Your House Will Pay

by Steph Cha

  And then Yvonne looked at her, and what she saw must have told her that everything had changed. The vagueness vanished from her eyes, a gauzy veil lifting. Grace had never seen her mother look so scared, and she felt pity for her for a moment, and a cruel, ecstatic thrill of power.

  “Hi, Umma,” she said.

  Yvonne whispered, “Grace,” then closed her eyes. Her eyelids looked as thin and papery as the wings of a fly, and they quivered, shut hard against her waking.

  She kept them closed for several minutes, and Grace wasn’t sure if she’d drifted off again or if she was only pretending. Paul cleared his throat, a phlegmy old-man sound meant to crowd out the silence. “Your mom’s very tired. Let her get some sleep.”

  He stood and gestured for Grace and Miriam to follow him into the hallway. Yvonne lay perfectly still.

  “The detective called me,” said Paul, when the door had closed behind them. “They made an arrest.”

  Grace grabbed his arm. “Who?”

  “The girl who was killed . . . Ava Matthews. Her cousin just got out of jail. The police think it was him.”

  They were silent, and then Miriam scoffed, her face gone a sudden red. “They ‘think’ it was him? Based on what?”

  “Lower your voice,” he said in a warning tone.

  “I’m sorry, Appa. That just sounds like such lock-up-the-nearest-black-guy bullshit.”

  She stormed back into the silence of Yvonne’s room, leaving Grace with her father, who would answer no more of her questions.

  She wanted to be away from the hospital, away from her family, but she knew she couldn’t go far—her mom might wake back up at any hour, and Paul would expect her to be there, as she would want to be there, if things were the way they were supposed to be and not fucked upside down.

  She hadn’t been to Woori all week—Uncle Joseph had been covering for her—and she found herself fantasizing about the pharmacy, its serene sterility, the steady stream of boring labor. It was only ten minutes from the hospital. She could hide out there for a while. Maybe she could even be useful.

  She drove over in a rush and found Uncle Joseph behind the counter, filling a script, while Javi manned the register. They were spread thin—Javi was filling in for her parents, from the looks of it, leaving Uncle Joseph with the tech work—but they seemed to be doing fine without her. Javi was helping out Mrs. Paik, a regular customer with a long, treasured list of ailments. He was a good-looking Guatemalan kid who spoke surprisingly decent Korean, and the customers loved him for it, especially the ajummas.

  The bell rang out as she opened the door, and all three of them turned, their expressions turning soft and somber. “Oh, it’s Grace. Wait just a minute.” Uncle Joseph spoke in his calm, lilting Korean, and the kindness in his voice made Grace want to cry.

  Javi rang up Mrs. Paik’s purchase and gave Grace an awkward half wave. She and Javi had always gotten along, but she wondered now if he’d seen her turn as an internet racist, if he’d never see her the same way again. She floated a weak smile and then bowed her head at Mrs. Paik, who stared at her a little too long and with too much interest. Mrs. Paik was just a patient, someone Grace advised as needed on her many medications, but she was one of a large group of Korean women who felt free to ask whether Grace had a boyfriend and when she intended on getting married. Maybe it was a mistake to come here—she should’ve known better than to walk into Hanin, the village marketplace of the north Valley’s Koreans.

  Uncle Joseph came out from behind the counter and addressed Javi in English. “Javier, I go to lunch, okay?” Grace waited as he left the tech with his marching orders, her expression as neutral as she could manage.

  Mrs. Paik came right over and grabbed her hand, pressing it between her bony fingers. “Aigo, you look so skinny,” she lamented. “You have to eat well. Be strong for your mother.” To Grace’s relief, she was gone before Grace had time to respond.

  “That busybody,” said Uncle Joseph, clapping his hand on Grace’s shoulder. “You didn’t have to come in.”

