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

My guilt shone in everything I did, every word, every move. When I finally came out to her sometime in college, I reminded her of Shane and was floored that she never suspected a thing. All that time my conscience ate at me for nothing.


But Lee’s mother…I saw myself mirrored in her black eyes and hated that she could make me feel dirty for the wondrous love I shared with her son. So we fucked,I wanted to tell her. The words roiled inside of me as I buttered the bagels, dragging the knife across the crisp bread with short, angry strokes. Newsflash for you, Mama Gui—we’re both adults. What we choose to do behind closed doors in our own bed isn’t any of your goddamn business. If she said something to me, anything, I was going to tell her she surely didn’t have to stay in our home if she didn’t like what we did in it.


I sat down at the table and waited for her to speak. 


Chapter 23