Xiāoshī
Mandarin for, To Vanish
“Are you all right?” Jin Starck asked Adrienne.
She nodded slowly.
Her hand went to her cheek, rubbing it to ease a little of the sting caused by her mother’s palm. Jill and Yuan now stood behind her, trying to give whatever comfort they could provide at that moment, both were throwing daggers at Kim and her mother with their eyes.
Jin turned to look at her mother, her father and her sister. He stood in front of Adrienne, as if to shield her against her own family.
The charming, mischievous and seemingly innocent aura that he usually possessed seemed to have evaporated instantly. Instead, her family faced a cold, murderous and scary man that even froze her mother in her place.
Jin pointed a finger to her mother and said, “You touch her again, and you will find yourself with a sorry-ass lawsuit! And I will file a complaint with the state medical board to make sure you will never be able to practice your profession ever again!” he said in a voice that almost sounded like a growl. He turned to Adrienne. “I’m the one who posted bail.”
“Is this the rich boyfriend you were talking about?” her mother asked Kim in a low voice.
Kim shook her head. “No, it’s a different guy.” She rolled her eyes and murmured, “What a slut!”
Unfortunately for her, Jin Starck heard that.
“Kimberly Alexis Miller!” Jin said in a booming, loud voice that turned everybody in the room silent. “Adrienne only had two boyfriends in her life and she barely even saw one of them. Is that your definition of a slut? Or is it the goody-two-shoes who lost her V-card at the age of thirteen to her college neighbor, Danny. Then slept with the whole football team in high school, including the married coach.
“Bar-hopping every weekend in med school, waking up with strangers in the morning. Sleeping with university professors to make sure she got the grades she wanted…and sleeping with somebody high up as her insurance for graduation.”
Adrienne watched Kimberly’s face drain of blood.
“I’ve got dirt on you Miss Miller. And when my people dig, they dig deep,” Jin said relentlessly. “Does your mother know you were treated for sexually transmitted diseases at least six times now?” Jin tried to look innocent and then he added, “Oh! I guess you went to a different OB-GYN. Too bad, Dr. Miller. Your daughter would have made a good patient. Lots of repeat consultations and procedures.”
Kim’s eyes filled with tears. Her face was white. And everybody, including Troy and his parents heard what Jin Starck said to her.
“How dare you say those lies about my daughter?” Mrs. Miller asked angrily.
“How dare you lay a finger on Adrienne!” Jin barked back at her. Then he stared at Kimberly. “And they weren’t lies, were they, Miss Miller?”
“Who are you anyway? Why do you say these things like you own us? Like you could buy us?” Adrienne’s mother asked angrily.
Adrienne’s father on the other hand was staring at Jin with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to place him.
Jin stared at Mrs. Miller and Kimberly crossly. “My name is Jin.” He looked at Adrienne gently. “Jin Adrien Starck.” Then he gave Adrienne’s father a sharp look.
Adrienne’s father gasped, as if the name rang a bell. And then his face turned red. He suddenly looked ghastly.
“I own Starck Hoteliers Corporation, so yes, I think I can buy you!” Jin said to Adrienne’s mother. Then he turned Adrienne and gave her a rueful look. “And I’m also… your brother.”
Adrienne gasped. Her hand went to her mouth.
Brother? How?
“You’re Kim’s brother too?” Adrienne asked softly.
“Thank God, no!” Jin replied. Then he gave her father a hard look. “You should have told her a long time ago. Now, you lost that chance!”
“What truth?” Adrienne asked, confused.
“Adrienne…” Her father started.
“Your father’s real name was Henry Dennison.” Jin cut him off. “When you were two years old, he changed his name to Henry Miller, with the help of Marina Miller, of course, the lady you thought was your mother.”
Adrienne stared at her father in shock. “Daddy…why?”
Her father now has tears in his eyes. “Because…I didn’t want your real mother to take you away from me.”
“My real mother?” Adrienne echoed. She looked at Jin.
“Our mother, Adrienne,” Jin said as gently as he could.
Adrienne shook her head. “How…how…I don’t understand.”
