Chapter Text
“Phaw, is Amber coming to play today?” Bear asked his father for the fourth time since they stepped foot on the playground. His big brown eyes looked expectantly as he struggled to remove his denim jacket. The arrival of the midday sun had caused the chill of the morning to disappear. They enjoyed the park often, it was a necessity with how much energy was packed inside a five year old.
“Yes, she’s on her way. You have to be patient, Bear.” Build explained yet again. He tossed the jacket over his lap to fix his son’s hair; the silky black locks were getting in his eyes. He swept them back and tried to place them behind his ear to no avail. It was time for a haircut.
“Just like I was patient waiting for Papa?” Build froze at the question, but recovered quickly to smile down at his son with a nod.
He didn’t feel ready in any sense of the word. A week ago, Build wouldn’t have reacted that way at the mention of his son’s father. With the deadline quickly approaching, he felt the nerves slowly taking over.
Bear smiled back and bounced on his feet. In a flash, he was off to the playground again. He went up the stairs to join his friend in crossing the wooden bridge. It swung back and forth and they screamed and laughed as they pretended it was crumbling. Build sighed and checked his phone one more time. No news is good news, he thought.
While Bear went back to play, Build again got busy with his list making. He had been working on the guest-house for the last month and a half. The kitchen, which he went completely over budget on, was finally renovated. With a week to spare to get it ready for Wichapas’ arrival, he was being extra careful with the details. Through the process he often wondered if his ex still enjoyed cooking as much as he used to. Build was making a list of items he needed to stock the kitchen.
“Bear!” Amber’s tiny voice echoed, and Build was smiling before he looked up. The cutest little girl stumbled as she ran through the playground, her dark puffy pigtails bouncing with each step. Bear was quick to jump off the slide to greet her. They almost fell in their haste to get a hug.
Between school and soccer, Build usually had a hard time keeping up with all of Bear’s friends. Amber stood out from all the others, though. She’d been there from the start, appearing right after his ex-husband left. Even now, as she played with Bear, her clumsiness reminded him of the first time she’d waddled over to his son and quieted his crying with one look from those big caramel doe eyes of hers.
“I’m sorry I’m late, the traffic was insane getting out and I had to stop to get more of that stupid strawberry puree she’s obsessed with.” Sofia sat on the bench with a huff. If Amber was Bear’s best friend, then Sofia was Build’s. She was pretty much the only person he spoke to other than the help and the family. The problem was that Build didn’t really tell Sofia anything. In their four years of friendship, she had held the conversation most of the time.
Not that he blamed her, Sofia was a single mother. Her husband died in a work related accident, and she’s lived a quiet and simple life despite the massive inheritance her husband and his company left her. Her limited Thai left her with few friends, but Build was so used to being spoken to in English that it almost felt like home whenever she was around.
“How are you holding up?” Sofia asked while her brows dropped in worry. It was the same face Amber made whenever Bear cried. The perfect carbon copy of her mother, right down to her strong sense of empathy.
In a moment of weakness, Build had made the mistake of mentioning his ex-husband’s arrival to Sofia. He had kept all of his secrets under wraps for as long as he could, but finally, they were spilling over. He knew exactly what he sounded like when he had told her. One of those crazy moments where he felt like the air was thin for some reason.
“I’m okay! Bear is super excited. He won’t stop talking about it.” Build focused his eyes on his son. The spitting image of his father, holding on to his friend’s hand as they balanced over the bridge.
“Biu…” The tone in Sofia’s voice was worrisome. When Build turned to meet her eyes again, he knew it was time to fess up for real.
“Is your husband the youngest Sumettikul?” She asked tentatively. It was a quiet sound, almost a whisper.
Build stared at his friend for a moment and carefully considered how to answer. He wanted to lie, but if he did, there really wouldn’t be anyone left to trust. Sofia had never once seemed untrustworthy and he needed to test the theory.
Build had vaguely mentioned his ex-husband in the past. That he was an architect, that he had gone abroad, but stayed in good contact with his son. That was the extent of what he had told Sofia, omitting so much it bordered on a lie.
The Sumettikul’s were one of the richest and most prestigious families in Chiang Rai. They owned or built most of the business downtown and were the geniuses behind a lot of the high end communities of the city. Their riches went back generations; all architects or investors. They had buildings and hotels all over the world, including a few in Bangkok. They were considered Real Estate Royalty. It often felt like everything within a hundred mile radius was touched by the Sumettikul name in one way or another.
“Yes.” It was a simple answer, but it needed a correction. “Wichapas is my ex-husband and Kantee’s father.” The words tasted like acid and they burned on the tongue like so.
