The Last Story of Mina Lee

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

  “I loved working there, in a way,” Mrs. Baek said. “I could just cook and it was simple. I guess everything was simpler back then.”

  “The hours were very hard, though, right?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t mind.”

  Mina tasted the soybean sprouts—that delicate crunch between her teeth, the gentle sting of garlic and green onion, the mouthwatering sesame. “Why did you leave? I thought maybe you were tired of the restaurant.”

  Mrs. Baek sipped ice water, staining the edge of the glass with her lipstick. How she left her mark, a signature of sorts, wherever she went. Mina’s own lips felt dry as she rubbed them together. She peeled a bit of dead skin off with her teeth.

  “It’s complicated.” Mrs. Baek tapped the ends of her chopsticks on the table before gripping a cube of kkakdugi that disappeared in her mouth.

  An unease ripened between them in the pauses of their speech.

  “What is Margot up to these days?” Mrs. Baek asked.

  “She lives in Seattle now. She went to college there. She works in an office, a nonprofit.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  The waitress set the green bottle of soju and two glasses on the table.

  “Would you mind bringing us some more banchan?” Mrs. Baek asked. She poured the soju with two hands. “Do you think she’ll move back to LA?”

  Mina hadn’t had a drink in years, not since leaving Korea, but with her heart pounding now, her palms sweating, she gulped down the clear fluid, bolting toward some relief, the comfort of a blunted mind.

  “I don’t know. She seems to like it there,” Mina said.

  “Kids will do what they please these days. But she’ll be back, I bet. I’d love to see her again.” Mrs. Baek grinned. In the overhead light, her eyes were dark and dull as charcoal.

  Mina filled both their glasses.

  “Did you ever hear from her father?” Mrs. Baek nudged the plate of grilled gulbi toward Mina, who shook her head. The fish’s open mouth revealed the tiniest teeth. “What have you been doing these past years?”

  “Working. Going to church. What about you?”

  “Same. No church, though, of course.” Mrs. Baek’s chopsticks split the skin, gathering a bite off the bones. She laughed. “I never understood how you could hang out with the women there. So judgmental.” She slipped a translucent bit of bone out of her mouth.

  Mina adjusted herself in her seat. “I never see them really except on Sundays.”

  “That’s right.” Mrs. Baek nodded. “What ever happened to the lady who was your friend back then? Your friend from Seoul?”

  “Mrs. Shin?” Mina asked. A pang of sadness. “While I was pregnant, I stopped going to church for a while, remember?” She exhaled out loud. “Eventually, I changed churches. We didn’t keep in touch after that.” An unacknowledged tension had risen between her and Mrs. Shin as Mina’s growing stomach became more and more apparent. The disgrace of it all. Even if she cared for Mina, Mrs. Shin couldn’t have a woman like Mina around influencing her children. She was ruined, wasn’t she?

  But with Mrs. Baek, Mina could be, for once, human. They cared for each other despite their flaws, or idiosyncrasies, which were—in a certain light, even in the smallest gestures like Mrs. Baek’s red lipstick—acts of defiance and courage. They need not erase themselves.

  “Will you retire soon?” Mrs. Baek asked.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure. I’ll probably have to work until I can’t anymore, until I’m too old. I can’t really afford to retire.”

  “Same here.” Mrs. Baek sighed.

  The waitress carried two heavy earthenware pots of soondubu jjigae. Steam rose between them, clouding the air with the scent of kimchi, sesame oil, garlic, anchovy, shrimp. They cracked their eggs onto the jjigaes. The yolks throbbed on top.

  Mina rubbed the space between her brows, partially covering her face. “You know, I have to be honest. When I first saw you, I was sort of terrified of the memories that you might bring up. I’ve grown so accustomed to being alone after Margot left, you know?”

  “Yes, I understand. I felt the same way, I think.”

  Mina pressed her palms on the wooden bench below her.