“Our mother was raised in the States, where she met your Dad and had you. But she didn’t tell him who she was in France. She was an heiress of a hotel tycoon and her father had arranged for her to marry his business associate’s son…Pierre Starck, the then heir of Starck Hoteliers Corporation, my father.” Jin said.
Adrienne watched her father’s reaction. He couldn’t even look at Adrienne now.
“Your parents separated and after, our mother found out that her father was suffering from cancer. He was considered terminal when Mom went back to France. She couldn’t tell him that she had a family in the States because she thought he would never forgive her. And she didn’t want him to bring that pain to his grave. But she told my Dad about you and he still agreed to marry her nevertheless.
“Mother made arrangements for your father to keep you safe until after her wedding and she would take you to France. Your father agreed to give her custody of you…because she would be able to take better care of you. She trusted your father. But when she went back to the States, Henry Dennison disappeared, without a trace. So did you.”
Adrienne’s father was crying now. Finally, he looked at her with great remorse.
“All my life, my mother searched for you, Adrienne. Her heart was broken and her happiness with us never seemed complete because she thought she lost you,” Jin continued. “My father hired people to look for Henry because he promised our Mom he would return you to her. But we were in vain. All we had was a picture of you, when you were two years old. Our grandfather came to know about you eventually and forgave our mother. Even on his death bed, he wished for you to be returned to us.”
Then Jin stared at her father. “You changed your name and hers and erased her mother from her past. You let her grow up thinking that her own mother and sister couldn’t love her. You deprived her of the maternal love she so deserved.” He gave the Mr. Miller a disgusted look. “What kind of father are you?” Jin almost spat.
“If you had let her live with us, my father would have loved her as his own! She is the daughter of one of the wealthiest women in France and you deprived her of her birthright. You deprived her of the luxuries she could have lived with. She could have lived like a princess all her life! You denied her all of that. But what’s unforgiveable…is that you deprived her of the joy that a loving family would give her!”
Adrienne stared at her father. She struggled to find her voice. “Dad…please…tell me it isn’t true!”
Her father closed his eyes. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I was afraid of losing you, baby. I knew how powerful your mother was and I knew she could take you away from me. I was…a struggling doctor. I had little means to fight for you. Especially not against your mother and her new husband.” He took a deep breath and turned to Marina. “We had a deal,” he said to her. “I will father your daughter and in return you would replace Adrienne’s mother in her life, give her the motherly love she needed. But…you never loved her.”
“How could I love her?” Adrienne’s mother fired back. “Every time I look at your daughter…all I see is…her! Ariana Blanc! The love of your life! I was everything to you before you met her! You left me for her! And then when she left you, you came back to me! I accepted you thinking that things would go back to the way they used to be. But no! You couldn’t love me the way you loved her. She meant the whole world to you! She left your life, but she never left your heart! I know it! I feel it!
“So, how could you expect me to love her daughter the way I loved my own? She reminded me of how you left me for her mother! And how you asked me to save you when she left you torn and broken. You married me after Kim’s father left me…after Adrienne’s mother left you. But you never stopped loving her!”
Adrienne looked at the mother she’s known all her life. She wasn’t just imagining it. Now, she knew the truth that she tried to deny over and over all her life: Her mother never loved her.
“Mom…I truly loved you. I was content just to have…a little bit of the love you gave Kim. And all my life I asked myself why you couldn’t love us equally.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I truly believed there was something wrong with me.” She shook her head. “But there wasn’t. All my life, you took out your jealousy on me.”
Marina looked at Adrienne, contempt still visible on her face. But she didn’t say anything. Either she had nothing to say to her, or she felt scared that if she did lash out on her, Jin Starck will retaliate, at her or at Kim’s expense.
“This is so messed up!” Adrienne breathed. Then she looked at Jin. “How long have you known?”
“Not long,” he replied. “When I first saw you, I thought you looked very familiar. So familiar that I found it creepy. It even gave me goosebumps. After a while, I realized why. You look like Mom when she was your age. Then I set up a meeting with you to get to know you. And to get a DNA sample from you.”
“How did you do that?”
Jin sighed. “We dined in my restaurant, Adrienne. It was easy enough to sneak out the glass you used and immediately send it to a lab. My staff got briefed beforehand on what they needed to do. You didn’t even realize it.”
“And?”