  “I know. I felt like it.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  They walked the fifty feet to the food court, where he told her to sit while he ordered them lunch. Grace had known Uncle Joseph her whole life. He was one of her parents’ few close friends, and she’d grown up with his kids, playing at each other’s houses, their families taking weekend trips together to Oxnard and San Diego. She remembered him as a younger man—though all adults had seemed unfathomably old back then—carrying Stacey on his shoulders. Now he was in his sixties, his hair thick but gray, his lean frame interrupted by a disproportionate paunch that stood out when he tucked his polo shirts into his slacks.

  He was, in many ways, closer to Grace than her real aunts and uncles, who lived in Chicago and Seoul. But their relationship was mostly professional these days, the pharmacy providing enough substance for a bond that had always been warm without any special intimacy. This would be their first lunch together at the Hanin food court, though they both ate here regularly. Grace wondered, with dread and curiosity, if he was about to try and counsel her.

  “How is your mother?” he asked, switching to his tentative accented English.

  “She’s awake now,” she said. “I mean she’s asleep right now. But she’s out of her coma.”

  “Does this mean she is out of danger?”

  “I think so, yeah. I mean she’s not going to die.”

  “That’s good. Everyoney is praying for her.”

  Grace almost smiled. He still said “everyoney,” even though he had to know by now it was wrong. It used to drive her and Miriam crazy.

  The table buzzer went off, skittering across the laminate—their food was ready. Uncle Joseph got up and returned with a tray crammed with naengmyeon, ddukbokki, kimbap. Food court food she usually ate out of pure convenience, but as she looked at it, her mouth watered. She hadn’t been eating well with her mother in the hospital.

  She thought of Mrs. Paik, her display of neighborly concern, and looked at Uncle Joseph. “If I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?”

  “I will try,” he said.

  “You knew about my mom, didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She whispered, suddenly conscious of every person within earshot. “That she killed that girl.”

  He took a slow sip of water, swallowed it, and sighed. “Yes.”

  “Did everyone know?”

  “Who is everyoney, Grace?”

  “Everyone but me.” She heard the petulance in her voice.

  “The people . . .” He thought about what he had to say, then switched back to Korean. “The people who knew your parents then, they all knew what happened. It was a terrible tragedy, and your family needed all the support they could get.”

  She’d binged on articles and videos about Jung-Ja Han, and she remembered now, the Koreans who filled the benches of the courtroom, the community showing up for this murderess, giving quotes to whoever asked in her defense. Her church had raised money to pay her legal fees, a move that must have changed her life. She’d started with a public defender, but by the time the case went to trial, she’d hired a silver-tongued black lawyer, who painted her as party to the tragedy. He was a smart man and a fervent speaker, but Grace knew that wasn’t why her mother hired him. She paid him to stand in court, his black body forgiving her on behalf of his community. She could see the courtroom full of Koreans, nodding their heads, saying amens. That church must have been Valley Korean United Methodist Church, the church Grace grew up attending. It hadn’t occurred to her until now, and the thought made her lose some of her appetite.

  Uncle Joseph went to that church. It was how he met her parents. Grace plotted out the timeline—he’d been Paul’s employer for most of her life, before he became his partner. He must have hired Paul right after the old store burned down, maybe when others were less eager to help. So he hadn’t just known Yvonne’s history; he’d been instrumental
in its burial.

  “Does Stacey know?” she asked.

  Uncle Joseph opened his mouth, and she saw him consider lying.

  “Jesus, everyone but me.”

  She hadn’t thought about Stacey Kim in a long time. Uncle Joseph’s daughter was her age, and they’d been friends once, until Stacey grew up ahead of her. One year, Grace gave Stacey a Morning Glory organizer and a sheaf of lovingly selected stickers for her birthday, and she accepted them without excitement, blatantly favoring the Hard Candy lip gloss and nail polish she received from her other party guests. Within two weeks, Stacey was ditching Grace to hang out with a different group of girls, the ones who wore makeup and giggled when the youth group oppas walked by. They were never close again—she hadn’t even seen her since Uncle Joseph and Auntie Su-Kyung’s divorce—though they were friends on Facebook. Stacey was an interior decorator now, married with a kid, living in Santa Monica. A life that had nothing to do with Grace’s, and she had known, probably for years, Yvonne’s true name, her shameful history.

