A Good Family

by A. H. Kim

  Keep your family close and your enemies closer.

  Beth is the darling of God Hälsa, a pharmaceutical giant, and she’s got the outrageous salary and lifestyle to prove it. Until she lands in white-collar women’s prison, thanks to a high-profile whistleblower suit.

  Sam, Beth’s husband, is the golden boy who has never had to do anything for himself. Until his wife goes to jail, and he’s left to raise two daughters on his own.

  Lise, the au pair, is the whistleblower. But is she? Everyone knows she’s not clever enough to have done it alone.

  Hannah, Sam’s sister, is devoted to her family. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for them.

  Eva, Beth’s sister, is the smart one. (Read: not the pretty one.)

  Martin, Beth’s brother, is the firstborn, the heir to it all. But what is he hiding?

  Someone knows something. Someone betrayed Beth.

  This is the story of the Min-Lindstroms. This is the story of the all-American family as it implodes under the weight of secrets, lies and the unchecked desire for wealth and power.

  A.H. Kim is an immigrant, graduate of Harvard College and Berkeley Law, lawyer, and mother of two sons. She lives in San Francisco with her husband. A Good Family is her first novel.

  www.AHKim.net

  A Good Family

  A.H. Kim

  For Ope

  Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  lise

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  lise

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  lise

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  lise

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  chapter twenty-one

  chapter twenty-two

  chapter twenty-three

  chapter twenty-four

  chapter twenty-five

  chapter twenty-six

  lise

  chapter twenty-seven

  chapter twenty-eight

  chapter twenty-nine

  chapter thirty

  lise

  chapter thirty-one

  chapter thirty-two

  chapter thirty-three

  chapter thirty-four

  chapter thirty-five

  chapter thirty-six

  chapter thirty-seven

  chapter thirty-eight

  epilogue

  acknowledgments

  A Good Family - Reader’s Guide

  Questions for Discussion

  hannah

  one

  They’re all drunk as usual. It’s the final night of the annual Lindstrom family reunion, the official end of summer, and the last time we’ll be together for a while. Everyone’s indulged in a few too many Moscow mules and dirty martinis. The kitchen stool behind the Carrara marble counter provides a mezzanine view of the assembled cast.

  Sam’s the one dozing on the couch, his handsome head tilted back, his mouth slightly agape. There’s a tiny trickle of drool snaking toward his perfect chin. Gazing at my younger brother takes me back forty years to when he was a baby sleeping peacefully in his crib: the gentle curves of his eyelids, his long lashes fluttering in rhythm with his dreams, his warm moist breath smelling sweetly of mother’s milk. Like me, Sam isn’t a Lindstrom by blood but at least he’s one by marriage.

  Eva’s leaning on Sam and appears to be asleep as well, but it’s an act. Eva’s a drunk—a high-functioning drunk, but a drunk nonetheless. Five or six drinks aren’t nearly enough to knock Eva out for the night, but it’s enough to quiet the voices in her head, the voices that remind her she’s the older sister, the smart one (read: not the pretty one), the woman who squeezed out three ten-pound babies within a six-year span and has the flabby belly and sexless marriage to prove it. Five or six drinks are just enough to make Eva think she can seduce her younger sister’s husband even though he has zero attraction to her and is pretty much unconscious to boot.

  My sister-in-law, Beth, is the drunkest of them all, but she has reason to be. This is Beth’s last taste of freedom before the dreaded road trip—the road trip no one dares talk about to her flawless face but everyone discusses sotto voce in the tastefully appointed guest rooms, countless pantries and book-lined hallways of the Sunday New York Times–featured weekend retreat that Beth painstakingly designed and pretentiously named Le Refuge. Beth is lying on her back on the fluffy white flokati rug, making faux snow angels and staring up at the ceiling lights while singing “Silent Night” over and over again. Never mind that it’s the end of August. She apparently only knows the first verse.

