Chapter Text
“Phaw, is Amber coming to play today?” Bear questioned his father for the fourth time since they stepped foot in the park. His big brown eyes looked up expectantly while struggling to remove his denim jacket.
“Yes, she’s on her way, but you have to be patient, Bear,” Build articulated while assisting.
After tossing the garment over his lap, Build took a moment to fix his son’s hair, silky black locks were getting in his eyes. He tried sweeping them behind Bear’s ear to no avail.
“Just like I was patient waiting for Papa?”
Build froze momentarily, then offered a smile and a nod. A few weeks prior, he wouldn’t have reacted so sharply at the mention of his son’s father, but with Wichapas’ arrival quickly approaching, the nerves were starting to get the best of him.
Bear returned Build’s smile while bouncing on his feet. In an instant he was off to the main pit, running up the stairs to join a new friend in crossing the wooden bridge. They laughed loudly pretending it was crumbling.
Build sighed, settling back into the bench giving his phone the side-eye. No news is good news, he thought, reaching for the planner to busy his mind with more list making.
The guest-house had been under renovation for the last month and a half. The kitchen, which he went completely over budget on, was finally finished, with only a week to spare before Wichapas’ move-in. Through the process, Build had often wondered if his ex still enjoyed cooking as much as he used to – just in case, he’d selected spacious and modern counters.
“Bear!” Amber’s falsetto voice had Build smiling before he looked up from his planning. The cutest little girl stumbled in, dark puffy pigtails bounced with each step. Bear was quick to jump on the slide to greet her, they almost fell in their haste to get a hug.
Between school and soccer, Build had a hard time keeping up with all of his son’s friends, but Amber was Kantee’s most special friend. Four years ago, at that very playground, she’d waddled over, quieting Bear’s cries with one look from her caramel eyes.
“I’m sorry I’m late, the traffic was insane and I had to stop to get more of that stupid strawberry puree she’s obsessed with.” Sofia, Amber’s mom, sat next to Build with a huff.
Sofia was to Build, what Amber was to Bear, the only relation he had outside of the help and the family. Though her limited Thai was a hurdle in the rest of Chiang Rai, Build was used to being spoken to in English. It was an effortless friendship, especially with how comfortable she was holding up most of the conversation.
Sofia had no relations with the aristocracy. Her wealth came from inheritance, after the death of her husband in some work related incident. She was pregnant, but she fought like hell to keep her shares. Sofia’s unsubduable but kind character, was admirable to Build
“How are you holding up?” Sofia questioned, brows dropping with worry.
Build had recently mentioned his ex-husband’s arrival. Unsure if Sofia was safe to trust, he had kept a large part of his story vague, especially anything related to Wicchapas. Luckily, Sofia never pushed for details, but Build was ready to come clean.
“I’m okay, Bear is super excited. He won’t stop talking about it.” Build focused his gaze back on his son, avoiding Sofia’s worried eyes. Kantee was 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 exigent. When Build turned to meet her eyes again, he knew the moment had arrived.
“Is your husband the youngest Sumettikul?” She asked hesitantly, leaning to whisper despite the privacy.
Build stared wide eyed, as ready as he was to confess, hearing that name coming from Sofia’s mouth made him anxious. What else did she know about the family? Build had only ever told her Kantee’s father was a wealthy architect who had gone abroad, but stayed in good contact with his son.
The truth was a little bit more complicated. The Sumettikul’s were one of the richest and most prestigious families in Thailand. Their wealth went back generations; architects or investors. They own, remodel or manage properties and hotels all over the world, including the top grossing ones in Bangkok. They are prominent Real Estate Royalty. Build’s family barely scraped the bottom of the barrel, but somehow he’d married into the family.
“Yes.” The answer was simple, but something needed 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 mostly referring to Wichapas by his name and not his nickname “Bible”.
Lately he’d been reminiscing a lot, visiting old memories, like the one where Bear got 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 used it ever since. Plus 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 heavily. Her eyes seemingly lost in deep thought. She turned to dig in her bag, pulling out two strawberry puree drinks, showing them off like a grand prize. Build smiled as he took one.
“How did you figure it out, Sofi?” Build had a vague idea, but his curiosity needed satisfaction.
“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 slurped his 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 timid, barely a whisper.
The small park was part of the wealthy community, which meant she understood the aristocratic mentality as accurately as he’d given her credit for. Build looked around the playground once more, it was only them and three Nannies that sat clustered together a few benches away.
“It will take some time to get used to, but I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Okay, I do have to ask, was it a bad break up?”
Build exhaled at the inquiry, his chest suddenly heavy. The world of money and notoriety was a very small one. A world with inhabitants that all knew each other, but lived hating each other – in constant state of competition and sabotage. As a foreigner, Build wasn’t sure Sofia could understand the extent of it. A game of hierarchy with rules set centuries ago, used arbitrarily and with questionable interpretation. It was all transactional, especially when it came to nuptials.
“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 her disbelief, it was endearing. The innocence behind it eased the discomfort Build felt.
“Yes, they still do those. His father and my father have some business together. They engaged us, married us and we had Bear via surrogate. The arrangement was to ensure their hard work stayed in the right hands for multiple generations.” Build was still aware of how ridiculous it all sounded, and it was worse hearing them out loud. Sofia’s gaze seemed to show agreement, she was crumbling her nose. A 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 surprised by how simple the explanation sounded, but how much it had complicated his existence.