  “I don’t know if you know this,” Mrs. Baek said, eyes low. “But back then, when you were going through so much, that’s how I survived in a way—by helping you and Margot. That way I didn’t have to think so much about my own problems anymore. I felt like I had escaped mine and that I had to be strong. For you two.” She sighed, crinkling the paper sleeve of her chopsticks.

  Mina wanted to thank her for helping all those years ago. When having a child should have been impossible, Mrs. Baek had fed her and tended to Margot when Mina couldn’t do so herself. Maybe that was what made Mina so uncomfortable about Mrs. Baek. She had never experienced this kind of love before; this was family.

  And yet she realized that she had never known much about Mrs. Baek. In the past, Mrs. Baek had mentioned a husband in Texas. What problems had she escaped by helping Mina and Margot? Mina couldn’t ask her about them now, could she? Maybe one day she would. She wanted to help her, to be of some use to her, too. Who had Mrs. Baek left behind, or who had she been fleeing from all those years ago?

  “Did you ever—your husband—did you ever speak to him again?” Mina asked.

  Mrs. Baek’s eyes darkened into coal. “No, no, of course not. He was terrible.” She sighed. “Thank goodness we never had children together.”

  “Did you want to have children?”

  “No, I did not,” she said. “To be honest, I never wanted my own.”

  “Is that why you had to leave? Did he want them?”

  “Yes, he did, but—that’s not why I left. When we first met, he was so much fun. Isn’t that how they all are? But once we married, I realized he was very bad. He...he couldn’t control himself.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t have a way out until I became a citizen, so I stayed with him for years. I had to survive, you know?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mina said. Sadness crept up from her chest into her face. She wondered how many women had been trapped—in terrible marriages, terrible jobs, unbearable circumstances—simply because the world hadn’t been designed to allow them to thrive on their own. Their decisions would always be scrutinized by the levels at which they were able to sacrifice themselves, their bodies, their pleasures and desires. A woman who imagined her own way out would always be ostracized for her own strength. Until one day they found each other by some kind of magic or miracle or grace—here now. They were safe.

  Tears filled her eyes. “You’ve done well,” Mina said.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, we’ve done well. Don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Baek smiled with a dull glint in her eyes. Pulling the rest of the gulbi’s flesh off the bones, she said, “You and I, we’ve always been stronger than anyone else.” She nudged the plate of fish toward Mina. “At least we have each other.”

  Mina stared at the objects in front of her—the banchan, the jjigae, the metal spoons, the chopsticks. For a moment, as Mrs. Baek delicately spooned her soup, Mina contemplated the matte rouge that managed, despite the eating and drinking, to remain perfectly lined with only a patchy fade, a charming pinkish stain on the lips.

  So much of Mina’s life had been driven by the need to survive in a world created by and for someone else. What would the world look like if she made it her own, even temporarily, for a moment, fleeting, so that she could experience again the throb, the hunger of being alive, eyes wide, teeth showing?

  The color, the mark on the rim of a glass of water. I am here, I was here, it said. Makeup expressed a desire to be seen while providing some camouflage as well. But what else was Mrs. Baek hiding? And how could Mina help her now?

  Margot

  Winter 2014

  ON THE FLOOR of
her mother’s bedroom, Margot pored over the contents of the safety-deposit box—a large envelope of documents in Korean and mostly black-and-white photographs extending over decades. For the first time, she saw her mother as a small child—her oval face and clever gaze—posing by herself in front of a traditional Korean house with its elegant tiled roof and dark wooden beams, then her mother as a young teenager, defiantly unsmiling at a communal dining table. All of these images had faded through the years, which reminded Margot, almost, of the Seattle sky in winter, all those layered gray washes of muted softness and light.

  She could begin to imagine what her mother’s life might have been like at the orphanage, from which she had never been adopted and which she had almost never discussed.

  But what stood out most, what startled Margot with waves of uncertainty, were several color photos, in particular one of her mother as a woman in her late thirties with a husband and child, a pigtailed daughter in a red T-shirt and leggings. With its yellowish tint, warped surface, the photo had been thumbed, touched through the years repeatedly like a worry stone.

