She reached to touch him as tears leaked out of her eyes. She wanted to be strong for him, but she couldn’t hold herself together.
“She raised me by herself,” he continued. “It was very hard. She did all kinds of things, just so we could get by. She could’ve lost me, too, when she was pregnant. There was so little to eat. It’s really a miracle that I’m alive. She was a very good mother.”
“Where is she now?”
“In Busan. Getting old, though.”
“She never remarried?”
“No. As I got older, I tried to convince her, but she always seemed to think that one day, she would see my dad again, and she wouldn’t want to tell him that she had remarried. I guess, she’s waiting. She’s been on the list for a while. But she doesn’t even know if he’s still alive or what. No one knows. It’s all a mystery.”
He wiped his eyes before lying down on the bed. She joined him. Her hand rested on the side of his face where she could feel the sandpaper of his stubble under her palm, her fingertips on his cheekbone. This man’s kindness emerged out of the cruelties of their lives like birds hatched on fields ruined by mines and barbed wire. She wanted to be kind, to be gentle, too. He was showing her that it was okay to try.
“I thought one day, I’d get rich.” His eyes brightened as if laughing at himself inside. “I’d come to America, get rich, and go back, you know? And if I had enough money, we could find him. But that doesn’t seem to be going to plan either. I’m sort of trapped here now.”
“We’re trapped together,” she said with a smile.
“At least I met you.”
“There’s still time.”
“Yes, there’s still time, but we’re getting old. All of us. Especially my mother.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s in her fifties.”
“She’s still young.”
He lowered his eyes. The tips of his fingers trailed her arm.
“Have you tried prayer?” Mina asked.
“I have, but God gives me the cold shoulder.”
“That’s not true.” But she felt that way on most days herself.
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” he said. “I’m sure your family is fine.”
* * *
Pipes tapped on the walls as the shower ran. In the next apartment, a neighbor snored.
Mina couldn’t fall back asleep. Her mind turned over Mr. Kim’s words like stones that clacked soothingly on a shore: She always seemed to think that one day, she would see my dad again, and she wouldn’t want to tell him that she had remarried.
What if his father was dead already? All those years his mother would have wasted, alone. But then again, what if the hope of never having to move on was what kept her alive? Maybe the tragedy of waiting was the only way she survived?
Would Mina be able to face her husband in the afterlife?
Would he be angry about Mr. Kim?
In heaven, if they were all dead, would they awkwardly have to see each other? Or would heaven mean that she could have two lives? Was heaven a world in which she could have them both but separately? She wondered if her brain and her heart could even handle the different iterations of her life, the many ways a song could be played. A change in lyrics, a different tempo and pace.
Perhaps thinking she was still asleep, Mr. Kim tiptoed toward his closet from which he pulled out his day’s outfit—his polo shirt, his khaki slacks. A eucalyptus scent from his aftershave, clean and fresh, filled the room, which had become a bit musty from the windows unopened in winter. With her eyes half-open, she observed him slide on his underwear and pants, admiring the muscles in his back and shoulders.
“You should keep your shirt off more often,” she said.
“Ah, you’re up.” He turned around and sat on the edge of the bed, his hand on her leg. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I had trouble falling asleep.”
“Are you not feeling well? You could call in sick?” He slipped on his shirt.
“I wish.”
“Do you want me to find out if someone could cover for you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll be fine. I have at least five more hours. I’ll get sleep now.”
He kissed her wetly on the cheek.
“Ew,” she said, wiping her face, laughing.
After she heard the locks on the front door click shut, the knob tested, she closed her eyes, thinking of him, trying to stay focused on him, them, the feel of his hand on her leg, the feel of his face beneath her fingers, now. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that this couldn’t last. Nothing did—good or bad.
FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLY, Mina grabbed a can of 7-Up for the dull ache in her stomach and made her way to the rear of the store. She hadn’t eaten lunch yet but wasn’t hungry at all, so she stashed the ham sandwich and Fuji apple that she had packed for herself in her storage bin and returned to the registers up front.
For as long as she could remember, whenever upset or depressed, she couldn’t force herself to eat. She could skip a few meals easily, unable to free herself from the weight of the sadness in her chest or the gnawing of a dolorous mind. Her emotions, like a long pin holding an insect or a butterfly into place, could control her in that way.
On her first day at the orphanage in front of a meal of beans and barley, her stomach had closed like a fist as if protecting the most vital, the most mysterious part of herself. All she could do was sip water until the nuns allowed her to leave the table after over two hours. Only after a few days of settling into the routines, the faces around her, could she finally ingest an entire meal, a watery doenjang jjigae, heavily boiled with summer squash. At her first bite, her entire body from head to toe tingled in a riot of sensations—a plant bulb buried in the most brutal winter scorched with a startling summer heat—and she had to fight herself from devouring the rice and soup like an animal.