  “There aren’t that many of us, and we’re all gossips.” Uncle Joseph looked at her then, his mouth opening and closing and opening again. “You know about my family, too, don’t you?”

  She reddened, caught off guard. Uncle Joseph had been at the center of one of Valley Koreatown’s scandals about five years back; she knew all about it, but had never discussed it with him. He and Auntie Su-Kyung had been married twenty-five years when he had an affair with the minister’s wife, a woman he fell in love with over a series of Bible studies and choir practices. They left their spouses and married each other, alienating their children and scandalizing the congregation. Grace had more or less stopped going to church by then, but she managed to hear about it, and not from her parents. So that was how it worked, then—you assumed people knew all there was to know, that they talked about your most private failures when you weren’t around.

  Now that she thought of it, her parents had shut her down when she brought up the rumor at the dinner table. Paul was sharp about it—he nearly snapped at her to mind her own business, saying none of them knew the whole story, that no matter what anyone said, she should know Uncle Joseph was a good man. It had shamed her a little to be scolded by her father. It made sense, looking back, that Paul had strong opinions about gossip when greater sins failed to move him. Their family stability depended on a high level of privacy and decorum; the Parks had secrets to keep. And, of course, they felt grateful to Uncle Joseph.

  She nodded, guiltily, and he smiled at her, reaching his chopsticks across the table to take a bite of ddukbokki. It felt strange, talking openly about something they’d both known for so long. She realized she’d never held the affair against him. She didn’t like cheaters, as a rule, but she liked Uncle Joseph, and his new wife seemed like a nice woman. She had always assumed, on some level, that there must be a story that would satisfy her morally.

  “Everyoney’s a sinner, Grace. It’s only Jesus who makes us good.”

  “We’re not all murderers,” she said.

  He winced and sucked in air through his teeth—disapproving, she guessed, of Grace speaking ill of her mother.

  “Remember the thief Jesus saved on the cross?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Jesus forgives all sins as long as we repent them.”

  “You’ve repented?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you didn’t go back to Stacey and her mom. You married Cho-samonim.”

  She glanced around the food court, wondering if anyone could hear them. It was an extraordinary conversation, but Uncle Joseph didn’t seem in the least bit fazed.

  “You can’t undo a sin. Your mother knows this better than anyone. You can only pray and try to make things right with God.”

  She remembered how much she disliked Korean church in the end. The college boys in youth group sharing cigarettes with the pretty high school girls; the preening ajummas who spoke piously of starving children, their arms heavy with competing pieces of Louis Vuitton. They might’ve protected each other from outsiders, but these church people tore their neighbors down. They talked shit and behaved badly, safe, maybe, in the knowledge that Jesus had paid their accounts.

  “So what does repentance even mean?” she asked. “You can just make the world a worse place and then square it up with God? What about the people you hurt? What do they care about your apology to Jesus?”

  He shook his head, slowly, sadly, like she was still a child and he hated to disappoint her. “You can’t always make things up to people. Sometimes squaring up with God is the only thing you can do.”

  Fourteen

  Thursday, August 29, 2019

  Ray was being held at Men’s Central downtown—a hellhouse, even among jails—while the cops decided what to do with him. He’d spent the night there, and Shawn and Nisha were hoping to get him out before the sun went down again. Not that there was much they could do. So far, Shawn had sat by in supportive silence while Nisha made phone call after phone call from his couch, unwilling to let the kids and Aunt Sheila know unless it was absolutely necessary. She’d been the one to line up an attorney, a hawkish criminal defense lawyer named Fred MacManus, who was ready to go the minute he was summoned. Nisha said he was a big get—a hotshot who made regular appearances as a legal analyst on TV. He cost an obscene amount of money, even working at a discounted rate. But Nisha was ready to sell the house to keep Ray from going back to prison on a trumped-up charge.

