What We Left Unsaid

by Winnie M Li

Genres: Asian American; Family Life; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

On an unexpected road trip, three estranged siblings uncover a startling family secret and larger truths about being Asian American in a post-COVID world—from the author of the “dazzling and devastating” (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author) thriller Complicit.

The Chu siblings haven’t seen each other in years but when they’re told that their ailing mother is scheduled for an operation next month, they agree to visit her together. Then their mother makes an odd request: before seeing her, they must go on a road trip together to the Grand Canyon.

Thirty years ago, a strange incident had aborted a previous family road trip there. No one’s ever really spoken about it, but during this journey, the middle-aged Chu siblings have no choice but to confront their childhood experience.

Together, Bonnie, Kevin, and Alex travel along Route 66—but as the trip continues, they realize the Great American Road Trip may not be what they expected. Facing their own prejudices and those of others, they somehow learn to bridge the distances between them, the present-day, and their past.

With “powerful and beautiful writing” (Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author), Winnie M Li weaves an emotive and eye-opening exploration of family, race, growing up, and what it means to be American.

Release date: August 19, 2025

Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter 1

At five p.m. Eastern Standard Time the next day, Bonnie is sitting in her home office, leaning forward in the luxury ergonomic chair that she bought to get her through all those endless Zoom meetings of the pandemic. She is always slightly anxious before phone calls with her parents. They are equal parts comforting and exasperating in their familiarity, but also a reminder of the frugal, clipped household she grew up in, one that she was secretly ashamed of when she first started dating Chris—and perhaps has tried too hard to leave behind.

Her family members flicker to life one by one, until they are all there stacked in a neat four-square—centimeters apart on-screen, thousands of miles apart in real life.

Her parents peer into their camera, always slightly mistrusting any pixilated form of communication. They must be sitting in bed together, because she can see their pale blue padded headboard, unchanged for forty years. The iPad on their laps catches their faces at a low, unnatural angle.

Mom in particular looks thinner, paler, a wizened ghost of the tenacious mother she’s known all her life—and Bonnie registers this with shock. But she tamps down the gnawing worry and greets her parents with her usual cheeriness.

“How was the hospital, Mom?”

Her mom sniffs and shrugs, revealing that familiar defeatist attitude. “It was okay. The food was lousy. I’m glad to be back.”

This is a grumpier version of Mom, shorn of all softness or pleasantness.

“Are you… is there a procedure happening?” Kevin ventures.

“I’m sick of procedures.” Mom shakes her head. “They are doing something else to me in about a month.”

They all nod in silence.

Bonnie notes this is the first time Kevin and Alex have been in the same space (virtual or otherwise) in five years. But with Zoom, they don’t have to acknowledge each other’s presence. They can just exist, side by side on-screen, never making direct eye contact. Which is impossible anyway with Zoom, Bonnie realizes. You can look at your sister’s eyes on-screen, but you’ll never know if she’s actually looking at you.

Each of them contemplates the unspoken, nodding silently around the fact of Mom’s medical condition.

In the meantime, they cycle through some more pleasantries of catching up: how is Alex’s job, how are Jess and the kids, Chris and the boys. Bonnie is distinctly aware that Alex’s news remains a secret—and that it is not her place to hint at any of it.

“So, Mom, why did you want to have a Zoom with all of us?” Bonnie finally asks, trying to be as gentle as possible.

“Can’t I see my children all at once?” Mom jokes, a righteous note rising in her voice.

“No, of course you can.” Bonnie imagines that in ten years, she may be asking the same thing of her sons.

“I never get to see all you,” Mom continues. “I mean, one by one, yes. But when was the last time we were all together?”

“I think that might have been Christmas sometime,” Bonnie offers vaguely. She shoots a look at Alex, then Kevin, but they’re staring straight ahead, offering no assistance. Thanks, guys.

“So long ago.” Mom shakes her head sadly. “What happened?”

Does Mom really have no idea? Something did happen; they were all there to witness it at the dinner table. She remembers Kevin’s taunting voice, Alex storming off. Her parents, as always, pretending like nothing ugly had happened.

