The doorman called up. “There’s an Ashley Chin here to see you.”
“Send her up.”
She walked into my condo and just stared. Really looked at it for the first time.
“Maya… this is incredible.”
“Thank you.”
“I never really saw it before. I mean, I knew it was nice, but…”
“You saw what you expected to see. What they told you to see.”
She sat on my designer couch, probably worth $8,000. She didn’t know that.
“They’re going to lose everything,” she said quietly.
“Probably.”
“You really won’t help?”
“I offered help. They refused it.”
“Money, Maya. They need money.”
“How much?”
She blinked. “What?”
“How much do they need? Specific number.”
“Um… Dad said maybe $400,000 to clear the immediate debts and keep the business going another year.”
“And next year, what? Next year when that money’s gone and nothing’s changed, how much will they need then?”
Ashley didn’t answer.
“That’s why I won’t write a check,” I said. “Because it’s not a solution. It’s a delay. And in twelve months, we’d have this exact conversation again, except I’d be $400,000 poorer and they’d resent me anyway.”
“Why would they resent you?”
“Because I’d have saved them. And every day after, they’d have to live with the fact that their failure daughter rescued them. That’s a pill they’ll never swallow.”
Ashley stared at her hands. “You’ve thought about this a lot.”
“For six years, I’ve been waiting for them to see me. Really see me. Not the version they wanted. Not the disappointment. The actual person I became. They never did.”
“Maybe because you hid it.”
“I didn’t hide it. I stopped trying to prove it. There’s a difference.”
She stood to leave.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about how they treated you. How we all treated you.”
“Thank you.”
“But I still think you should help them.”
“I know you do.”