  The rest of the adults already went to bed. These family reunions aren’t exactly relaxing: a marathon of daily activities and simmering resentments. It’s not easy having to keep up with the Lindstroms when it comes to drinking, darts, Scrabble or any other pastime that can be turned into a cutthroat competition.

  Eva nuzzles closer to Sam, continuing to feign sleep, her hand slipping down toward his crotch. It’s outrageous. Sam’s her sister’s husband. Then again, the poor guy deserves to get a little action. It’s the family’s worst-kept secret that Beth has been frigid ever since she gave birth to their first baby over five years ago, and it got worse when their second arrived two years later. Sam’s bent my ear for countless hours complaining how sexually frustrated he is, how many times he’s had to jack off in the shower, how convinced he is that his testicles are going to fall off because Beth refuses to put out or go down on him. It’s not polite sibling conversation but also not worth making a fuss about. After all, he’s got to talk to someone, and better me than one of the guys at the club.

  You have to hand it to Beth: she thought of everything when she designed Le Refuge, filling the home with all the must-have amenities and high-end appliances showcased in the interior design porn magazines she reads so voraciously. You can just imagine a real estate agent giving prospective buyers a tour of the property, making sure to highlight each envy-inducing feature. The main house has a light-filled great room complete with fully stocked wet bar (top-shelf booze only) and climate-controlled wine cellar. Adjacent to the great room is the open-concept chef’s kitchen with a six-burner Wolf range, dual Sub-Zero refrigerators and walk-in butler’s pantry.

  Just across the grassy lawn from the main house is the barnlike dorm, outfitted with four sets of matching bunk beds and deluxe memory foam mattresses and every amusement the Lindstrom children could ever want: pinball, foosball, air hockey, Ping-Pong, pool table, giant plasma TV with Netflix and an Xbox 360. The glass-front fridge is filled with a dizzying array of Izze sodas and organic yogurt tubes, and the snack pantry is stocked with jumbo-size cartons of whole-wheat Goldfish, non-GMO puffed cheese balls and five-pound plastic jars of Red Vines.

  My cell phone buzzes to remind me to go and check on the children. Everyone says it’s unnecessary—after all, what could go wrong out here at Le Refuge?—but it’s my nightly habit. There’s an unseasonable chill in the air tonight. The amber light of the dorm’s windows always reminds me of the glowing lanterns in a Japanese woodblock that my professor spent an entire lecture discussing in my Harvard freshman seminar. A brown bat swoops in the distance, and a shooting star bla
zes across the sky. The recycled barnwood floorboards creak on my way up to the dorm’s main level. The little girls are already asleep, but the older Lindstrom cousins are piled together like tired puppies on the oversize sectional and watching something on the TV. The movie is Superbad, totally inappropriate for the tween-aged girls, but it’s hard to muster the guts to be the uncool aunt and tell them to turn it off.

  Standing there, unnoticed by the four children, it’s magical to observe their unguarded faces. Max, the one male cousin—technically, a stepcousin—had been a funny-looking boy, all stuck-out ears and snub nose and sharp elbows, but he’s grown into a quirkily handsome young man with wavy ginger hair and softly freckled skin. Meanwhile, the girl cousins have inherited the Lindstrom family’s classic beauty: long blond hair, blue eyes and graceful ballet figures.

  Everyone is cuddled under a cozy king-size comforter, but even with the camouflage of baffle-stitched six-hundred-fill hypoallergenic goose down, it’s obvious that things are not all innocent. Max rests his head on one arm of the sectional, and Stevie, the oldest of the girls, rests hers on the opposite arm, with quite a bit of overlapping in between. This past year, Stevie’s blossomed from girl to woman—something about her reminds me of the farmstand peaches now in season—which hasn’t gone unnoticed by Max. Oh, to be young again and overflowing with hormones, feeling the exhilaration of rubbing your long, lithe limbs against a member of the opposite sex.

  “Stop that, you’re related,” my long-dead mother reprimands the children in my head. But really, what’s the fuss? The two kids are stepcousins. It’s not like they share any blood. Isn’t that what matters?

