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

Or maybe I was just supposed to give up, was that how it went? I left without her and told Lee how to find her when he got home. Of the three options, the last one appealed to me most, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk back to my car alone when I had been so frantic not that long ago. I honestly didn’t know what to do.


“Hey ma’am.” A thin man in a shabby business suit leaned down over the back of the bench, his gaze hot on me. To Lee’s mother, he asked, “This guy bothering you? You want me to call 9-1-1?”


The absurdity of the moment struck me full force and I pushed by him to plop down to the bench beside her. “Give it up,” I growled. “I’m practically her son-in-law.” 


Mrs. Gui’s head whipped around and I smiled into her stony glare. 


“So how’s this going to work, hmm? You coming home or what?”


Carefully, as if I might not understand words larger than one or two syllables, she said, “I am going to the store.”


Mimicking her tone, I replied slowly, “I will take you.”


Chapter 28