Build rarely referred to Bear by his first name, despite always referring to Bible as Wichapas. Something about his impending arrival was making him sentimental, making him re-evaluate.
He kept getting stuck reminiscing, visiting old memories, like the one of how Bear had gotten his nickname. He and Wichapas waited for hours at the hospital, and when they finally met their son, those big brown eyes under his tanned knit hat and blanket, made him look like a teddy bear. The nickname had slipped right out of Build’s mouth and Bible agreed right away. It started with a ‘B’ just like theirs.
Sofia didn’t have the reaction Build was expecting. She looked over at Bear and Amber and sighed. Her eyes seemingly lost in the distance. She turned to dig in her bag, pulling out two strawberry puree drinks, showing them off like a great prize. Build smiled and took one.
“How did you figure it out, Sofi?” Build had a vague idea, but he wanted to make sure.
“At the dance academy. Some moms were talking about one of the sons coming back into town. Since it’s such a small community, some of their comments made me wonder.”
It was quiet for a while. There was only the sound of the children playing and the rattling and creaking of the playground. Build drank the strawberry puree, but it tasted like nothing. He hadn’t really enjoyed food since he got the call from his father about the new arrangement.
Build debated if to explain a little more. Open the curtain a little wider and reveal some of his burden. Perhaps the pressure wouldn’t feel so heavy.
“He’s going to move into the guesthouse for now.” Build confessed, sick and tired of holding on to so many secrets. There was a small gasp from Sofia. “It was my Phaw’s idea. Wichapas was supposed to be in America for six years, but he was so desperate to get back to Bear that he was done in four. He wants to be close to his son, you know? I can’t argue against that. Bear deserves to be close to his father, he loves his Papa very much.”
“What about you?” Sofia’s voice was quiet again, though no one else could hear even if it wasn’t. The playground was part of the wealthy community they both resided in. It was them and three Nannies that sat clustered together two benches away.
“It will take some time to get used to, but I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Was it a bad break up?”
Build exhaled at the question, his chest heavy. The world of money and notoriety was a very small one. One in which the habitants not only knew each other, but also disliked each other. Sofia, being a foreigner, wouldn’t really understand the extent of it. She was abandoned in the aristocratic world, walking around in no man’s land without her husband. She was judged just like all the others, but they were mostly strangers to her. To Build they were all extended family and business acquaintances. To a point it was unnatural having to explain his circumstance, because everyone just knew it.
“It was an arranged marriage.” Build met Sofia’s gaze as he answered. Her small hand shot up to her mouth in response.
“They still do those?” Her tone spoke of disbelief. It was endearing. The innocence behind it eased the discomfort Build felt.
“Yes, they still do those. His father and my father have business together. They engaged us, married us and we had Bear via surrogate. They said it will ensure their hard work stays in the right hands for multiple generations.” Build realized how ridiculous that sounded. It was worse hearing them out loud. Sofia’s eyes seemed to agree with the absurdity, she was crumbling her nose. It was another habit that carried over to Amber.
“Is that why you divorced? Since Bear was born, the work was done?”
“I guess so. I told you he is an architect, right? His father is too and they had a huge skyscraper the family had been planning for years. He and his brother had to go to America to build it, so we signed the papers before he left.” Build was again surprised by how simple the explanation sounded.
He hadn’t thought about those days in a while. The uncertainty of them, the paralyzing fear. His ex-husband was an amazing father. Despite their differences and busy schedule, he helped a lot with the baby. Build was never confident he could be half the father that Wichapas was. He made it look effortless, like second nature.
“Oh, so you weren’t heartbroken then, right? Were you friends before you got engaged?”
Build looked back at the playground to watch his son going down the bright orange slide, Amber not too far behind. The truth was, Build had felt a great loss after the separation. The mansion felt even bigger, a weird empty shell. They had lived in separate rooms, but months after he left, Build was still visiting it, pacing around inside it. The first night alone, he had slept in Bible’s old bed, Bear on his chest. Though it wasn’t a conventional marriage, there was still mourning.
Recently, Build had been wondering why it hurt him still. He debated carefully, curious to know if it had something to do with having a family of his own. His upbringing was never warm or nurturing, but somehow he had worked together with Wichapas to make one for Bear. There was a sense of failure at his departure, a great loss.
“We had met before at one of those balls the Jumlongkul’s likes to throw. I’m actually older than him, so he was twelve and I was sixteen. The next time I met him was at nineteen and our parents were deciding when our wedding would be.”
“Woah, he was fifteen?” Sofia’s tone was understandable. It was disturbing, even with how common of a thing it was in his family history. Build’s oldest sister had been engaged at sixteen as well.