  Suddenly, I feel old. At forty-nine, I’m the oldest person at the Lindstrom family reunion and the only unmarried adult. Descending the steps of the dorm and crossing the expansive lawn, my feet feel ice-cold and slippery against my slip-on shoes. Looking up at the crescent moon shining in the evening sky, my eyes are dazzled by the delicate dusting of stars. Being a city girl, it’s a special treat to see so many twinkling lights. (“Hoboken doesn’t count as the city, Hannah,” my brother, Sam, always teases.) It’s hard to remember a time when the sky was so dark and so bright at the same time.

  I close my eyes and feel the gentle breeze wafting in from the shore. I take a deep breath, savoring the briny scent of the Chesapeake. I focus my energies on gratitude, on appreciating all the wonderful things in my life rather than the difficult challenges that await us tomorrow and in the days ahead. As I slowly open my eyes, I hear an owl hooting in the distance. I look upward. And there on the second floor of the main house, backlit by one of the extravagantly perfumed candles that Beth purchases by the case, I see my brother, Sam, desperately humping Eva in the upstairs guest bathroom.

  two

  Morning comes too soon. The adults and older kids are still in bed, but the little girls are noisily rummaging around the kitchen and looking for something to eat. I change out of my nightgown and head downstairs to take care of them. Starting today, Sam and Beth’s girls will need a lot of care.

  Seeing my nieces always brings me joy. This morning, the girls are dressed in matching pink-and-purple-striped pajamas, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Claire is tall for her age, chubby and, as foretold by the old wives’ tale, the firstborn takes after her father’s side of the family, the Korean side: dark hair, dark eyes and full, round cheekbones. Meanwhile, little sister Ally is Claire’s opposite: petite and small-boned, her delicate features and fair coloring reflecting Beth’s Scandinavian heritage, her wide-set almond-shaped eyes serving as Sam’s only apparent contribution to the pixie-child. “My fairy-tale princess,” Sam calls her. Yet despite their physical differences, the two girls are inseparable, best of friends, two peas in a pod.

  Joining Claire and Ally this morning are the two youngest Lindstrom cousins, who look like juvenile versions of Botticelli’s Venus with their cascading golden curls and soft hazel eyes. Their long white sleeping gowns evoke the goddess’s alabaster skin, but instead of emerging from a scallop shell, they’re wearing floppy SpongeBob SquarePants slippers.

  “You make the best Mickey Mouse pancakes, Auntie Hannah,” Claire says. The other girls nod and murmur in agreement.

  “Oldest first,” the taller Botticelli says when the pancakes are ready. She holds her plate closest to me, inciting whiny protests from the other three.

  “Yes, oldest first,” Sam says, appearing out of nowhere and grabbing the first pancake straight from my spatula. “Bacon and chocolate chip, my favorite!” he exclaims. He folds the pancake into quarters and wolfs it down whole.

  “Dad!”

  “Uncle Sam!” the girls scream in outrage. “No fair!”

  “Yeah, Sam, no fair,” I say. “The girls have been patiently waiting. You cut the line.”

  Sam leans in to give me a peck on the cheek.

  “My bad,” Sam apologizes unconvincingly. He grabs another pancake from the griddle and skitters out of the kitchen.

  I rub the greasy kiss with the back of my hand. No one ever gets mad at Sam—or at least no one ever stays mad at him. Ever since he was a boy, Sam’s had the ability to simultaneously outrage and charm everyone around him. It isn’t just his good looks either. In fact, when we were growing up in suburban Buffalo, people didn’t quite know what to make of his looks. My brother wasn’t the fair-haired Adonis that most people thought of as handsome, but he wasn’t hard on the eyes either. It wasn’t until high school, when Sam got contact lenses and started working out, that people began to take real notice. Today, Sam can’t walk down the street without someone coming up to him and saying, “Hey, aren’t you that guy from Lost?” or “You remind me of that Asian dude who won Survivor, but even better looking.”