  The husband had a long sensitive face and an easy smile, standing in a relaxed, open stance with one hand on his daughter’s shoulder and the other arm around Mina, fashionable in her wide-legged jeans and floral blouse. She stood stiffly with a slight smile on her face that shone without a single wrinkle or line. In the background, a tree-covered hillside revealed a slip of blue sky at the top of the frame. A sunny remarkable day in the woods or the country. Dust from ambling on trails covered their shoes.

  The little girl in the photograph resembled Mina with her high cheekbones and narrow chin, more than Margot did herself. And the strangers, the husband and child, had an innocence and clarity about them, untouched by the hardness of Mina’s orphan past and her future immigrant life.

  Margot had always thought of Koreans as workaholics, religious and pragmatic, yet at times showy and status-oriented when they had the means. But studying those relaxed faces in the photographs, those dusty shoes, Margot could see someone else, Koreans—not Korean Americans, not immigrants hardened by the realities of living in a foreign country, who like her father in Calabasas had stubbornly “succeeded,” achieving a sheen of perfection while obscuring his actual complexity, an isolation from the self. Or like her mother, who had worked tirelessly yet had never amounted to more than the long days, the long hours, alone.

  What did this country ask us all to sacrifice? Was it possible to feel anything while we were all trying to get ahead of everyone else, including ourself?

  And how could her mother have abandoned this other family to live in America, where her life had been tough in this cramped apartment, working an often soul-crushing job, as she yelled, Amiga! Amiga! to strangers walking away, as she raised Margot day-to-day, month-to-month, by herself? Unless, for whatever reason, the husband in this photograph had been worse, this family, this life had been worse. But how could that be possible?

  Of course, her mother might’ve wanted to tell Margot about all of this one day—another family, another country, a half sister somewhere. But when and how? Perhaps her mother, like herself, didn’t know what to do with life sometimes, hadn’t made any decisions yet. Her mother had kept the key to the safety-deposit box inside the teddy bear’s silly heart, which she had assumed no one would ever steal or touch. She, too, might have been under that spell, the illusion that delaying one’s decisions, one’s actions was the same as prolonging life. But then—unexpectedly—she died.

  Who could help Margot understand this all now?

  In the stairwell, the landlord had said Mrs. Baek had been at her mother’s apartment in September or October, when he had seen Mr. Park waiting for her outside.

  We all lived in the same house together until you were maybe three or four. Your mother used to bring you to the restaurant that I worked at, Hanok House. Do you remember?

  Only one person knew her mother well enough.

  Mina

  Summer 2014

  IN HER BATHROOM mirror, Mina applied the dusty rose–colored lipstick that she had purchased with Mrs. Baek from one of the swap meet’s dollar stores. Earlier that day, as they were sharing a lunch of rice and various leftover banchan on top of the display-case counter of Mina’s shop, Mrs. Baek had said, “You look so tired these days. Remember back in the day, how much you cared about your looks?” She smiled. “I remember you even wore those long, flowing skirts to work. Weren’t you stocking shelves?”

  Mina couldn’t help but laugh at herself, how naive she had once been. “I wanted to make a good impression,” she had replied, recalling the first time she had seen Mr. Kim—the edges of his fingertips as he had dropped the change, the cold hard coins, in her open palm, the pink flyer that spelled HELP WANTED, his eyes, smiling.

  “Why don’t you wear some makeup?” Mrs. Baek asked, snapping her Tupperware closed. “You look like a grandma and you’re not even a grandmother yet.”

  “Do you know how old I am?”

  “So what? Do you know how old I am? I’m older than you.”

  “What do my looks matter?”

  “Maybe when you look in the mirror, you might be happy. I feel that way. When I’m drawing my lips or my eyebrows, I feel alive, like I’m taking care of myself. I feel like I’m controlling my life in some way. Like I’m in control.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Mina said.

