The Last Story of Mina Lee

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

  Once the meat had browned, Margot laid pieces on Miguel’s plate, like her mother would’ve done, before serving herself. A heaviness gathered in her chest. She wrapped a bite of warm white rice, soft pork belly, and ssamjang in a red lettuce leaf, still wet, and crammed it into her mouth.

  As a teenager in restaurants, she had often glanced around her at larger groups in their booths, envying the volume of people, the generations that could be brought into a single period of time and space, the architecture of a family over shared food. There was a kind of rigid hierarchy between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But the politics protected a sense of togetherness and place, a statement that read in the silence of subtle gestures (the pouring of another’s glass, the use of two hands, the serving of others first): We will always protect each other.

  Yet despite those gestures, those fragile attempts to express their feelings, she and her mother couldn’t get along, relax. Were they too foreign from each other?

  Or was it the intensity of two women alone, two women who would be mirrors for each other, for each other’s sadness, disappointments, rage? If one would experience joy, the other would feel not her own joy rising but a pang of jealousy rooted in a fear of abandonment that would cause her to strike the other down. And where did this fear of loneliness come from? Was it universal or specific to her mother? Or maybe even specific to being Korean?

  Her mother, as a child of the war, would have surely died alone if she had not been found. And the whole world told women every day, If you are alone, you are no one. A woman alone is no one at all.

  * * *

  Miguel had only spent a few days in LA here and there on vacation, so they decided to see the city after dinner. They could use a break, a diversion. Anything to get her out of her own head and heart, which by now had become flooded with details of her mother’s life. She did everything for so long within her power to avoid the reality, the pain of her mother, and now it came down on her in a deluge of confusing facts, images, and emotions. The sock lady, Mrs. Baek, red lips smeared. The obituary of her mother’s lover, who resembled Margot as well—the squareness of the jaw, maybe even the eyes, the cheekbones. The restaurant owner’s brand-new smile. Her mother facedown on the carpet. The dark smell. A gas. The smell she could not get out of her nose and mouth.

  “Let’s drive to the ocean,” Margot said, starting the car. “We can walk around the pier a little, then we can come back and go to a bar, or there’s this old salsa club downtown. We should check it out.”

  “Hell yeah,” said Miguel.

  Fifteen minutes later they reached Pico Boulevard, named after the last governor of California under Mexican rule, which stretched all the way west from Los Angeles to Santa Monica, getting richer, cleaner, and quieter toward the coast.

  Although chilly and damp from the ocean, Margot cracked open the window for some air. She had always loved coming to the beach, oftentimes by herself so that she could plop down on the sand, bury her toes, and watch the waves crash, or walk along the old creaky pier and play Galaga at the arcade. As a teenager, she would ride a local line to Rimpau station where she hopped on the Blue Bus for an easy, hour-long commute to Santa Monica.

  She had been mesmerized by the smell and the sound of the waves and the vast expanse of murky blue that was not only a moving color but actually a well of living organisms—fish and algae and octopuses and whales—all moving through their lives unaware of the terrestrial world above it. Knowing also that somewhere at the end of the ocean an entirely different continent of people stared into the same abyss of water and distance and time comforted her. A universal aloneness and yearning.

  “I would be too far away from you,” her mother had said.

  And now she was gone forever.

  On Ocean Avenue, they parked beside the bluff with well-maintained grass, robust palm trees, and a recreational area for a retirement center. Homeless people lay down in their bundles on the benches.

  “Do you want to walk around a little?” she asked.

  They opened their car doors and flung themselves into the cold, biting wind. Already pitch-black outside, carnival lights danced on the pier where floodlights touched the surface of the ocean with a mottled yellow glow. Walking to the pier, tourists bundled up in coats and sweaters, filling the darkness with a cacophony of voices and languages—accents, tones, and rhythms from across continents. The cheerful crowd floated like a diaspora of desire, seeking the thrill of new experiences, the satisfaction of hunger with funnel cakes, hotdogs, hamburgers, and fries. Arms outstretched for selfies. Local couples and families moved at a slower, more contemplative pace; they, like Margot, had come here for comfort, for the familiar sights and sounds, a part of the patchwork of memories that we touched when life and the future felt uncertain.

  Margot zipped up her jacket as the wind cut their faces and ears. Stopping at the bottom of the stairs that took them to the beach itself, they removed their shoes. The soft, cold sand swallowed their feet. She rolled up her jeans. They stomped arm in arm through sand, shivering as they pressed their sides up against one another. The wind whipped Margot’s hair in her face, clinging to the balm on her lips. As they stood twenty feet or so from where the ocean licked the shore, Margot released a great big sigh.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked.

  “It’s freezing, but...yes, there’s something magical here.”

  Her cell phone rang. She flinched. An unknown number.

  “Hi, this is Tom from Ko-America tours.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “You wanted some information? About Mina Lee. September, Grand Canyon?”

  “Yes, do you know who my mother was with during that trip? Do you have any information on her or him?”

  “Yes, um, I have his emergency form. Hmm, no phone number, but the name is Kim Chang-hee. I have address only, in Calabasas.”

