by Jung Yun
During the drive to the bank, Jin kept thinking about what they’d done to her, to Mae and Marina both. The trip downtown was his last chance to save them. He just didn’t know how. He thought about slipping the teller a note, but Nat said he’d be standing behind him in line, watching everything he did. Then Jin mentioned the twenty thousand in his checking account. He knew a withdrawal that large would raise a flag, but when he suggested taking out the full amount, Nat just shook his head. Five thousand, he said. Five thousand won’t make anyone blink, not with a rich guy like you. Nat’s thoughts seemed to be in lockstep with his, canceling out every option for escape as soon as he came up with one. His last hope faded when they pulled into the parking lot and Nat handed him a pair of sunglasses from the glove compartment. Keep those on the entire time, he said. Don’t want anyone to start asking about your shiners.
There were two tellers working at the window when Jin approached—one that he vaguely recognized, and another with the word TRAINEE printed on her name tag. They exchanged a short greeting as Jin slid his card across the counter and asked for five thousand dollars in cash. The older woman guided the younger one through the transaction, pointing at things on the computer. Jin wanted them to look at him and see the panic on his face, but neither of them did. All they cared about was the list of steps on the screen—do this, then that; check off this line and then the other. It took only a few minutes for the trainee to process his request, count out the money in neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and send him away with a thick envelope. Jin considered running for it—Nat didn’t have the gun—but he worried what they would do to Mae if he didn’t come back.
In the car, Nat counted out the money, smiling as he fanned the new bills against his thumb, admiring their crispness, their smell. It occurred to Jin that this was all their lives were worth. Five thousand dollars, money that would probably be gone in a few days, spent on drugs and alcohol and who knew what else. He didn’t remember driving home or walking inside or sitting down in the kitchen so Nat could tie him up again. All of these things happened—they must have happened—but everything after the bank was a blur to him. The only thing Jin remembered for certain was the scream he heard when Nat went upstairs.
Mae’s memory of the events began to break down at about the same time. She remembered Nat kicking open the bedroom door, smiling as he waved a thick envelope in the air. She remembered him going into the bathroom to look for Dell and screaming when he found him. And she remembered the look on his face when he climbed on top of her, all veins and rage and sweat as he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed until she could no longer see. Lentz kept asking questions about what happened afterward, trying to estimate how many hours Nathan Perry had been on the run, but she couldn’t answer any of them. She had no idea how long she’d blacked out, or how she managed to free herself from her bindings, or what time it was when she left the house. The only thing she could add to her account was that she thought she was dead. All that time, wandering through the woods in the dark and the cold, she thought she was dead and God had finally sent her to hell.
THREE
Kyung spends all of Tuesday morning cleaning out the guest room. He washes the sheets and blankets, dusts the furniture, and empties the closets and drawers, which are filled with baby clothes and books. Afterward, he goes downstairs, polishing and vacuuming every surface, attacking one room before moving on to the next. By the time Gillian and Ethan return from the store, everything gleams and smells of soap and bleach. At first, she doesn’t notice the difference. She’s too busy unloading the groceries—twelve full bags that she piles on the countertop. The sight of so much food would usually worry him, but she did exactly what he’d asked—fill the refrigerator with things that his father might eat. Gillian removes the receipt from her purse and gently lays it on the table. When she leaves the room, he picks up the snakelike coil of paper and follows the trail of numbers all the way down to the end. The groceries cost $238, which she charged to one of their credit cards. Kyung tries not to think about it. This is something for another day.
His parents are tidy people, his father in particular, so Kyung wants everything—his house, his family, himself—to look just right. He shaves with a razor instead of his usual electric, and irons a clean button-down shirt and slacks. Gillian brings him two sundresses, holding them up on their hangers as if she wants him to vote. It’s rare for her to do this—usually, she’s the one who picks out their clothes—so he appreciates the gesture. She understands how important this is to him. He hesitates to tell her that neither outfit is quite correct. The white one is strapless; the red one, too red. Perhaps she could find something else, something more conservative? he asks. She nods and kisses him on the cheek, placing her hand on his chest. She seems sad for him when she feels his heartbeat, which is racing even though he’s standing still.
They leave the house looking like they’re headed to a photo studio—mother, father, and child all dressed up for their family portrait. Kyung suggests not wearing seat belts because they’ll wrinkle their clothes. Gillian looks at him like he’s crazy. Before she has a chance to tell him so, he says she’s right, she’s right. No need to get carried away. His cheeks burn as he reaches for his belt and inserts the clip into the buckle. Thirty-six years old, and he’s still behaving like a child, trying so hard to please someone whose standards have always been too high. Kyung glances at the clock on the dashboard to confirm what he already knows. Since Ethan was born, they’re never on time for anything. The doctor said he was planning to release Jin at three. It’s almost three now. He passes two cars and runs a yellow light, gunning his engine, which sounds like a rocket hurtling into space.
Gillian braces herself against the armrest and door. “We can’t pick him up from the hospital if we’re dead,” she says lightly. This is her way of telling him she feels unsafe. She wants to nag without sounding like one.
“Should we review?” he asks.