  “Let’s go to the dollar store over there and get you some color.”

  Together, they stood close, the sides of their arms touching as they lingered over the small selection of lipstick on a stand covered in cosmetics—foundation, powders, and blushes. Mina tested several shades on the back of her hand until a flash of dusty rose appeared and Mrs. Baek said, “That one. That’s it.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, it’s subtle but pretty, don’t you think? You could start off slow.”

  “Eventually, maybe I’ll graduate to red.” Mina placed her fist on her waist and popped out her hip.

  Mrs. Baek laughed. “Maybe,” she said. “But by then we’ll be on our deathbeds. Twins, I guess.”

  Now, in the mirror’s reflection, Mina inserted an index finger into her mouth, puckered, and pulled the finger back out through her lips—a trick that Mrs. Baek had taught her to keep the color from her teeth. She smeared the waxy color onto her cheeks, brightening her face. All she needed was a bit of under-eye concealer, and despite her age, she could be beautiful, or at least, lively again.

  Through an open window, she could smell a neighbor grilling carne asada—the smoke of animal fat, citrus, and garlic. Her stomach grumbled. With toilet paper, she wiped the color off her mouth.

  The phone rang. Was it her daughter? Or was it some pesky salesman, trying to sell her something in English?

  She rushed to the living room. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Lee?” a man said roughly. “Mrs. Lee.”

  It was him. She would know that voice anywhere.

  She gasped and slammed the receiver down with a crash.

  * * *

  Mina had grown terrified of the sound of unexpected knocking on doors, which would always remind her of when the police officers came to her apartment in Seoul. And so when she heard a knock the next day, she stepped back for a second, thinking that she could pretend she wasn’t here, but then the knock came again, and she realized that whoever it was could hear her television. She crept toward the door, avoiding the fisheye, knowing that whoever it was might see her.

  A minute passed. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s me.” A throat cleared. “Mr. Kim.”

  Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. “Go away,” she screamed, surprising herself. “Go away.”

  She slumped onto the floor, crawling on her hands and knees toward her bedroom, where she waited until she could not hear a thing anymore, only the drip of the faucet i
n the bathroom, the flush of a neighbor’s toilet. She didn’t know for how long she hid.

  When was the last she had seen him? Over twenty-six years ago. He seemed to be speaking to her from the past, from the Ferris wheel where she had opened her eyes, observing the beauty of this world that, for a few minutes, promised not to harm her. Like the Ferris wheel, the entire world, her life had pulsed—ripe and bright—with the smell of the ocean bathing away her pain, the grief that kept her up most nights.

  Over twenty-six years ago, she had taken the gun from Mr. Kim’s drawer, slipped it into her purse, and gone to the supermarket like any other day at work. She could’ve killed Mr. Park then, but he wasn’t there. The gun bag was in her closet, which she had hidden in an attempt to keep Margot safe, to submerge that part of her life as best as she could.

  After a long bout of silence, she checked the fisheye. He was gone.

  He had pushed a note through the bottom of the door.

  Please call me. I don’t have a lot of time left. I have cancer. I’m dying. I can help you. I want to help you with your family.

  She turned toward her coffee table and slapped the Virgin Mary statue, a twin to the one at her store. The statue tipped to its side, tumbling to the ground with a crack.

  AS DAYLIGHT ENDED in the grapefruit-and-orange glow of sunset, Mina called him almost two weeks after his visit. A part of her hoped he would disappear and die, unable to bear the idea that he was alive, and another part of her could not tolerate the idea of him not existing in this world at all.

  Within these two weeks, trapped in this limbo between calling him or not, she avoided Mrs. Baek. She thought all day and night about what choice she would most regret. Would he help her? What would that mean? Could she trust him enough to let him in her life again? Or was this all a ruse to humiliate her, as he had done when he abandoned her, as he had done when he had failed to meet her in Las Vegas? What was the excuse then? How much more humiliation could she take?