Your House Will Pay

by Steph Cha

  Shawn hugged him, and Darryl let him, waiting a full two seconds before slinking back into his swing. The boy needed a shower after two days stewing in his own teenage stink.

  “You smell foul,” said Shawn. He lowered himself into the other swing. It creaked under his weight.

  Darryl laughed weakly.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Here, there,” he said. “Just driving around.”

  “You been sleeping in your dad’s car?”

  “Sleeping? I ain’t been sleeping, Uncle Shawn.”

  The boy had to be exaggerating. It had been more than two days, and Shawn knew the dramatic tendencies of teens—he’d had them, too. Then again, his teen years were legitimately dramatic, and so, now, were Darryl’s. And whether he’d slept at all or not, his face showed the strains of insomnia, his eyes sunken, the skin of his cheeks plum purple in the dark.

  “I drove up to Lompoc yesterday.”

  “You know your dad ain’t at Lompoc, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know. Just wanted to go up there. I never drove to visit him when he was in prison. Not one time.”

  “You didn’t even have your license. Still don’t.”

  “I had my permit.” He was wallowing now.

  “Why aren’t you home? You know what this is doing to your mom?”

  “I can’t go home.”

  “What’d you call me for?” He shook his head, hitting on the answer. “You’re out of gas. And money. Is that it?”

  Darryl kicked the sand at his feet and nodded.

  “So what, you think I’m gonna hand you over a few hundred bucks, no questions asked, and then you’ll head on over to Mexico? Send a postcard?”

  “I just—” His voice caught as he tried to stop himself from crying. “It’d be better for everyone if I was just gone.”

  “Stop that,” said Shawn. “No matter what you did, that’s not true.”

  Darryl looked at him, stunned, like it hadn’t occurred to him that his uncle could see through him. There was something so pure in this, it made Shawn want to hold him.

  “Did you shoot Jung-Ja Han?” he asked instead.

  Darryl averted his eyes, and Shawn took him by the arm and made him look at him. The boy nodded, and his face dissolved in an aching sob.

  “Oh, Darryl.” Shawn rested his forehead against his nephew’s.

  He’d known for days, he realized, ever since Ray’s confession, but it still struck him like a kick in the chest. How much time had he spent worrying about Darryl, about his attendance, his friends, the million ways things could go wrong? To have it go wrong like this—it broke Shawn’s heart.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I had to do something.”

  “About what?”

  “About Auntie Ava.”

  Her name rang out between them. “You didn’t even know her.”

  “That’s not the point,” said Darryl, raising his voice. “She was my blood.”

  He spoke with force, but it struck Shawn as puffed up and hollow. A tribal platitude from a teenage gangster. Words to shout out a window in a drive-by. Darryl didn’t love Ava. He didn’t shoot anyone just for her sake.

  “She was my big sister,” said Shawn, looking away from his nephew and at the eternal black sky. “When she died, everything I knew fell in on itself. I used to dream about finding that woman, making her look at me. Humiliating her. Killing her. Are you gonna sit there and tell me you wanted that more than I did?”

  Darryl fell silent, the arrogant front laid flat with a single blow. Minutes passed while Shawn waited for him to say something. To explain himself and absolve them both.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, his words nearly chewed up by the wind. “But you never knew where to find her,” he said. “I did.”

  Shawn thought of all the dead ends he’d run into over the years. He’d never stopped looking, and he was sure he would’ve heard if she’d resurfaced, even for a minute. What could Darryl have caught that he’d missed? He swallowed the knot in his throat and asked, “How?”

  Darryl rocked himself back and forth, staring at his foot in the sand. “I’ve known for over a year. It was right after you moved out. You got a letter. From someone named Miyeon Han.”

  Shawn searched his memory for the letter, the name. Han—he knew that name, but he’d never heard of a Miyeon. “I never—”

  “I found it. I never gave it to you.”

  He pressed his lips together and waited for his nephew to go on.