“We just sort of… got really busy,” Kevin says lamely. “Raising two young kids in lockdown, that was nuts.”

“I know,” Mom says. “I raised three of you. All while your dad was working to support us. I know what it’s like.”

Whatever Mom says, it always lodges a shard of guilt deep inside Bonnie.

“I’m sorry,” Alex finally speaks up. “I’ve been really terrible at keeping in touch…” She trails off, takes a breath, and Bonnie wonders if this is the moment when Alex will share her news, as startling and revelatory as it is.

But before Alex can continue, Mom launches into a deep, hacking cough, the phlegm gurgling in her throat, and Bonnie shudders. How long has she had that cough for?

“Mom, you okay?” Alex asks.

Mom shakes her head, clears her throat again, reaches for a cup of water.

After she’s sipped and recovered, she continues.

“So, I think it’s time. I want to see all of you again.”

It’s time? There is a terrible finality to the phrase, which alarms Bonnie.

“What, like, now?” Kevin asks. He sounds just like Bonnie’s fourteen-year-old. The teenage indignation.

Mom nods. “Now. This month.”

“This month?” Kevin exclaims.

Bonnie panics. “Is it that serious?”

Mom shrugs. “What is serious, Bonnie? A mother wants to see her children after years apart. Isn’t that normal?”

Years. Bonnie absorbs this fact. What would it be like to go years without seeing Max and Henry and Milo? Impossible to even contemplate. She wonders if the ache of motherhood subsides with age.

“My procedure is on the twenty-sixth. I want to see you all before then. Together.”

Kevin sighs audibly, and Alex is still quiet—her video frozen for a split second.

“Okay,” Kevin says, ever the obedient son. He glances down—presumably at his phone. “What weekend?”

“It doesn’t matter what weekend,” Dad speaks up. “We’re retired. It’s all the same to us. You three work it out.”

“But,” Alex says, then pauses. “I’ll—I’ll have to look at flights.”

Mom shakes her head, then explodes into another violent fit of coughing.

“No. Don’t just fly here.” Mom gestures toward the screen, as if to admonish them. “I want you to drive together. The three of you.”

Bonnie lurches in shock. “Drive?! Mom, you live in California, I’m near Boston…” She does a quick calculation. It would probably take five, six days to drive all the way to the West Coast. Can she be away from her sons for that long?

Kevin’s eyes are wide in disbelief, and Alex still appears frozen. Or maybe just in shock, too.

“You don’t have to drive the whole way,” Mom argues. “I just want you to drive together. A road trip, like the old days.”

What old days? Bonnie thinks. But then she grasps a memory of sitting in the back seat of their old beige station wagon, the three of them watching the shape of their parents’ heads, as miles of highway slid past. There had been road trips, on occasion.

“I want you to drive here to California. And I want you to—” Mom stops and coughs, then resumes. “I want you to see the Grand Canyon together.”

A strained, unfamiliar feeling of regret curdles within Bonnie. The Grand Canyon. She lingers on an image: flat, dusty desert rolling endlessly past their car windows.

They had once tried to drive to the Grand Canyon as a family. When she was a teenager. Why they never made it, Bonnie still can’t quite understand.

She notices everyone on the Zoom has gone quiet.

“The Grand Canyon?” Alex finally repeats, her voice low.

“Yes.” Their mom nods, uncompromising. “Have any of you been there?”

“Uh, no.” Kevin shakes his head.

“No. It’s a little far,” Alex says.

Bonnie admits that she, too, has never stood on the edge of that great natural wonder, this geological marvel that all Americans instinctively know about, even if they grow up thousands of miles away in New England.

“No, I haven’t.”

Mom nods, her argument complete. “So then go. Drive there, and then here to California.” She pauses before looking straight at the camera, straight at them. “You owe it to me.”

They owed it to Mom? They owed it? Like it was a debt that could be repaid after all these decades.

A peculiar feeling of anger slices through Kevin when he thinks of the Grand Canyon. How could she claim they owed it to her, when they had only been children, for god’s sake.

But Kevin tamps down this resentment, the way he always does with his parents.

“That’s a long way, Mom…” he starts to say.

“I know it’s a long way. That’s why we never got to go when you were little.”