“You think I won’t remember?”
“I just want to make sure.”
She looks out her window. “Go ahead, then.”
Kyung runs through the list of things that Gillian should and shouldn’t do in front of his father: Never interrupt. Serve the men first. Always place one hand under the other wrist when giving something to an elder. Don’t talk about money. Discipline the boy in private.… He pauses, wondering if he left something out.
“Attend to him,” she says. “Offer to refill his drink and clear his plate before he has to ask.”
“Right.”
The list is a strange combination of precaution and tradition, things that usually help a visit go well. He accepts it, begrudgingly, as a necessary form of insurance. Like most Koreans of a certain age, his father has no filter. When Jin sees something he doesn’t like, something he doesn’t consider respectful, he’s quick to comment on it, which gets under Kyung’s skin and stays there for days. It’s better to be vigilant and give him nothing to criticize. Gillian is almost always good-natured about playing her part, despite the fact that the list dictates how a Korean wife is expected to behave. There aren’t any rules or expectations for the Irish. His parents assume she knows nothing and seem pleasantly surprised when she does. Over time, she’s earned their favor this way. Kyung would stop short of saying they like her, but they no longer actively dislike her, which is more than he could have hoped for in the beginning.
“I’m sorry if this is annoying you. I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“But you’re acting like I’m the only reason you and your parents get into it so often. You have your own list of things to worry about.”
“You’re right,” he says. Right again.
At the hospital, the visitors’ lot is full, so Kyung leaves the car in an emergency lane and runs inside, jangling all the coins and keys in his pockets. His father and Reverend Sung are sitting in the waiting room together. Of course, he thinks. The reverend is here again. The nurses probably assum
e he’s a relative.
Jin is hunched over in a chair, wearing a thin white T-shirt, baggy drawstring pants, and a pair of slippers—all hospital issue. He seems tired and irritated. The bruises on his face look worse than they did the day before. They’re Technicolor now. Purple and blue, yellow and red.
“Have you been waiting long?” Kyung asks.
“No,” the reverend says. “He signed his discharge papers a few minutes ago. I’ve just been telling him about the arrangement we discussed last night.”
Jin looks up, his expression curious. Kyung tries his best to smile. The reverend does too, although their conversation the night before was hardly cordial. The reverend called to tell him that Mae and Jin would be his guests at the parsonage after their release. Kyung said absolutely not. They belonged at home with him, with family. He was startled by the speed and force with which he responded, the lack of hesitation, but he meant what he said. He no longer trusted his parents’ care to anyone but himself.
“Your house is too small,” Jin says.
“We have the guest room all ready for you.”
“Guest room,” he mutters.
Kyung expected this reaction. In many ways, he deserves it. Brick by brick, he’s built a wall around his life, trying to preserve his family and home as his alone. He helps out his parents when asked and visits when invited, but not too often, and never as much as he should. It’s the most he’s willing to do, the absolute minimum he can get away with and still be considered a son.
“If you don’t have enough space, it really wouldn’t be any trouble for Jin and Mae to stay with us.”
Kyung ignores the reverend. They’ve settled this already. “Ethan and Gillian are in the car waiting.” He mentions Ethan first, aware that time with his grandson motivates Jin in a way that other things don’t.
“All right, then. Let’s go.” Jin gets up stiffly and shuffles toward the exit. Empty wheelchairs line both sides of the corridor, but Jin doesn’t ask for help, and Kyung knows better than to offer.
Outside, a meter maid is walking away from his car, shaking her head at the audacity of his parking job, angled into a lane clearly marked for ambulances. Gillian lifts and lowers her shoulders as if to say she tried. Kyung pockets the ticket as he opens the passenger door. Something about the height or angle of the seat makes Jin flinch and cover his ribs with his free hand. Suddenly, Kyung sees his father curled up on the kitchen floor—knees up, head down—while Dell kicks him in the chest. He closes his eyes, trying to turn the image into something different, something blank.
Through the open window, Jin and the reverend say their good-byes.
“You can call me anytime, day or night,” the reverend says.
“I will.”
“And I’ll see you on Sunday?”
Jin pauses. “Mae’s being released later this week. We’ll have to see how she’s feeling.”
There’s something not quite honest about his answer. The reverend seems to understand this, but he lets it go with a smile and a wave. Kyung drives off and watches him in the rearview mirror until he disappears with a curve in the road. He wishes he could remember the name of the cartoon character he reminds him of, the one in the children’s magazine he used to read in grade school. There were two of them, actually—twin brothers, he thinks—one who was polite and well behaved, and the other, who wasn’t. Kyung always feels like the bad twin whenever he sees Reverend Sung around his parents, doting on them as a good son should. It’s silly to resent someone for having a relationship that he never wanted, that he actively sought not to have. Still, he dislikes the way the reverend kept offering the parsonage to his parents as if Kyung weren’t able to care for them. Unable and unwilling aren’t the same thing.
Ethan leans forward, clutching the back of Jin’s headrest. “I’m sorry you crashed your car, Grandpa.”
This is how they’ve chosen to explain it to him. Grandma and Grandpa had an accident.
