The Last Chapter

By d j

It's inspired by true events, about a successful, well known doctor in North America, happily married with his childhood sweet heart and lived many happy years with two sons. Due to the unfortunate ill health of his parents he went to visit in Hong Kong. In a short duration of a few weeks there he was involved with a masseuse. From then onward his Life and his World turned upside down and ended in tragedy. T\
The Last Chapter is about the last chapter of his Life. It is up to the readers to make whatever conclusion they wee most befitting of the end of his Journey on Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483508368

Book preview

Epilogue

1

The Red String

It was his second year in North America attending University. He had just moved from a College in another City to this prestigious University in the East. There seemed to be a sudden influx of students from Hong Kong to this particular University that year, mostly boys. The majority of those students settled down in rooming houses within walking distance to the Campus. He, too, picked a huge house where every room was rented to a student from Hong Kong. The landlord did not live there but only came to collect rent once a month. It became like a self maintained fraternity residence with a common kitchen in the basement where it also served as a parlour, a meeting place for all students, mostly students from Hong Kong. They felt much more at home in this rooming residence with all residents of the same background.

For meals one could have the choice of either making it individually on one’s own, or one could join a group in which each was assigned specific responsibilities, such as cooking or buying groceries. Each took turns to wash dishes and other chores related to cleaning and so forth. Nobody was really any good in cooking, or housekeeping, as none of them had done any such chores at home. They learned by trial and error. With practice, some excelled more in cooking than others. Darryl was quite content with his assigned duty of just buying groceries. One day when he was asked to buy a chicken, he came home with a duck. He could not tell any difference from one to the other among fowls.

Most of the residents of this house remained constant. But they changed rooms from year to year as some might go to other places for summer work. Darryl usually went back home to Hong Kong for the summer holidays. One summer he travelled together with the two brothers, Johnny and Bob, whose parents were friends with his parents. They stopped over in Tokyo before continuing their flight home. They walked around downtown Tokyo sightseeing since they had a few hours to loiter. They passed by one store with a large billboard showing abundant fresh strawberries. At that time most of the strawberries available in Hong Kong were mostly frozen. Fresh ones were not that abundant. Those refreshing strawberries were tempting and irresistible. Their parents would be very happy and proud of them to bring those fresh strawberries home for them to enjoy. All three of them were very proud of themselves to have the opportunity to show their parents their thoughtfulness.

Since there was a language barrier between the Japanese storeowners and the three naive young students from Hong Kong, they could only make themselves understood to the extent that they were interested in buying two lbs. of strawberries each. The storeowners handed them six boxes.

Each of the three travelling companions was looking forward to eating the fresh strawberries when arriving home. They were also very sure of themselves that their parents would be very pleased with the fresh strawberries they brought home. To everybody’s amazement when they opened the boxes upon arriving home, they were six boxes of Strawberry Shortcakes with scanty fresh strawberries on them. Everybody enjoyed it immensely, nonetheless, not just the strawberries, but also a hearty laugh over the boys’ folly.

In the second year of residency there, Darryl got the largest room in the house. It consisted of two twin beds, desks and still with ample room for a sofa and a coffee table. Thus he made acquaintance with Benny, a new roommate also from Hong Kong with similar background. Benny was always there every year, a Constant of that big room, since he did not leave town for summer jobs or travelling elsewhere for summer holidays. His roommates changed from year to year but he remained in that room, the most spacious one in the house.

Darryl’s undergraduate major was Bio-chemistry with the intention to attend Medical School upon graduation. His roommate, Benny, originally majored in Engineering. After two years attempts, he did not think that Engineering was suitable for him. He switched to Chemistry. He was a smart fellow. But somehow in academic studies he could never compete with other fellow students. He was popular with his fellow students, as he was good-natured, a very personable person. He had also learned cooking of a special dish of pork shoulder braised in soya sauce and ginger, a dish that made him known as a specialty expert, and enhanced his popularity.

Everybody loved that dish. It was a treat to his housemates whenever he cooked that dish. The aroma and good taste of that dish drew many more friends, who were not regular residents of that house, also to eat there. Tasty home-cooking was hard to come by in a foreign land, especially when they were all students and never had any opportunity to learn any cooking before.

Benny had a cousin studying in another City about a couple of hours’ drive away. From time to time she came to visit him and befriended all his schoolmates and housemates. He had many cousins in Hong Kong and abroad. Many of his High School friends were also interested in his many girl cousins slightly younger than he. There was one girl cousin who was well known for her beauty, that some of his friends made great effort to find out where his cousins were going to see the movie on Saturdays so that they might wait there to have a glance of her. Eventually Benny was very proud to introduce his friends to his cousins.

They enjoyed many gatherings, outings to the beaches, picnics in the mountains, movies and parties together. They formed a special group and had a wonderful, carefree, enjoyable time as teenagers, before they scattered to all corners of the world to pursue University education abroad, upon graduation from High Schools. They became lifelong close friends. He had brought with him many photo albums of their happy times together, of his many cousins and friends, from childhood in elementary schools through adolescence to youth of the present day.