At the front of the store, Mr. Kim, with his sweaty hair flopping and falling onto his forehead, appeared as if he had been running around all morning. When their eyes met, he flashed the most subtle yet knowing smile before jogging away to some task—a customer complaint, a shipment delayed, a bottle shattered on the floor in aisle three. Perhaps they had been understaffed that day.
She imagined him owning his own supermarket and how much pride she would have for him, knowing that he could help his mother one day. Maybe his mother could move to America, and they could take care of her together. Or maybe his mother would want to stay in Korea, but Mr. Kim could buy her a nice house and visit her once a year, lavishing her with gifts—chocolates, new shoes, and clothes.
How often did he go back to Korea these days, if ever at all? He never spoke of traveling despite his feelings for his mother. Could he not afford to take time off, or was he not able to fly freely because of his immigration status? How much could they ever know about each other?
* * *
Two bundles of green onions. Doenjang. Large sesame oil. Package of dried seaweed. Dried anchovies. Flour.
Six pack of Hite. Dried cuttlefish. Two boxes of Choco Pie.
She felt dizzy after a few hours, having to steady herself on the counter. Acid rose from her stomach to the root of her tongue. The flow of customers had slowed down, so she rushed to the back of the store, afraid she might faint or throw up.
Through the doorway of long rubber strips that slapped together as she passed through, the darkness and the drop in temperature revived her. She stood bent over, hands gripping the front of her thighs, catching her breath before she headed to the restroom. Arching her head backward, she gulped air through her mouth, worrying that she needed to go home. Maybe all she needed was rest—in her own room, on her own bed—alone.
Behind the door of Mr. Park’s office, she heard chairs slide violently on the dusty floor. A woman shrieked.
Mina fr
oze, startled by a fear that grabbed her by the throat. Unable to approach the sound, she ran back into the aisles, searching for Mr. Kim. Near the registers, he stood with an elderly woman. As soon as he saw Mina’s face, he excused himself and followed her to the back where she pointed toward the door. He listened, then shouted, “Mr. Park.” Silence. “Mr. Park!” He tried the knob and pushed inside.
Standing about fifteen feet away at a sharp angle that obscured the inside of Mr. Park’s office, Mina heard a woman scream again. The men shouted, soon followed by the crashing sound of bodies colliding.
Mina didn’t know what to do. She wanted to rush inside, but she was frozen in place, terrified. Should she hide?
“You son of a bitch,” Mr. Park yelled from the room, panting as if catching his breath. “You’re fired. Get out of here.”
With his arm around the shoulders of a woman bent in pain, Mr. Kim limped through the door.
It was Lupe.
Mina’s heart sank. The room spun. Foul acid rose in her throat.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mr. Kim whispered to Mina. “Before he sees you.”
“What?”
“C’mon.” He grabbed her hand. “Lupe, c’mon.”
Together, they walked out the heavy back door into a cruel white sunlight. “My purse,” Mina said. “My keys.”
“We’ll get our stuff later. I’ll call Daniel and have him grab everything. We’ll get it all later, okay?”
Opening the station wagon door, Mina motioned for Lupe to sit in the front seat where she sobbed uncontrollably with her face in her hand. Red ran down the side of Mr. Kim’s jaw, dripping onto his shoulders, onto the polo shirt he had put on that morning in front of her. From the back seat, Mina searched the car for napkins, something to blot the blood but couldn’t find anything. She removed her sweater and reached forward, holding it to his head.
“I’m—I’m so sorry,” Lupe said in English, coughing, almost choking.
“No, no le preocupe. Le llevaremos a casa, a su casa,” he said.
Mina reached to squeeze Lupe’s shoulder, an attempt to say what she didn’t know how to say in Spanish or English: It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.
Trapped in the back, unable to attend to Mr. Kim’s wounds, unable to comfort Lupe, Mina’s heart and mind raced as she scrambled to put together what had just happened. Swallowing the taste of her own vomit, she didn’t want to think about what would happen to them now, later, tomorrow. She tried to calm her breath, closing her eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” Mr. Kim hissed to himself.
Arriving at her apartment, Lupe tried to compose herself, wiping her face dry with her sleeve. Mina vomited on the strip of grass next to the sidewalk as soon as she opened the car door. Neither Lupe nor Mr. Kim noticed. For a second, Mina became distracted by a long trail of ants devouring a snail that had been smashed.
* * *
Body covered in bruises, forehead and hands bandaged, Mr. Kim lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“What’s going to happen now?” Mina asked.
