Cover of The Emperor of Gladness

The Emperor of Gladness

by Ocean Vuong


Genre
Fiction, Contemporary, Gay and Lesbian
Year
2025
Contents

Chapter 16

Overview

On Christmas Eve, Hai accompanies Grazina to Lucas’s house expecting a family celebration, only to discover that Lucas, Clara, and their children view Grazina as a humiliating burden. The dinner becomes an ambush in which Lucas uses family mythology and false tenderness to pressure Grazina into entering a care home and selling her house. Back home, Hai helps Grazina through her shame and fear, and their bond deepens into an explicit recognition that they are no longer just caretaker and patient, but friends.

Summary

On Christmas Eve, Hai finds Grazina slumped and depressed at the top of the stairs. When Grazina suddenly remembers that they are expected at her son Lucas’s house for a traditional Kūčios dinner, Hai realizes Lucas is real and not one of her confused inventions. Grazina dresses Hai in an old scrub top and has him pose as her aide so they can visit. While she cooks fish-stuffed peppers and prepares to go, Grazina tries to call Lina, but no one answers.

Hai and Grazina travel by cab to Lucas’s condo in an affluent gated community. At first Hai worries they may have the wrong place, but Lucas opens the door and welcomes them in. Inside, Hai sees at once that Lucas, his wife Clara, and their children Josh and Abbey treat Grazina as an embarrassing burden. Clara performs hospitality without warmth, Josh and Abbey mock Grazina’s smell and appearance, and Lucas lets the insults pass while Hai stays close to Grazina and tries to steady her.

At dinner, the family’s condescension grows sharper. Lucas and Clara patronize Hai with crude assumptions about Filipino nurses, and Hai answers with an improvised story rather than reveal the truth. When Grazina asks to do a Kūčios prayer, Lucas dismisses her traditions as old-country nonsense. The children continue mocking Grazina, and when she begins to drift and mumble, Lucas sends Hai to take her to the bathroom and clean her up, treating her like a problem to be managed.

After Hai helps Grazina regroup, Lucas gathers everyone and turns the meal into a performance about family history. He claims his biological father, a resistance hero, made him the true heir of courage and discipline, while belittling Jonas and Lina. Lucas then reveals the real purpose of the evening: he and Clara want to place Grazina in the Hamilton Home and sell her house to fund it. Clara frames the plan as loving care, Lucas says he already has paperwork prepared, and Grazina, exhausted and humiliated, weakly nods along while Hai watches in anger.

On the silent cab ride home, Hai and Grazina say little. Back at the house, Grazina rushes upstairs and scrubs herself frantically in the bath after hearing Lucas’s family say she smells like urine. Hai stops her from hurting herself, reassures her that she is clean, and, when Grazina asks him to stop seeing her only as a patient, undresses too so they can face each other without shame. In this moment of trust, Grazina reveals that she saw Hai’s despair before he tried to jump from the bridge. She reflects that most people do not know what is enough, admits that she is afraid to die and wants a little more life, and finally tells Hai in Lithuanian, then in English, that he is her friend.

Who Appears

  • Hai
    Accompanies Grazina to Christmas dinner, shields her from humiliation, and becomes her acknowledged friend.
  • Grazina
    Depressed on Christmas Eve, cooks for Lucas, is humiliated by his family, and confides her fear of death.
  • Lucas
    Grazina’s son; hosts the dinner and manipulates the evening to push institutionalizing her and selling her house.
  • Clara
    Lucas’s wife; performs politeness while encouraging the plan to remove Grazina from her home.
  • Josh
    Lucas and Clara’s son; openly mocks Grazina and absorbs Lucas’s self-serving family legend.
  • Abbey
    Lucas and Clara’s daughter; joins in mocking Grazina’s appearance and smell.
  • Lina
    Grazina’s daughter; absent, but invoked when Grazina calls her and Lucas disparages her.
  • Jonas
    Grazina’s late husband; discussed by Lucas as a lesser father figure he resents and diminishes.
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