Jin seems confused for a moment. Then he looks at Ethan carefully. “You’re so big now. You’ve gotten so big.”
“My birthday was in April.”
“I know. Have you been riding your bike?”
“What bike?”
Kyung refused to show Ethan the box that his parents had left on the front steps, wrapped in thick blue ribbon with a matching satin bow. He just covered it with a tarp and dragged it to the basement, where no one has touched it since. Gillian looked up the make and model online, and learned it was a six-hundred-dollar Italian tricycle, popular with the children of celebrities. She was excited about it until she noticed the look on Kyung’s face, and then the obvious became obvious to her. They couldn’t allow his parents to give Ethan a gift like that, not when their own gift consisted of a plastic tool belt and a puzzle.
“What bike?” Ethan repeats.
“Oh, never mind,” Jin says, looking down at his lap. “I thought you had one.”
The car settles into an uncomfortable, unnatural state of quiet. Minutes pass, and no one says a word, not even Ethan, who seems to understand that something isn’t right. Kyung mentally cycles through a list of topics to fill the dead air—work, school, the weather—but it all seems too meaningless. He wishes he’d left Gillian and Ethan at home so he could say what’s really on his mind: He’s sorry for assuming the worst about his father. In the bank, when Jin had a chance to run, he didn’t. He returned to the house, knowing he’d probably be beaten again, then killed. Kyung can’t imagine doing this. He worries that he would have saved himself, that his instincts would have taken over, blurring the distinction between wrong and right. It pains him to know that his father was the better man in that moment, that perhaps he’s been a better man all along.
“Pull into that lot over there,” Jin says.
“What’s the matter? Are you sick?”
“No. I need some clothes. Mine are at the other house.”
“You want to buy them here?”
“Yes, here is fine.”
He turns into the parking lot of a strip mall anchored in the middle by a giant Walmart. Kyung wonders if he should offer to drive somewhere else, somewhere more to his father’s tastes, but Jin is already getting out of the car, wincing as he stretches his leg to meet the pavement. By the time Kyung jumps out and runs to the passenger side to help, Jin and Ethan are already walking toward the entrance. Kyung and Gillian follow as the doors slide open and an elderly greeter croaks an unfortunate hello.
“It’s kind of cute, isn’t it?” Gillian asks, pointing at the two of them holding hands. “Ethan seems to like spending time with him.”
Kyung nods, but he’s disoriented by the strangeness of it all. This isn’t the kind of place he ever imagined visiting with his father. He considers Walmart a dirty little secret, a store he frequents more often than he’d like. It’s cheap and depressing and sad, but cheap trumps everything these days. Kyung is no longer bothered by the poor people wandering through the aisles, the train wrecks from the Flats with their faded tattoos and unhappy, juice- and ketchup-stained children. He’s more disturbed by the people who look like him—clean and well kempt, dressed in clothes that clearly weren’t purchased here. He wonders if they shop at Walmart because they’re cheap, or because they’re struggling to make ends meet. He hates the fact that he and Gillian fall into the second category. Despite all appearances, they have more in common with the poor people than with the rich ones.
In the clothing section, Jin picks out two pairs of gray sweatpants, two short-sleeved shirts, a package of underwear, and a package of socks. He places these items in a little blue basket that Ethan carries for him. The clothes are so different from what he usually wears, but Kyung assumes these choices are about comfort, not style. It occurs to him that he’ll have to help Jin change. With the sling, it won’t be easy to do by himself. On their way to the checkout line, Gillian suggests picking up toiletries. A toothbrush, a razor, some deodorant and soap. The basket becomes too heavy for Ethan to carry, s
o Gillian takes it under her arm, plucking things from the shelves as Jin points to them. Jin buys more than he probably needs, but Kyung understands why. His parents’ house is a crime scene. Eventually, the police will take the tape off the doors and allow them to return, but it doesn’t mean they’ll want to. He’s discussed this with Gillian, who doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by the possibility that his parents will be living with them for a while. She’s remarkable sometimes. She never balks at doing the right thing when it comes to family, hers or his. If the situation had been reversed and it was Connie who needed their help, he doesn’t think he’d give in so easily. The thought of this makes him feel grateful, but guilty, so he squeezes her hand.
“What was that for?”
He shakes his head and lets go.
At the checkout line, Jin pats down his pants. “I don’t have my wallet,” he says. “That’s at the other house too.”
“Oh. Well…” Kyung tries not to look panicked as he takes out his own. He fans through his credit cards, trying to remember which ones aren’t maxed out or past due. He slides a Visa across the counter, but Gillian clears her throat loudly. Her eyebrows are arched high, frozen mid-forehead like a clown. He takes the card back, realizing that she probably charged the groceries on it.
“Airline miles,” he says weakly. “Maybe I’ll use one that gives me airline miles.”
The cashier shrugs, dubious, as if she’s heard it all before. Kyung hands her a card from the bottom of his stack, hopeful that it’s on the bottom because he hasn’t used it recently. Then he watches her scan the items, counting the number of beeps as he waits for the total.
“What’s that thing?” he asks, pointing at the last item in the basket, a toy caterpillar with body parts that fit together like blocks.