The Family Recipe by Carolyn Huynh

Author:Carolyn Huynh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2025-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Connie

Once Connie entered the airspace of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, she braced herself. Not only did the atmosphere tangibly change on the descent, but she felt her priorities shift as well. On the entire flight, she rehearsed what she wanted to say to Evelyn. But she felt her stomach lurch the closer they got to the city; phantom bile rose to the back of her throat. Connie hadn’t been back to New Orleans in ten years. NOLA, the Paris of the South—monikers of the city, which meant nothing to her. She’d only ever known it as the hometown she wanted to escape from.

Connie had often wondered what it’d be like to meet the infamous Evelyn Lê. She had strange hallucinations during the long journey from Bali. What was Evelyn like in person? More important, which version of Evelyn would she get? The young mother who couldn’t get out of bed for weeks to care for her own children? Or the shrewd business entrepreneur who helped Duc crawl their way out of poverty and build an empire together? Or perhaps the ugly rumors were true, and that Evelyn had lost her mind a long time ago, leaving nothing but a hollow shell.

In all her versions of Evelyn, there was still always a crooked halo taped over her head, held with nothing more than straw and hot glue—because despite the trail of suffering Evelyn had caused, her absence had somehow transcended her into a larger-than-life figure. She’d become biblical, the mystery belle of Texas. Audiences loved a tortured woman. They exalted her and she was often the subject of bavardage over coffee by Vietnamese Houston socialites. Her marriage to Duc was used as a cautionary tale by those who attended temple on Sundays—Evelyn was an unsolved medical case, a true rags-to-riches story, who left it all behind for a life of solitude. Was she contagious? Was she patient zero? But Connie saw Evelyn for what she really was, nothing more than a charlatan. If Connie was labeled a gold digger by everyone around her, then Evelyn was the true con artist.

It wasn’t fair. None of it was. And yet, the punishment never fit the crime when it came to the public lashing of women.

Connie had always known each location where Evelyn was hiding out. Even when she hid out in Sydney, then moved to Oklahoma City, then Philadelphia, and had a brief appearance back in San Jose. Connie had kept tabs on her. She knew Evelyn had been in New Orleans for years now. Duc wasn’t very sneaky, hiring private investigators to keep track of the whereabouts of the mother of his children for the past twenty years. What was strange to her, though, was that he never told his children where she was, despite their own searches and anxieties about their mother. Especially when the searches stopped and the children gave up, he still didn’t tell them.

Why would Duc purposely hide their mother’s location?

Once she stepped off the tarmac, she stood on top of the ramp and took a deep breath.

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