“Yup, crazy right? We didn’t marry until he was eighteen though. We also didn’t live together until his second year in university when the house was ready.”
“How does it work, Biu? Was it super awkward because you didn’t know each other and you had to live together? I imagine it would be. Amber’s dad and I didn’t move in together until we had been dating for a whole year. I wanted to kill him at first. He was so messy!” Sofia complained, crossing her slender legs and tossing her hands up in the air for theatrics.
“It was a little awkward in the beginning. Wichapas is not really messy though, he’s just…” Build tried to think of the words to describe his ex-husband. He thought back to their life at the mansion.
Sofia waited patiently as Build sorted through the jumble of memories. The warm morning scenes they shared with their son fell away and in came the fists through the plasterboard and broken glass.
Build sighed in frustration as he tried to organize them. Picking a few to really paint a picture of what he could remember of his ex-husband. All the versions that he met through the years with him. The father he was vs the business man he was. It was difficult.
“Wichapas was really reserved. He liked to read a lot, any spare time he had he spent it in the study or lounging around reading a book. He was a great cook and worked really hard. There were weeks I barely saw him, he would leave early and come home late. Once Bear was born, he started coming home to put him to bed every night, but would always work a couple more hours before bed.”
“Wait, you didn’t hate each other?” Sofia’s question made Build a little uncomfortable. Telling his story was hard, because a lot of it didn’t make any sense, even to Build.
“It was peaceful in the beginning, really quiet, but friendly. He had his room, I had mine. Dad put me in charge of the pharmaceutical business though. It was mostly numbers, and we were constantly changing manufacturers so there were a lot of contract revisions. I hated it. Wichapas tried to help me, because my dad had begged him to. He was really good with numbers, but it got messy real quick. I felt undermined and we still weren’t hitting the numbers Phaw wanted. We fought a lot, especially at the end of the quarter or after contract meetings. I didn’t want to work in pharmaceuticals. I’m a fashion major!” Build fisted his hands and shook them as he professed. He had begged his father to let him do something else.
“Oh, that’s right, you told me you quit that job after Bear was born, right?” Sofia remembered. Build nodded with a smile. His father quickly fell in love with his grandson and allowed him to step down to take better care of him. “I keep saying you should start putting your pieces up online. You might get some people to buy them. I would!”
At some point after his divorce, Build had picked up a hobby. He enjoyed designing and sewing his son’s clothes. He spent hours on looks for each season. Once he was done with all his pieces, he would move on to Amber. Sofia gushed about every item. He was considering measuring Sofia so he had the excuse to practice women’s fashion.
“You are very biased, Sofi.”
There was a brief interruption when Amber came over for some water. Build lost the puree to his son, who finished it off quickly. They ran back to the playground.
“Does Bear understand your relationship? He’s such a smart kid, I swear he’s really a thirty year old man in that little body.” Sofia laughed at her own interpretation of Bear. “He must get that from his Phaw, old man personality.”
“That’s because you haven’t met his Papa.Actually, I don’t think Bear really understands or cares. He just has two dads. He’s never asked questions. It hasn’t been brought up at all, not even in school, and I think I’m okay with that.” Build looked over at his son. Some details were just unimportant.
“He was the donor to the surrogate right?” Sofi asked.
“Yes, that was arranged from the beginning too. I was so scared about the idea of having a kid, I thought it would feel like someone else's, but it wasn’t like that at all. Bear brought peace and meaning into my life from day one. It doesn’t matter that I am not biologically his father.” Build felt a painful pull on his heart as he spoke the words. He had been going through some strange emotions, a strange sadness that didn’t quite belong.
“What about him?”
“Wichapas? I don’t know. We never talked about it. His family arranged all the meetings and we would go. We didn’t really talk about those things, but once Bear was born, he changed a bit too. He became more attentive. I think it gave us both a purpose, that’s what I’d like to think.” Build wiped his hands on his jeans and thought about it some more. “I remember he got really gentle and was always smiling. He was always so serious before Bear.”
“Is he as good looking as they say?” Sofia’s question took Build by surprise. He met her eyes and his face must have been something strange because she threw her head back with a laugh.
Build did that thing again where he ran through the archive of his mind. Glimpses of the man he was once married to. He remembered him at twelve by the garden with his unbuttoned shirt, walking down the stone path. Then at fifteen with his suit and tie at their engagement. At eighteen on their wedding day, stoned faced. The day he moved into the mansion, his leather jacket on as he looked up at the giant chandelier in the entryway. The man who pointed his finger, red face bunched in anger. The father with monolid eyes in tiny slits beaming down at his hiccuping son.
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Wait, you guess?” Sofia was shocked, she grabbed his arm. He needed to be more specific.