  I make sure the girls get settled at the dining table, which has already been set with utensils, fresh fruit and a pitcher of cold milk. “Don’t get chocolate on your pajamas,” I warn the girls.

  “We won’t, I promise!” Claire says.

  My stern look is quickly replaced with a smile. I have a terrible poker face.

  I shuffle back to the kitchen, pour a cup of Italian roast with two lumps of sugar and walk over to my brother on the living room couch.

  “Here you go,” I say. “Just the way you like it.”

  “Thanks, Hannah,” Sam replies absently. He takes a long sip and groans in almost erotic pleasure. “Ah, just what I needed. What would I do without you?”

  I don’t bother to answer.

  “How did it go last night?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did Beth sleep?”

  “Oh, that,” Sam says. “Not so good. I don’t think she got much sleep. I went by her room around one in the morning, and her light was still on.”

  It’s always struck me as odd that a married couple like Sam and Beth sleep in separate bedrooms. Sam complained to me about it when Beth was designing Le Refuge but seems to have accepted the arrangement.

  “I walked in and saw she was up,” Sam says, “sitting in her bed and going through all her precious photo albums.”

  Beth is famous for making Shutterfly photo albums for every occasion in their life: Claire’s and Ally’s birthday parties, their fabulous vacations to Paris and Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii, the Lindstrom family reunions.

  “I told her to take an Ativan and Ambien and go to sleep,” Sam says.

  Ativan and Ambien. I am well acquainted with the combination.

  “She was still sleeping when I got up this morning,” Sam says. “And don’t worry, I made sure she was breathing.”

  Sam’s offhand remark makes me wonder: In Beth’s situation, would death by sleeping pills be better than what lies ahead?

  “Auntie Hannah,” the girls shout, “can we have seconds?”

  There, in an instant, is my answer. Beth has two young girls to live for. Everything else pal
es in comparison.

  My poor hips feel stiff getting up from the deep-cushioned couch. Nothing about this day is going to be easy.

  “No more Mickey Mouse pancakes,” I say. “Who’ll help me make silver dollars?”

  When the girls finish breakfast, they run laughing across the lawn to wake their older cousins, leaving me alone in the kitchen to clean up. I’m stacking the leftover pancakes on a cooling rack when Sam walks in.

  “You can throw those in the garbage,” Sam says. “We’re leaving in an hour anyway.”

  “Claire and Ally can eat them in the car,” I respond. It’s hard to imagine throwing away perfectly good pancakes. My parents grew up hungry in postwar South Korea and taught me it was a sin to waste food. Anyway, the girls will need a snack for the long drive back to Princeton.

  “Well, after you’re done, can you go upstairs and check on Beth?” Sam asks. “I need to take a shower and get myself ready.” Sam makes a hasty exit. His feelings are clear to me, and they have nothing to do with his ablutions. He doesn’t want to be the one to wake Beth in case she’s still asleep.

  When Sam was a young boy, one of my responsibilities was to get him up for school. Entering his bedroom every morning and seeing his wiry body curled up like a fiddlehead, I’d take a moment to wonder: Where is he now? What exotic world is he exploring? What exciting adventure is he having? With a heavy heart, I’d nudge him awake to face the cold light of day.

  I walk upstairs and knock on Beth’s bedroom door. When no one answers, I slowly turn the doorknob and peer into the empty room. The sound of the shower comes through the en suite bathroom door. It’s only the second or third time I’ve set foot in Beth’s room. It feels a bit like entering the Pearly Gates. The walls are painted the palest blue. The king-size bed is a mass of cumulus comforters and Egyptian cotton linens. The air is redolent of honeysuckle and roses.

  The sheets are still warm when I peel back the covers to make the bed. “C’mon, Hannah, what’s the point?” I imagine Sam complaining. “Maria’s just going to strip the bed and throw the sheets in the washing machine anyway.” But I can’t help myself. There’s something about an unmade bed that makes me uneasy.