One day Darryl was flipping through Benny’s albums. A picture of one little girl caught his attention. He quickly pointed at her and said, I knew this girl. She was in my Grade Two Class. He must have had a tremendously good memory that he could recognize someone from his Grade Two Class, while he now was a second-year University student abroad. She, too, must have made some outstanding impression on him that he could remember her from that far back since Grade Two.

To his delight he found out that the girl from his Grade Two Class was a sister of Benny’s cousin, Genevieve, who studied in another City about two hours’ train ride away and who came to visit cousin Benny quite often on weekends or during holidays, and with whom Darryl had already made friends, which fact made him quite at ease and at home with them.

The three of them became good friends. Their family backgrounds were similar. They all came from Shanghai originally. Their mother tongue was of the same dialect. Their families moved to Hong Kong around the same time period. They all attended private, English speaking Schools and grew up in Hong Kong. They all loved movies as one of their hobbies. They had much in common. They enjoyed each other’s company and got along well.

Of course, the boys loved football games as well. Genevieve joined them to the football games sometimes, although she knew nothing about it and could not understand the rules, other than that if someone got the ball he had to run like crazy to the end of the field. Darryl was very patient in explaining the rules of the game to her. But she was not really interested in sports, and Darryl could not understand why she did not bother to try to enjoy the games, and that after his lengthy explanation of the rules of the game, she still seemed quite ignorant about football. She went to the football games with them just to keep them company. She had no real interest in any sports.

One other thing that intrigued Genevieve was that the football game was different at home. Back home they kick the ball with their feet, hence it is called football, whereas in North America they run with the ball in their hands, their feet are not involved in this so called football game. She simply could not understand why it is called football. To differentiate the two, the real football game back home was called soccer in North America, and the football sport in North America was called football albeit they do not play the ball with their feet at all.

Darryl was a serious student, intelligent and hard working. He was honest and straightforward. Being the only son and the eldest of the two children of his parents, he was spoilt in his upbringing, in the sense he was authoritative, subjective and abrupt. Anything that he did not like he would make it clearly known to everyone; it was not well taken by his friends. He appeared to be aloof and haughty if one did not get to know him well. He had a quick, short temper that was not well taken, or endorsed, by his friends.

Once one of Genevieve’s friends in the same University as Benny and Darryl, who did not live in that residence, came to visit Genevieve while she was in town. He said something not to Darryl’s liking, Darryl told him off straight to his face. Since then they disliked each other. Darryl came to be known as arrogant and rude, albeit he was merely being direct in his expression. He loathed pretensions and hypocrisy. He was straightforward and direct in his words and in his interactions with his fellow students and friends.

Darryl took private lessons in tennis, swimming, and everything else in High School that groomed him in every way to be a High Society gentleman. His parents also sent him to Social Dance Class in his last year of High School before he went abroad for University education. He was brought up in the privileged upper socio-economic class. He was of a quiet nature with refined manners. He was well groomed to be the suave Prince to capture the heart of any beautiful debutant Princess of his heart’s desire. However, he already had his mind set on the girl from his Grade Two Class.

In November one year, Genevieve was suddenly called home because her mother fell seriously ill and was dying. Darryl wrote to her often. Darryl wanted to keep in touch with her for he had the intention of going back home for summer holidays when he could meet and re-acquaint Genevieve’s sister again. He needed Genevieve to formally re-introduce him to her sister, Paula, whom he remembered from his Grade Two Class. He kept up his correspondence with Genevieve when she went home.

"I am deeply sorry to learn that your Mother is ill, so ill that you have to go home in a hurry. Apart from sending you my sympathy, I don’t know what to say.

Life is so full of ups and downs; in the ups we should think of the downs as a provision for the possible worse, in the downs we should think of the ups that will come one day, so that we will have the courage, the will to live.

After her Mother’s passing, sympathy cards and notes poured in to Genevieve and her family. Darryl always took time to write her a few letters personally. Genevieve would always remember what he wrote. His writing impressed her. He was poetic and expressive in his writing; he was a good writer. She enjoyed reading his letters to her.

It was in those writings of Darryl’s that made a deep imprint on Genevieve’s mind about Darryl’s philosophy of Life. Subsequently she could only accept the unfolding events of his Life story later in disbelief, as it was completely contradictory to his own belief, his own conviction, his outlook, his philosophy about Life, and quite contrary to what he wrote.

I do not know how to console you, but we all want to see you smile and be happy again. I believe it must be difficult for you to bear, but do try to be strong and bear it. It will be superfluous for me to say that it will be over in due time, but I would like to assure you once more.

Meanwhile Darryl also wrote to his parents telling them about Genevieve and the situation she was in, requesting his parents to invite her to luncheon and also her sister, Paula, whom he was interested to re-acquaint. It was quite obvious that whatever requests he made to his parents, they always made sure it was carried out accordingly. He was brought up to exercise his authority. His wish was always his parents’ command.

However, he had emphasized very clearly to his parents that he would like them to meet Genevieve and Paula with his keen interest in Paula, but he did not wish to hear any opinion from his parents, be it positive or negative, compliments or criticisms, about the girl he was interested in. He wanted this to be his own choice, his own decision, his own free will, all his and his own only, no influence from his parents one way or the other. As always, his parents obeyed his instruction. They never expressed their opinion explicitly, although he could tell