Curt, a college professor, lives with his lover of several years, a pediatrician of Chinese descent named Lee. Eager to write, he receives a grant to take the summer off and work on a novel. Then Lee's mother calls -- she wants to visit. Curt is eager to meet her but Lee isn't so sure ... she's of a different generation, a different culture even, and doesn’t speak much English. Still, Curt insists.<br><br>But when Mrs. Gui arrives, Curt finds himself struggling with writer’s block. He feels like an outsider in his own home when Lee and his mother converse in Cantonese, leaving him out of the conversation, and even his sex life suffers with her in the bedroom next to theirs. Can Curt and Mrs. Gui move past their cultural differences to see that they both love Lee and have his best interests at heart?

Just What the Doctor Ordered

“Christianity is the truth,” she’d said, her words clipped and cold. “Not a lifestyle.”


“As is my sexuality,” I countered. “It’s mytruth. Not how I choose to live but who I am. Gay. Come on, Ma, say it. You won’t go to hell.”


I wondered again if Lee’s mother was anything like my own. If so, why was I arguing for her to visit? I had the summer off and didn’t need an old woman shuffling around the house trying to make me feel guilty for sharing my bed with her son.


But there was a part of me that wanted her blessing, her acceptance that I, too, was an integral faction in Lee’s life. Childish as it sounded, I wanted her approval. I didn’t want to be another one of her son’s nameless, faceless boyfriends. I was much more than that and I wanted her to know it, to know me


Chapter 10