And young Charles, just like his daddy, well he thinks this all sounds magical.

He’d love to go to America. And so he studies.

One night, at around midnight, young Charles’s mother and father walk into the hut.

Charles, he looks up, and he sees their faces. Worried-looking.

And his father, he says to Charles, Son, we’ve got some bad news.

He says, We went to the hospital in Chiayi earlier. The coughing and the breathlessness… it’s because I’ve got lung cancer.

Lung cancer, thinks Charles. This is what his aku died of a few years ago.

His father, he says, Don’t worry, they caught it early.

And young Charles, he closes his textbook.

He listens to the roar of the cicadas outside.

He’s freaking out, because what is he going to do without his dad?

The man who taught him how to fish, how to swim. The man who would take him to the market, just the two of them, and secretly buy him a big plate of sweet xueha bing loaded with mango and condensed milk.

He fights back the water in his eyes. And quiet and calm, Charles says, What can we do?

Charles’s father, he sits down next to his son, his face lit up by the flickering candle. He says, There’s treatment I can have, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, maybe even surgery.

And young Charles, he says, Where are we going to get the money from?

His daddy puts his arm around him, draws him in close.

His daddy says, I work hard. My boss can help, don’t you worry about it.

His daddy squeezes him, and he says, Okay?

T

WENTY

-S

IX

Charles stops talking, and the dishes on the table are all empty, on account of me having eaten everything off them while he was telling me his story.

He gets up from his seat, starts stacking the plates and the cutlery and the glasses.

And I say, Hold up. You can’t just start clearing dishes. Did your dad’s boss give him the money for his treatment or no?

At the sink, Charles is rinsing the plates off, one by one, before placing them carefully in the dishwasher.

He’s got his back to me, but between the hunched shoulders and the hanging head, it’s pretty obvious the story for young Charles doesn’t end well, just like the story for young Sean.

He tells me that even though his dad was the hardest-working man on the crew (he worked extra shifts to help out, never slacked once), his boss – the rich man who flaunted his wealth and adoration for all things west – refused to help him with his treatment.

Because if he helped Charles’s daddy out, he would be setting a precedent, and would have to help all his workers out – even though doing that would have been a cinch.

Because he had his own wife and kid to look after, and what with keeping her in the newest designer dresses, overseas private school fees, piano and tennis lessons for the boy, as well as staff for the house and the pool and the gardens and the stables, annual ski holidays in Courchevel plus maintenance and upkeep of his new super yacht, it was already killing him as it was.

While he’s telling me all this, Charles is transforming into the Charles I photographed back in the movie star’s apartment – that tight-faced, glazed-eyed man I don’t recognize.

Charles, he sits back down at the table and pours me another coffee, then fills his own cup. He’s loosened up now, back to his normal self. Watching the steam dance in the air.

He says, The movie star. The movie star is my father’s boss’s son.

And I go, Jesus Christ. Well that’s all starting to make sense then.

He apologizes for not telling me the truth before, and that he understands if I don’t want to help him.

Because, truly, he wants to make the movie star’s life miserable.

Because the movie star is the boss’s greatest achievement. His life, his world, his everything.

Because destroying the golden son while the father watches? That is sweet, sweet revenge.

Because, truly, he’ll never be able to sleep, or get rid of the all-consuming rage that pulses through his veins all day, every day, until the scales are finally balanced.

I think about what young Charles had to go through losing his daddy.

And I think about what I had to go through.

Having to see my dad scared, ashamed and embarrassed because he was losing clumps from what was once a full and thick head of hair: for true one of his biggest fears made real.

Having to resort to a wig that was constantly fussed over, that made him look more pathetic and weak than it did well.

My phone chimes. A message from Mia:

No. You’re the one that’s confused.

T

WENTY

-S

EVEN

Please, says the movie star, on his knees, looking up at the woman in the red dress.