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

Damn straight we will. It hadn’t been ten minutes since the woman walked through the front door and already I felt alienated and alone. And this was going to last for a few weeks? 


Dinner that first night was strained. Usually when classes were in session and Lee didn’t have hospital duty, one of us picked up dinner on the way home. That was usually Lee, since the clinic didn’t close until six. I set the table and once he came home, it was only a matter of unwrapping subs or emptying take-out containers onto our plates, or opening the pizza box. Still, we made a point of sitting down together, me on my side of the table and Lee on his, and over the meal we would talk. About my students, his patients, movies we wanted to see, what might be on the television that night. 


Chapter 15