  Margot remembered the black tennis shoes she had found in her mother’s closet, covered in a fine rust-colored dust, the smell of mineral and sage. She had finally made it to one of the national parks, after all these years of work, and she had not been alone, but with a lover.

  “Could you give me the address? Or any other information.”

  “Uh...who are you again?”

  “I’m her daughter. I’m Mina Lee’s daughter.” The words carved into the heaviness inside her chest, which being by the ocean had only partially relieved. Was she still a daughter if her mother was dead? “She died a week or so ago and... I wanted to get in touch with him to let him know. I thought he would want to know.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry about that.”

  “Could you text me his address? Will you do that now? I don’t have a lot of time. I have to leave soon,” she lied. “I live in Seattle and I have to go back to work.”

  As soon as she received the text with the Calabasas address, she jumped with excitement.

  “He sent it,” Margot said. “What next?”

  “No phone number, right?” Shivering, Miguel danced his feet in place.

  Margot shook her head. “We could drive there maybe?”

  “Yeah, this week for sure. I gotta go to the Valley anyway to look at apartments. But would we just knock? We can’t do that, right?”

  “What if Officer Choi is right and she doesn’t know about the affair, or who my mother is?”

  “I think we should go check it out anyway. I mean, we’ll be in the Valley already. We don’t need to knock, just kind of scope it out. I mean...this would be the former residence of your mom’s boyfriend. And...do you still think he could be your dad?”

  “Maybe, but it just all seems too coincidental at this point.” She shrugged. “But I think there’s something there. My mom never ever had a boyfriend to my knowledge while I was growing up. What would she be doing with this specific man? A married man...with cancer. It was doomed.”
r />   “And the wife—she had to know, right? I mean, c’mon.”

  “Yeah, he went on a goddamn recreational tour with my mother. She had to know.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m just glad. It’s weird, but I’m happy that she went on that trip.” The ocean rippled under the full silver moonlight. “I never saw her on a real vacation. Ever. I’m relieved she got to do that before she died.”

  For the first time since discovering her mother’s body last week, she felt hopeful—as if somehow, slowly, her persistence might be paying off. She dropped her shoes to the ground and ran toward the ocean, which appeared calm and placid. The cold air rushed in and out of her lungs, whipped her hair out of her bun, all over her face. She had felt so trapped her entire life in that apartment, at that swap meet, inside her mother’s life. And temporarily she could free herself here, right now; there was so much space and hardly anyone around.

  Her feet splashed into the icy water. She screamed, then laughed, realizing she had chosen this for herself. With her teeth chattering, she ran out and back in again, deeper, up to her knees. A dip in this water was a kind of insanity. But she felt free.

  She had always been a little scared of the water, of getting in too deep and being swept away. She never learned how to swim. There were no swimming pools where she had grown up, no extracurricular classes for kids. Water was always something she walked in and feared for its power.

  On the pier, roller-coaster riders screamed. Red and white lights danced in a black sky. The salt air smelled like safety, the longest sigh of relief. The Ferris wheel spun and blinked, throbbing lightheartedly, its spokes like many arms outstretched in the night.

  As she stood knee-deep in the water, a tangle of weeds wrapped around her ankles, tickling the skin. She could trip and fall into the dark foaming water, and the strands would wind around her, squeezing the last breath out of her body, until she belonged to no one, not even herself. She would belong to the sea. In a panic, she lifted her feet in a dance, retreating toward the sand, to free herself from what was, upon closer inspection, not actually seaweed, but a thin rope, no, a net, a piece of fishing net, gummy and laced with kelp leaves and pearl-like polyps. Maintaining her balance, she dragged the net out of the water and picked it clean as she walked toward Miguel. Her nose ran from the cold, and she wiped her face on her sleeve.

  “Are you okay?” Miguel asked.

  “This thing wrapped around my legs.”

  Margot held a corner of net out to the sky, up against the shape of the Ferris wheel on the pier in the distance—blinking in black, many-spoked, turning slowly, aglow. She imagined all the tiny silver fish that would swim through the weave—like her mother’s words, no, her mother herself, shimmering, liquefied, slipping through every hole.

  Mina

  Fall 1987

  WHEN SHE FINISHED her shift on most days, she found something small waiting among her belongings—two bananas, a pack of gum, a head of lettuce, a small box of chocolates. It was hard to tell what the logic of each selection was, or if there was any at all. Depending on her mood, each item seemed entirely thoughtful or utterly meaningless. She looked forward to seeing what had been placed in her bin, and on the days when she didn’t receive anything, she went home sullenly disappointed, as if that was the inevitable end to a streak of good fortune. But then the next day, she would find something again—a package of ramen, a small container of doenjang, the most exquisite Korean pear, perfectly shaped and freckled—and the world seemed to open up a little once more, a crack of light seeping into darkness.

  She knew it was Mr. Kim. He had seen her that day, after she had rung up the father and daughter who reminded her so much of her own, after she had run to the bathroom and emerged with her face red and swollen. He had given her that look, silently acknowledging her pain, and later that day, she had discovered the fruit, that beautiful green apple, and the ramen in her bin. Since then it had been clear in their quiet and polite exchanges that he wanted to help her somehow, that somehow in her loneliness, her despair, he recognized something. Maybe a bit of himself.