He hadn’t thought about those days in a while. The uncertainty of his future, the paralyzing fear. His ex-husband was an amazing father, there was never a single issue with his devotion to his child. Despite his busy schedule, he helped every step of the way. Build wasn’t confident enough to consider himself half the father that Wichapas was, especially with the relationship he built despite the distance. He made it look effortless, like second nature.
“Oh, so you weren’t heartbroken then? 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. Build wasn’t sure about the first question, Build had felt a great loss after the separation. He’d expected to feel freedom but the mansion felt too big, an empty carcass he used for shelter. They had lived in separate rooms, but months after he left, Build was still visiting Wichapas’ room, pacing around it like a mad man. The first night alone, he had slept in that bed, Bear resting fussily 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 like 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 disbelief was comprehensible. Even with how common of a practice it was in the history of the aristocracy, it was fucked up any way you looked at it. 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.”
“Okay, hold on. Let me process this.” Sofia put her hand up in front of her face and closed her eyes, Build huffed a laugh. “How does that 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!”
“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 after dissociating from it all for four years. All the versions of Wichapas that he met through the five years with him. The father he was vs the business man he was vs the partner he never 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 a lot. 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. Then my father put me in charge of some of the pharmaceutical business. It was mostly administrative, but we were constantly changing manufacturers so there were a lot of contract revisions with lawyers and finance. I was in over my head, I hated it. Wichapas tried to help me, because my dad asked 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, because I didn’t know what I was doing. What the hell were they expecting from a fashion mayor?” Build’s hand fisted as he asked, remembering how tired he got of begging his father to let him hire someone else to do the job, but he didn’t see a reason.
“Oh, that’s right, you told me you quit that job after Bear was born, right?” Sofia remembered. Build nodded, his father had quickly fallen in love with his grandson and allowed him to step down to take full time care of him. “You would be a business owner even as a full time daddy if you’d put your kid’s clothes online to sell. You’ve spoiled Amber!”
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 to venture into 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, her gaze following the little boy running through the bridge. “He must get that from his Phaw, old man personality.”
“That’s because you haven’t met his Papa. Honestly, 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. I wouldn’t know how to explain any of it to him.”
“Wichapas was the donor to the surrogate, right?”
“Yes, that was arranged from the beginning too. I was so scared of the idea of raising a child, I admit I worried he 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 at his heart as he spoke the words. He had been going through some strange emotions, a sadness that came from an unknown place.
“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 and present. It gave us a common goal, so it was finally easy to work together, at least that’s how I remember it.” 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 of guard once again. 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, lackadaisical. Then at fifteen with his suit and tie at their engagement, primed. At eighteen on their wedding day, stoic. The day he moved into the mansion, his leather jacket on as he looked up at the giant chandelier in the entryway, determined. The man who pointed his finger, red face bunched in anger, tyrant. The father with monolid eyes in tiny slits beaming down at his hiccuping son, amiable. In all those facets one thing was still evident, Wichapas was a beautiful man.
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Wait, you guess?” Sofia demanded clarification, she turned further toward him to get a better look at his demeanor.
“Yes, he’s very handsome. Look at Bear, he looks just like him.” Build smiled at his son who was pushing Amber on the swing.
“Bear is a beautiful boy.” Sofia 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.
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 questioned, as Amber followed Bear back up the playground stairs.
“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 watching his son holding 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 to be kind.
“Oh, so you will miss the game,”
“Yes, we have to skip this one. 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. “And you were married for five years. Did you ever… were you ever intimate with him?”
A heat-wave ran through Build, his cheeks and ears becoming particularly hot. Sofia was actually a very blunt person and he had become so accustomed to it that he had forgotten to what extent. 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 father or his ex-husband.
“Once,” Build had never talked about it out loud, there had never been anyone to talk to. He barely allowed himself to remember. “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 that’s why you should watch your alcohol while your hormones are raging.”
Sofia gave a muffled laugh. Flashes of memories brought with them another wave that gave Build’s neck a light pink shade. It was a forbidden memory, a guilty pleasure to revisit. Hoping to distract his mind he tried to remember the last five items he put in the grocery list.
“Was it awkward after?” Sofia’s question aided in his quest for distraction.
“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. I became busy preparing for his arrival and eventually it was like it never happened. 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 when he saw the paperwork said otherwise. It was a day to remember, because upon hearing they had secured a male heir, Build’s father finally accepted his resignation.
“Do you know if he met anyone or…” Sofia’s question turned the heatwave into a chill that cracked like a whip at Build’s spine.
“Honestly, I don’t know. He never mentioned coming back with a third party and Bear hasn’t ever mentioned anyone other than business partners or family.” Build felt a tinge of shame remembering 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 once again turned her whole body to face Build and took careful assessment of his face. “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 an even sharper 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 called out.
“Come over to the condo any time! We’ll figure something out. Though, with such a big event approaching, I'm sure there will be a party soon, because you know how much these people love to gossip. I don’t care if it's your ex husband that is the big news, you owe me a dress! You are not getting out of it any more.” Sofia crossed her arms to fake indignation. Build laughed because it was the spitting image of her daughter.
The conversation shifted back to Amber’s dance class. Sofia complained about rehearsal and having to deal with the moms who take it too seriously. She made Build laugh with her imitation of some of the said mothers and the dunce dance instructor. Sofia’s jovial spirit always brightened his spirit.
As they walked back to their cars, Sofia carried a very tired Amber. Bear held Build hand as he finished off one last strawberry puree.
“When’s the next play date?” Sofia questioned 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 pink and sticky face. Build returned the smile, but his stomach twisted.
“Yes, he can,” Build agreed.