“And they compared it to my DNA. Just as I suspected. We had the same mitochondrial DNA, which means, we have the same mother. And trust me. I made the lab run the test three times. You are my sister, Adrienne.” No matter how gentle his voice was, the blow still felt the same to Adrienne. It didn’t take away the fact that her parents had lied to her all her life.
Jin turned to her father. “I must admire the way you covered your tracks. We searched high and low.” Then he looked at her mother. “You must know all sorts of crooks to be able to pull off what you did.” Jin shook his head. “But you can’t get in the way of fate, and the truth, of course. God found a way for Adrienne and I to meet. Unfortunately for you, I don’t believe in coincidences. And I always follow my gut feelings.”
Adrienne looked at her father. She honestly didn’t know what to feel. She felt mad at him for what he did. She was angry at the fact that he forced her to live with a monstrous woman who did nothing but belittle her and destroy her self-respect. She became furious that he stole precious years she could have spent with her real mother and her real brother. Years she could never get back.
“Adrienne…” her father stated softly. “I am sorry, my child. I am so, so sorry.”
Adrienne bit her lip. Tears overflowing her eyes, she said to him, “You could have at least stood up for me throughout all these years, Daddy. The mother I’ve known may not have a reason to love me. But you did. You could have fought for me all these years that she and Kim made my life miserable. All those years that Mom made me feel I was good for nothing. Those years that they crushed my spirit and crippled my self-worth.” She couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t shouting at her father. But she spoke harsh words straight from her heart…finally telling her father how hard life had been for her.
She wiped the tears on her face. “But you know what’s more painful, Dad?” She paused, giving him time to absorb everything she said. Then she took a deep breath and added, “Is that you just stood there and watched!”
With that, she grabbed her phone and her wallet, and turned her back on them.
She blindly walked to the exit of the station. When she stepped outside, the cold breeze greeted her and she shivered. But only for a second. Because immediately, she felt the material of Jin’s leather jacket cover her bare arms.
She looked up at him—her brother.
“I’m sorry, you had to find out that way,” he said to her.
She took a deep breath. “So that day we met at the bar and I passed out, you already knew you were my brother.”
He nodded. “Took me all my strength not to tell you, you know. That was the same day that the DNA results came to my mail. I was so happy. But I couldn’t figure out a way to tell you without breaking your heart.”
Adrienne sighed. “It broke my heart either way.”
“I know,” he said. “There was no way to break it to you gently. So last night, I just stopped figuring things out. I thought, just rip off the bandage. When I found out you went to Boston, I flew here immediately. I was hoping to talk to your father first. Give him a chance to tell you himself. But when I learned that you were picked up and detained, I just blew my top.” He reached up and touched her cheek gently. “No one hurts my sister and gets away with it.”
Adrienne’s heart swelled at those words. Because she knew…that would be the exact opposite of what Kimberly would say and do. She reached forward and hugged Jin. As she buried her face against his chest, she cried her heart out.
When Adrienne’s tears subsided, Jin pulled away from her and wiped her face with his fingers.
“We’re going home, Adrienne,” he said. “Now. Not a day later. Mom has waited for you for almost half of her life. She’s suffered too much already.”
“Didn’t you say that she was Amanda Seville? The famous writer,” Adrienne asked.
Jin grinned. “Now you know where your talent came from.”
A surge of happiness filled Adrienne’s heart. She felt like…finally all the questions she’s been asking herself all her life were answered by Jin in one night.
She nodded. She would love to meet her mother… her real mother. The one who sang songs to her and cuddled her in her sleep when she was too young to even remember.
Jin put an arm around her shoulder. Then he turned back to find Yuan and Jill standing behind them, still in shock. They were as dumbfounded as Adrienne, herself
“I’m taking Adrienne to Paris tonight. You guys wanna come?” Jin asked them.
It took a moment for Adrienne’s friends to recover. Then Yuan asked, “Why? You’re going to pay for our flights?” It was a sarcastic question.
“Flights, food and accommodation for a week, or however long you want to keep my sister company,” Jin replied without blinking.
Yuan and Jill stared at each other in pure shock. Once they recovered, Yuan grinned and said, “Oh, Jin Starck, we’re totally sold!”