by Patti Kim
With legs crossed and hands folded, you sat in the center of your quilt and waited for me to tell you. I wanted to pour your tea and join you, but I remained on your wooden floor near the door.
In Korean you asked, “Ahn Joo-yah, what is it?”
I wanted to tell you that I needed you to tell me about the princess-weaver and her lover, the cowherder, who met at the bank of the River of Heaven every year. How was it that they fell in love? Why did the king separate them? How is it that they meet every year?
Or that I had written a story about your first visit to your grandfather’s grave. Fake pink azaleas in a tin can in front of the tombstone. That I had gotten everything down. Your pouring soju on the mound. Your peeling a banana and leaving it there for him to eat. Your pulling the weeds off the mound and saying a prayer about how you wanted to be good. Your finishing your prayer and getting up to go, thinking that he would never have known if you had come or gone. Your picking up the banana and eating it. And on your way out, your thinking about how your grandfather died. About how your father never took him to the hospital. If they had opened his stomach, they would have seen the disease, and he would have lived another year. I wanted to tell you that I had gotten everything down. Even the rosebushes that grew like vines on the gate. The fields of rice. The woman who carried a tub of cabbage on her head. The other one who fished for anchovies along the ditch in her rubber gloves. And that I had ended the story with you walking past the two women, leaving the graveyard, and thinking about how you didn’t have enough wons to buy the dog soup at the end of the road.
Instead, in my best Korean I said, “Abba, I can’t stay here any longer.”
You reached over, poured the tea, and sipped it. Your gold caps sparkled from the corners of your smile. You placed your cup on the wooden saucer and rested your head on your pillow. I opened your closet, pulled out the light blue blanket with the butterfly patterns, and spread it out over you.
“Ahn Joo-yah, I don’t need a blanket tonight. It’s hot.” Your eyes were closed. You pretended to sleep.
“Abba, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I’m not going to die from the heat.”
I folded the blanket away from you and left it at your feet.
“Ahn Joo-yah, leave the tea when you go.”
“I know.”
A CAB CALLED RELIABLE. Copyright © 1997 by Patti Kim. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address A Wyatt Book for St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
The photographs in Chapter 10 are for the uses of fiction and should not be considered as fiction from life.
“Lonely Boy,” words and music by Paul Anka. © 1958 (renewed) Spanka Music Corp./Management Agency & Music Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
“Rainy Days and Mondays,” by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols. © 1970 Almo Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
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eISBN 9781466885936
First eBook edition: October 2014