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

“We have to wait,” I told her. “They’ll get him for us.”


Mrs. Gui bristled with contempt. “Should have let metalk to her,” she muttered. Then, probably angry that we weren’t ushered into Lee’s private office with whatever fanfare she felt we were due, she lapsed into bitter Cantonese, once or twice shooting fierce glares at the nurse behind the window. 


For once I didn’t feel paranoid, listening to her chatter away in her own language, and I wanted more than anything to know what she said.


Whatever it was, it apparently unnerved the nurse, who picked up the phone as she sat down at her desk to get out of Mrs. Gui’s hateful gaze. I heard her speaking low but couldn’t hear the words she said. Less than a minute later, she hung up. 


Through the window fast steps echoed off a tiled floor, and then a door leading to the rooms in the back opened. Lee peered around the waiting room, hard eyes narrowed, fingers tapping the door in a peeved rhythm. Seeing me, he started, “Curt, what—”


Chapter 31