricks, the road would carry our children all the way to Rome.

But twenty years later, looking back, we found out we'd won the material things and lost our children.

It took William Finch a full fifty-two years to finally wake up on that night of thunder and rain, to understand that what decides a child's whole fate was never the numbers in a bank account, and never the switch in a parent's hand.

The real root had been hiding all along in the most obvious, most easily overlooked corner of the home.

William Finch sat on the leather sofa in the living room, the cigarette in his hand burned down to the filter.

The sting against his fingertips made him flinch. He crushed the butt hard into the crystal ashtray, with enough force to grind something to dust.

The clock on the wall had just struck twelve, and the dull chiming echoed through the empty two-thousand-square-foot penthouse.

He'd paid cash for this place three years ago, in the best school district downtown. The renovation had run him more than a hundred grand, right down to imported solid-wood baseboards.

But now it was as quiet as a luxury tomb.

A key turned in the door, softly, almost like a cautious little test.

The security door eased open a crack, and Duke Finch's pale, thin face appeared behind it.

Seeing the floor lamp still burning in the living room, Duke froze, and instinctively started to shrink back.

“You're already in. What are you hiding from?”

William's voice was hoarse, thick with anger he couldn't hold down.

Duke kept his head low as he changed his shoes, a convenience-store plastic bag in his hand, two rice balls and a bottle of soda inside.

He was twenty-six this year. Three years out of a top university, four jobs cycled through, the longest lasting five months.

These days he shut himself in his room, said he was studying for the civil service exam, but more than once, getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, William had seen the glow of a video game leaking under the door.

“That's your dinner tonight?”

William stood up, his eyes settling on the plastic bag.

Duke pulled his hand back behind him, his gaze sliding away, not daring to meet his father's eyes.

“Yeah. I was hungry. Just grabbed something.”

“Your mom left you rib soup in the kitchen. It's still warm. Why won't you eat it?”

“Don't want anything greasy.”

Duke's voice was tiny, barely a mumble.

William drew a deep breath, his chest heaving harder and harder.

He strode over, snatched the plastic bag away, and slammed it down on the floor.

There was a sharp crack. The soda bottle burst, brown liquid splashing everywhere, and the rice balls rolled to the edge of the expensive rug.

Duke jerked all over in fright and pressed himself flat against the cabinet by the entryway.

“Look at yourself right now! Twenty-six years old, eating this junk, living in this house like a ghost, sleeping all day and out all night!”

William's roar shook the chandelier.

“I spent all that money putting you through school, sending you to the best tutoring, buying you this and that, and it was all so you could turn into a useless bum?”

Duke kept his head down, biting hard into his lip, both hands clenched around the hem of his shirt, knuckles white with the pressure.

“Say something! Have you gone mute?”

William took a step forward, reaching to grab his son's shoulder.

Duke's head snapped up. His eyes were webbed with red, and there was no guilt in them, only a numbness and disgust that turned William's blood cold.

“You made me read those books. You made me pick that major. You made me sit for that exam.”

Duke's voice wasn't loud, but every word came out clear, carrying the finality of a man who'd given up on the whole thing.

“Did I ever say I wanted any of it? In my whole life, have you ever once asked me what I wanted?”

William froze, his hand stalling stiffly in midair.

“All you know how to do is hand over money and control me. William Finch, in your eyes I'm not a living person. I'm a project that has to turn a profit!”

And with that, as if it had drained the last of his strength, Duke skirted around the mess on the floor and walked fast into his room.

The door slammed shut with a bang, and the sound of the lock turning was piercing.

William stood where he was, staring at the stain slowly spreading across the rug, and all at once the room began to spin.