Well, we could have. If you hadn’t decided to turn around.

“I just want you all to spend time together, now that you’re all grown-up. You never see each other. You never see your dad and me.”

“I’m sure there’s another way we can all see each other,” Bonnie offers, characteristically practical. “I mean, we just need more time to plan ahead. Like six months, or something like that…”

She trails off. Because they all know that the three of them wouldn’t ever get together without their mom’s insistence. That’s how far apart they’ve drifted.

The guilt trickles in again, pooling into a dark, secret puddle inside Kevin.

Mom snorts. “Maybe I don’t want to wait six months.”

Maybe she doesn’t have six months. That’s what goes unsaid.

“Okay, then this month. Before the twenty-sixth.” Kevin finally acquiesces. Always the first to appease his parents, because his sisters have always been too set on having things their own way.

Bonnie sighs, and he can imagine her mentally rearranging her family’s upscale social schedule. No more Club Med this year, no more vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard.

Out of nowhere, Alex speaks up with unexpected enthusiasm. “I think that’s a cool idea.”

Alex? She’s the one who has to travel the farthest.

Mom’s face brightens up on-screen. “See, I can always count on you, Alex.”

Kevin seethes in silence.

“No, let’s do it!” Alex exclaims. He is reminded of the zeal his younger sister always had in childhood: her harebrained ideas for family plays at Christmastime, or an art project for Mother’s Day, or an elaborate Easter egg hunt. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

Fun? And that is so Alex, only thinking of what’s fun, never what’s responsible or sensible. And can you even say the word “fun” when Mom’s upcoming operation is the real reason for this trip?

“You really want to do this?” Bonnie is asking Alex, as if Mom weren’t right there on the call.

“You heard what Mom said. It’s been ages since we’ve all been together. Even longer since we’ve done a road trip.”

And we all know why, Kevin thinks. Or maybe you forgot, Alex.

“Yes, Alex, that’s it.” Mom grins. And Kevin has to admit, it’s the first time he’s seen Mom smile on this call. “Don’t be so serious, like the others.”

“I’m not—” Bonnie starts to say defensively, and then shuts up.

“I know you guys have kids,” Alex says, stating the obvious. “But maybe you can get away for a week or something? I can fly to Chicago or Texas or wherever, and meet you guys, and we can drive from there.”

Kevin starts a quick mental calculation: Chicago to LA. How long would you need to drive there, with a stop-off at the Grand Canyon?

“And what am I supposed to do?” Bonnie asks. “Fly from Boston to meet you guys?”

“Yeah,” Alex answers, nonchalant. “I mean, I’d be flying from London.” She lets that fact sink in. “Or you can drive from Boston, if you want.”

“That’s crazy,” Bonnie says, almost automatically. Which is partly justified for any Alex suggestion.

“What’s crazy about it?” Alex asks. “Rent a car. Get on the interstate. It’s not that difficult.”

“Alex, we can’t just—” Kevin starts to say. Jobs and vacation time and getting the kids to school, all the stuff Alex doesn’t have to think about because she’s still not an actual adult.

“Alex, I have three kids!” Bonnie shouts. “Kevin has two. We can’t just leave when we want.”

“No,” Mom cuts in forcefully. “You can do this. I had the three of you, and I managed to raise all of you, thousands of miles away from my own family, in a new country. With no extra help. Bonnie, you have Chris’s family over there. Kevin, Jessica’s mom is around the corner. They can all look after your kids. But where is your own mom? All the way over here. You think I don’t miss seeing you?”

That shuts them all up. Mom always knows how to lay it on thick.

Kevin watches Bonnie rearrange her face into something corporate and diplomatic. “All right,” she says. “I’ll speak to Chris and see what I can do.”

“Good, Bonnie, good,” Mom says, like she’s praising a loyal dog. Bonnie nods obediently but looks resigned. Kevin has to admit, there is a rare flicker of excitement inside him. A road trip. A whole week away from Jessica and the kids. The open road calling, a welcome distraction from his current misery.

“See,” Mom continues. “Do it for me. Make your mom happy, okay?”