“Yes, he’s very handsome. Look at Bear, he looks just like him.” Build smiled at his son as he pushed Amber in the swing.
“Bear is a beautiful boy.” Sofia also beamed, she loved Bear almost as much as her daughter did.
Silence took over as they watched the children play. Build and Sofia never had the need to fill up space with chatter. It gave him peace of mind and relaxed him, when silence so often did the opposite. It was Sofia’s charm and he wondered if Amber possessed it too. If Bear felt that same ease with his best friend.
When snack time came around, Build was quick to dig into the lunch box. Bear ate half his ham sandwich as he bounced on his heels next to Amber, who was slurping her strawberry puree. Her puffy tanned cheeks still looked flushed under the bright sun.
“When does he arrive back in town?” Sofia asked, sitting back on the bench as she watched Amber follow Bear up the playground stairs once more.
“He arrives Sunday, around two o'clock. He’s coming right over to see Bear. I don’t know how I am going to get him to sleep on Saturday.” Build smiled at the way his son held out his hand for Amber to climb the last step. He couldn’t wait for his ex-husband to see how gentle and thoughtful his son was, how little he had to be instructed on being kind.
“Oh, so you will miss the game,” Sofia commented. There was a soccer game on Sunday.
“Yes, we have to skip it. Bear doesn’t even care, he’s so excited. I already let the coach know.”
“Biu, you said you got along with him at some point right?” Build nodded in response. “And you were married for four years. Did you ever… were you ever intimate with him?”
Build felt completely flushed. Sofia was actually a very blunt person and he had become so accustomed to it that he had forgotten to what extent. He didn’t mind though, in an aristocratic world full of half truths and fake relations, a person with such a forthcoming personality was refreshing. He sighed and looked down at his phone, he noted it was almost one in the afternoon. There were still no messages from his dad or his ex-husband.
“Once,” Build had never talked about it out loud, there had never been anyone to talk to about it. He barely allowed himself to remember certain things. “We were in the middle of closing the quarter and dad had pushed for a dinner we were too tired for. There was way too much wine and we had argued the whole way home. It was really unexpected, but it happened...”
There were soft flashes of memories, and with them came a heat-wave that sat on the tips of his ears. It felt like a forbidden memory, one he rarely visited. He tried to remember the last five items he put in the grocery list he was making, hoping his mind wouldn’t wander too far.
“Was it awkward after?”
“It was for a couple of days. The surrogate was about four months pregnant by then. I think a week after, we found out we were having a boy. Wow, that feels like forever ago.”
Build had wanted a boy and though Bible had commented he didn’t care about the gender, the smile he sported the rest of the day after the paperwork came in said otherwise. It was a day to remember, because upon hearing the heir to the whole damn thing was male, Build’s father finally accepted his resignation.
“Do you know if he met anyone or…”
“Honestly, I don’t know, he never mentioned coming back with anyone.” Build felt a tinge of shame because he was aware how often he looked for signs that his ex-husband had a new love interest. Taking the search as far as the internet, where there was always a whole lot of nothing. It wasn’t clear exactly why he needed that information, but it was somewhat attributed to closure.
“I’m sure it would have been obvious by now if he had. You’re a smart cookie Biu” Sofia paused and turned her whole body to face Build. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me, okay?” Sofia’s kind brown eyes shone with an impeccably aged innocence that was pretty much the essence of who she was. A soft soul with sharp wit and a simple mind. Her hand reached out for Build’s thigh, she squeezed gently.
“You’ll be taking that back when I’m calling you bored out of my mind because Bear left me for his Papa!” Build tried to lighten the mood, but the void inside him didn’t subside.
“Come over to the condo! We’ll figure something out. Oh, I'm sure there will be a party soon, you know how these people love to gossip. You could finally make me a dress! I know I’m awful. I hate them, but it’s my only excuse to get dressed up.” Sofia pulled her hand back to cross her arms to accentuate her pout. Build laughed because it was the spitting image of her daughter.
Build changed the subject by asking about Amber’s dance class. Sofia complained about dance rehearsal and having to deal with the other moms who take it way too seriously. She made Build laugh with her imitation of some of the mothers and the dance instructor. Sofia’s jovial spirit always brightened his spirit.
As they walked back to the cars together, Sofia carried a tired Amber. Bear held his father’s hand.
“When’s the next play date?” Sofia inquired as she approached her gray SUV, pressing the beeper to unlock it.
“I’m not sure. I’ll let them get settled into their new routine for a little bit, but I’ll keep you on the loop.”
“Papa can come next time!” Bear interrupted, a bright smile on his sweet face. Build looked down at his son and returned the smile, but his stomach twisted.
“Yes, he can,” he agreed.