  Two months out, and he was getting hit with attempted murder and everything else that came with it. Shawn thought of that detective, Maxwell, coming around asking questions, without a scrap of evidence, just hoping he could show up and shake something loose. The stupid motherfucker had gone and arrested Ray.

  Unless Ray was the stupid motherfucker. Unless his cousin was foolhardy and vengeful enough to give up his freedom for an old grudge.

  He wished he could talk to Ray, but he was only allowed one visitor other than his attorney, and that was Nisha. She went to work—said it was better than staying home worrying—and would see her husband after.

  Shawn was home with Monique. It was a Thursday, one of his odd days off, and Jazz was at the hospital. Monique kept him busy, but she was less chatty and energetic than usual. She was too young to understand what was happening, but she sensed something was up. It worried Shawn, how easily kids absorbed the spilled poisons of the grown-up world.

  He was prepping her lunch—tuna sandwiches cut into tiny triangles—when his phone rang. He rushed over to answer, not even stopping to wipe his fishy fingers until he read the caller ID. It was just Duncan.

  He answered anyway. “What’s up?”

  “I told you to call me,” said Duncan.

  “That’s right.” Duncan had called the night before, then asked Shawn to call back when he was alone. With everything that was happening, he’d plain forgotten.

  “Are you still with Nisha?”

  “No, she’s at work.”

  “What you doing right now?”

  “I got Monique. I’m making her lunch.”

  Monique looked up at him from the couch, where she was flipping through a book of dinosaurs.

  Duncan breezed past Shawn’s answer. “Listen, can you come by the bar? We need to talk.”

  “What, now?”

  “No, we needed to talk fucking yesterday.”

  Shawn looked at Monique, who was watching him, her eyes wide and head tilted, ignoring her dinosaurs completely.

  “I got Monique today.”

  “Bring her.”

  “To a bar?”

  “It’s my bar, and it’s empty now.”

  “Maybe you better just tell me over the phone.”

  “This is more like a face-to-face kind of conversation. How old is the kid again? Five?”

  “Three.”

  “Yeah, whatever, just bring her.”

  Shawn fed Monique and loaded her up in the car, already feeling a fool fo
r letting Duncan yank him around. But if there was something he had to say about Ray, Shawn knew he needed to hear it.

  Duncan’s was a dive bar off the freeway, with darts and a jukebox and plenty to drink. He’d been its manager for ten years—back when it was called “Roger’s”—and had taken it over when his old boss retired, selling it to Duncan at a good price. It was nothing special, in the grand scheme of things, but the Antelope Valley was starving for bars, and he did good business. Folks were driving home drunk from Duncan’s every night of the week.

  The only other car in the parking lot was Duncan’s, a 2001 Porsche Boxster. Shawn wondered if Ray was supposed to be working. Duncan didn’t do much bartending anymore.

  He was waiting behind the bar when Shawn walked in with Monique in his arms.

  “Hey, Monique,” said Duncan. “Remember Uncle Duncan?”

  Monique shook her head suspiciously.

  “Say hi, Momo,” Shawn said, almost smiling. “He’s friends with me and Uncle Ray.”

  “Hi,” she said, then hid her face in Shawn’s neck.

  “I gotta talk to Uncle Duncan for a minute, okay?” He pried her loose and set her down on a barstool, taking the one next to it.

  “Here,” said Duncan. He presented her with a notepad and a fistful of stick pens, red and black and blue. “You can color or something if you want.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Duncan,” she said. She uncapped a pen and scribbled dutifully.

  “What do you want to drink?” Duncan asked.

  “I didn’t come here to drink,” Shawn said. “What’s going on? How’d you even hear about Ray?”

  Duncan raised his eyebrows. “What, you ain’t heard nothing? They picked him up here. Made a whole fucking scene.”