For the second time on that call, Kevin wonders what exactly they owe their mom. Surely it is something; he just can’t name it specifically. Could it be quantified? Repaid that easily through a single road trip?

That was the thing about debt (something that Kevin was now very familiar with). It accrues interest over time. It grows and grows until it burns a deep, irreparable hole in your wallet and your bank accounts and your existence.

Sometimes, it’s too late to repay.

A queasy jolt of excitement courses through Alex when her mom mentions the road trip. There is the familiar adrenaline —what she would normally feel at any mention of travel—but this time it is laced with something more apprehensive.

Of course, the Grand Canyon.

No one in their family has discussed it in all these intervening years, but of course it makes a terrible kind of sense.

She recalls with a surreal vividness the feel of the hot desert sun on her arm as she rode in the back seat of their station wagon. The dust that filtered into the car’s interior when they pulled into that gas station and she cracked the window open.

“So you can do it? We’ll see you later this month?” Dad is asking now. Looking at his iPad screen, expectant.

“Um…” Bonnie answers carefully. “The three of us will talk offline and figure out our schedules.”

Did she just say “offline” in a family Zoom? Alex suppresses a snort. She can’t remember how long it’s been since Bonnie left her high-flying career, but the corporate-speak still hasn’t left her vocabulary.

“Should we do a deep dive and hammer out the timeline for you?” Alex jokes.

Kevin laughs. It’s been ages since he’s laughed at one of her jokes.

Bonnie rolls her eyes. “Ha ha ha, everyone.”

Mom and Dad peer at them perplexed, oblivious to the joke at Bonnie’s expense.

“So yeah, we’ll be in touch,” Bonnie reassures them.

Their parents nod back—and for once, somehow, pixilated across each other’s screens, the five of them seem to be in agreement.

When she clicks off the Zoom, Alex lingers for a moment longer in their bedroom. Nya is in the lounge, most likely stretched out on their couch, watching some cozy reality TV competition about baking. Stroking her belly in that protective, maternal way that has become second nature to her in a matter of months.

Alex is relieved to have these moments of silence to herself, to contemplate what was said on the family call. And what wasn’t. Her mom could be dying. No one’s mentioned it outright; her parents don’t like to speak candidly about these things, but it was clearly there in the subtext.

Why else the request for this sibling road trip?

But a dark shadow undercuts that request, a crust of a memory that no one wants to acknowledge.

Alex stands up and peruses her bookcase. There’s a framed photograph of herself, Bonnie, and their mother decades ago, at her sister’s business school graduation. Alex’s hair is still long in this photo, so their resemblance (which people have commented on all her life) is striking. Bonnie appears like a more polished, more successful version of herself, or she the messier, more unsettled version. Their mother’s smile is the same as always, poised and practiced, her pride unmistakable—and yet, Alex has always been aware that pride was usually bestowed on her older sister, the one with the perfect life.

She looks around, aware that any photos with Kevin have carefully been removed from her shelf. And Dad—poor Dad—hardly shows up in any pictures. He was always the one taking them.

Alex buries a seed of bitterness inside her and shifts her attention to the travel guidebooks on the shelf, a testament to the escape she’s always sought in far-flung places. Decades’ worth of Let’s Go and Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide, spanning the Mediterranean, the Middle East, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Iceland… so many geographies contained within the colorful spines of these books. So many geographies she has eagerly set foot in. Except her own country. There is virtually no mention of the United States, save for a thin New York City guidebook from her trip with Nya four years ago.

Why hasn’t she explored her own country? All those states that she’s been accustomed to flying over, en route to California—the broad, endless prairies; the rugged mountain ranges; the dry desert expanses. All passing silently below her, unknown.

She thinks about belonging. How increasingly, as the years went by, it seemed a foreign notion every time she set foot in America. Until she eventually stopped looking for it.

Maybe it is time, she thinks. She can afford to leave the UK for a week or two. One final hurrah before the reality of parenthood sets in. Nya is nearly five months along, safely out of the first trimester and still nimble enough to get around on her own. So it’s not the final call yet on Alex’s freedom. They’ve got time.

When Alex thinks about her own mother, laid up in that bed in California, she realizes they still have time, too. But only just.