“I don’t know.” He had described how he had walked into the office on Mr. Park holding Lupe down. Upon seeing him, Mr. Park pushed Lupe aside. She hit the corner of the desk as she went crashing to the ground. Mr. Kim punched Mr. Park in the face until his hands bled. And when he reached to help Lupe, Mr. Park shoved him into a bookshelf. Objects toppled onto his head.
“You son of a bitch. You’re fired.” Mr. Park had spit the words out of his bloody mouth.
Imagining Lupe’s horror—that fear and entrapment and disgust—Mina yearned to kill Mr. Park. A box cutter to his neck. She remembered him emerging out of his office to help her while lifting cartons off the ground. The grip of a pistol had flashed at his side. Are you sure you can do this? He winked. Chills ran down her spine. Fists clenched. I worked hard, very hard. And now, I’m the owner. I own all of this.
She could break him down like one of his boxes, stuff his words back in his mouth. He deserved the worst kind of ending.
Mr. Kim sighed. “There’s a chance...”
“A chance of what?”
“That he’ll call the police on us.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
“You? Why?” Her voice had grown hoarse.
“He has friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has friends. Just... If he really wanted to...he could get rid of us all.”
“But he already fired you.” Her heart pounded in her chest, her head.
“If that’s enough for him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know for sure, but my sense is that he had something to do with Mario getting sent back.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any proof. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.” He shook his head. “The other day, he made this comment about what a good worker Lupe is. Then he said something about Mario not being able to keep himself out of trouble, that he wasn’t smart enough to mind his own business.” A tear leaked out of Mr. Kim’s eye. “I didn’t press him any further. But it’s like he was trying to tell me something. It was like a warning. I don’t know.”
“Why would he call the police on you when you’re the one who was trying to help Lupe? He’s the criminal.”
“Because he knows that she would not call the police. She could risk being deported. He could make up some kind of story about how I assaulted him. She has children. She would never go to the police.”
“But I would say something. I could say something. I was there for everything.”
“He’s more powerful.” His nostrils flared. “It’s his story that gets heard, you see?”
Carefully, she pressed the adhesive of the bandage peeling off his forehead. The cotton had grown brown. She closed her eyes and an explosion blasted in her head. There was no mercy. Even the silence itself was preparation for the most horrible sounds. She had cried out at the people, desperate to save themselves, rushing by her. Umma, she had screamed through her tears. Umma. She couldn’t get the screams and the whistles of the bombs out of her mind. The earth stabbed her knees when she fell to the ground.
She imagined blood spurting out of Mr. Park’s neck.
“I better lie low for a while.” Mr. Kim gripped her hand, nudging her back to the present.
“What do you mean?” She touched his arm in a gesture that urged him to lie back down with her.
“Hide. I don’t know.” His eyes wide. “I should call Lupe first, make sure she’s okay.”
“What? Where are you going to go? This doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know.” He covered his face with his hand.
“Are you thinking of leaving town?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t leave town.” She wanted to say, You can’t leave me now.
“I can’t get arrested. I can’t...”
“Nothing will happen. Why do you keep thinking something like that could happen?”
He rubbed between his brows. “I never—I never told you this. When I first came to this country, I came on a student visa, and I let it expire. By then I had given up on everything, and then I found this job.”
“You’re not supposed to be here?”
Neither was she. And the concept of who was and who was not supposed to be here perplexed Mina. Hadn’t he been working all this time? Hadn’t he been paying his taxes, too? Hadn’t the wars, the uprisings, the slaughter in the streets that had destroyed their families and homes, driven them here to this country that glittered untouched by the bombs it dropped everywhere else, been enough? And why did the law take any opportunity to either lock people up or kick them out when the worst kind of people, like Mr. Park, should be in prison rather than getting rich off the labor of everybody else, the terror of everybody else?
Entering the bedroom, she jumped at the sight of Mr. Kim seated on the edge of the mattress in the low glow of the lamp, holding a gun—small, black, and matte.
“What are you doing?” she asked, breathless. “Put that away.”
“I want you to have this,” he said. “I’ll show you how—”
“No, I don’t want that. What do I need that for? I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Please put that away.”
He contemplated the gun, shook his head, and returned it to its holster and bag on the bed.
“Why do you even...” But she didn’t bother finishing her question. Of course he owned a gun. She had never seen so many guns on men who were not in the military until coming to America. From what were they all protecting themselves? He could hurt himself, if not someone else. She had to take it away from him somehow. It was too easy to hurt someone. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t lose anyone again. “Could you please—put that away somewhere? I can’t be in this room with it there.”
He slid open his nightstand drawer, tucked the bag inside.
She closed her eyes, inhaled, and placed her head in her hands. “Should I go to work tomorrow?”
The Last Story of Mina Lee Page 18