  A part of her wanted to reject everything, to confront him and ask him politely to not leave her anything anymore. She didn’t need or want any sympathy. And it confused her. What was the point of these gestures that couldn’t lead anywhere for her?

  At the same time, the idea of not receiving the little gifts, which often served as the highlight of her entire day, terrified her. Maybe it was the tiniest of things, at times, on a consistent basis, that kept us alive, and if she could not create such kindnesses for herself, couldn’t she allow someone else to do so for her?

  * * *

  After a couple weeks of the monotony, the accretive familiarity of the cash and the coins in her hand, the dull flashes of courtesy between her and the customers, punctuated only by the gifts she received at the end of most days, Mario disappeared.

  On a crisp autumn day, Mina approached her register, where a teenager, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, was working with Mr. Kim on the front-of-store tasks that Mario usually did on his own. As soon as Mr. Kim noticed Mina, he tried to smile and walked away to the back of the store. She said hello, acting as natural as possible with the new employee who introduced himself as Daniel.

  Where was Mario? Perhaps he had the day off, which, for whatever reason, seemed odd to her. He had quietly guided her through many of her more difficult days as a cashier. Something about the whole scene seemed askew. But she reminded herself that he could be sick or on vacation. Who knew?

  Daniel learned quickly, had certainly worked in a supermarket or grocery store before. During the slower hours, he would ask if she needed help with anything, which she didn’t. She went around tidying the registers, trying to ignore him because she couldn’t quite think of anything else for him to do. Mario always kept himself busy. She looked around to see if Mr. Kim was anywhere, but she didn’t see him, nor the owner, Mr. Park, at all for the rest of the day.

  At the end of her shift, a Korean pear wrapped in its Styrofoam sleeve waited in her storage bin. She inhaled the dappled skin of the fruit, which smelled of fall, crisp and sweet. She cradled the pear in her two hands and, for a second, pressed it to her chest.

  * * *

  Mina had come out of the restroom and gone down the soft drinks aisle to pick something up for herself when she noticed Mr. Kim, who had seemed to be avoiding her, walking away toward the other end of the aisle. Finally she had the chance to ask him about Mario. For a second, she thought to proceed slowly; she didn’t want to run into him, but at the same time, she was tired of not knowing, and something about his avoidance pained her, made her question the items in her bin, and whether or not she had mistaken his politeness, his kind nature toward everyone for something else.

  “Mr. Kim,” she called.

  He turned around. His face was haggard, tired around the eyes.

  She walked closer to him but stayed far enough away to not appear suspicious to anyone passing by.

  “Is he sick?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “Mario.”

  “Oh. No, he...” He turned his head to see if anyone was coming from behind. “He got sent back. To Mexico.”

  At that moment, she felt the distance between them—cold like the aluminum can in her hand. She had the sudden urge to throw it and break the cruel, fluorescent light.

  “Why?” Her voice cracked as she fully realized what he meant. They would probably never see Mario again.

  “I don’t know. I tried to... When I found out, I thought maybe I could send him some money for a lawyer.”

  “How could he get sent back?”

  “He didn’t have his papers. I don’t know.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes dropped to the floor. Could Mr. Kim tell that she, too, didn’t have her papers, or at least not yet? Was it obvious to others?
Or had Mario somehow gotten himself in trouble, and in the process been caught?

  “His mother and his brother and sisters are still here. They all live together.”

  “So, that’s it? He just gets taken away.”

  “It’s happened before. I don’t know why, what triggered it.”

  “But he’s been here all this time, right?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter, though.”

  “But...there has to be something. How could he disappear like that?”

  “I spoke to his mom. That’s how I found out. He just didn’t show up, so I knew something was wrong. I think he was the only one supporting his family. His father had been killed going home one day. Shot out of nowhere.” Tears welled up in Mr. Kim’s eyes. “It’s not all right.”

  “Is there anything we can do for them?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think I’m going to start collecting some money.” Mr. Kim slipped a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He had never given off any indication that he smoked before. “I went by last night with some groceries. There was a little baby, a couple girls, a boy. She has some family, I think. A church. But I’m gonna start collecting some money here. I haven’t told anyone else yet.”

  “Okay, let me know,” she said. “I want to help.”

  He tapped out a cigarette, holding it softly in his hand.

  She wanted to hold that hand now.

  ONE WEEK LATER outside of the supermarket, Mina wrapped her sweater around her body before climbing into the passenger seat of a large white van, which smelled of exhaust, damp cardboard, and overripe fruit. In the driver’s seat, Mr. Kim switched on the radio to a sudden blast of pop music. He flipped through different stations until he found some oldies—the Shirelles’ “Dedicated to the One I Love.” After turning onto the street, he eased into the steady flow of early Saturday night traffic, bopping his hand on the steering wheel and mouthing the words with the enthusiasm of someone younger, someone unharmed by life.