  “She said she was Jung-Ja Han’s daughter. She said she was sorry for Auntie Ava’s death and that if you ever wanted to talk about it, you could find her. She put down her email and phone number and asked you to get in touch. There was something about Rwanda and reconciliation. She thought it wasn’t right that her mom had started a new life where you couldn’t even confront her, and she offered to talk to her for you. But she also said what her mom was up to. That she was living in Granada Hills and ran a pharmacy in the Hanin Market in Northridge.”

  Shawn dug his feet into the sand. Darryl was talking fast now; it was all Shawn could do to make sense of the words without falling out of the swing. He remembered Grace Park, messy and confused and pleading. It seemed unlikely she’d known her mother’s secret over a year ago. Yet Darryl had known. He’d held all the pieces in his hands.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to know,” he said. “I remember how you were, when you got out of prison. And I heard how you were before, too. Always mad, or like you just didn’t give a fuck. But you were happy with us, I know it. And then you met Auntie Jazz, and you were happy with her, too. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

  Shawn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What if he hadn’t met Jazz? Would he have been home to get that letter? He pictured the envelope, seeing the name Han above his, the instant premonition it would have carried. He had wondered and wondered—where she was, what she was doing—and over a year ago, someone had tried to tell him.

  “You thought I’d kill her,” he said.

  “I didn’t know what you’d do. I just knew it was dynamite.”

  Darryl was right—it was dynamite, and it had exploded. Had Darryl pushed Shawn out of the way only to catch the blast himself? If there was a sorrier outcome, Shawn couldn’t imagine it now.

  “And you didn’t trust me to deal with it? Darryl, you shot her.”

  “I wasn’t planning to do anything,” he protested. “Not when I read that letter. I just tore it up and tossed it so you wouldn’t see. But I couldn’t unread it, and I kept thinking about what it said. Turns out there’s only one pharmacy in that market. I knew exactly where she was.”

  “So why now?”

  “I just wanted to make things right. Everything’s so upside down, you know?” He wiped his nose and continued, his voice quivering with passion. “I just kept thinking, nah, it can’t just be like that. I thought in this family, at least, we could have some justice.”

  Shawn shook his head. “Give me a break, Darryl. You didn’t shoot her for the struggle.”

  The boy’s eyes blazed at him, brightened with tears. He believed his own bullshit. Had probably spent days bulking up his defenses.

  “You been messing with Quant Fox’s crew.”

  Darryl didn’t answer.

  “I saw him yesterday.” Shawn made a fist and ran his thumb over the knuckles, which were still raw from the punch. “I know you been hanging out with him.”

  “He’s my friend,” said Darryl.

  “You want to be a gangster, is that it? That seem cool to you?”

  He looked right at him, flashing defiance. “Quant says you were banging when you were Dasha’s age.”

  “That’s right. I was fourteen. Are you fourteen?”

  He said nothing.

  “Yeah, you should know better. And you know what? My sister was murdered. My parents were gone and dead.”

 
“My dad was in prison for ten years,” Darryl cut in. “For some stupid failed robbery where no one even got hurt. And all y’all, even you—you just acted like this was okay, like he fucked up so he deserved what he got.”

  “And Quant Fox showed you the light. He gave you some Malcolm X pep talk and you just ate it out of his hand.”

  “He talked to me. He told me shit no one else would tell me. About my dad. About Auntie Ava. About you, too.”

  “So you shot Jung-Ja Han to prove yourself. To get in with the Baring Cross Crips of Palmdale or whatever crew Quant’s got going on, is that it? Please tell me this was your first time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean is there anyone else you’ve shot I should know about?”

  “No, of course not!” The indignation of a boy who hadn’t admitted to attempted murder. “It was a mistake. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not cut out for this shit, Uncle Shawn.”

  “I wish you’d figured that out before you went and shot someone.”

  He sniffled loudly and wiped his nose again. “How did you do it?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Quant said you used to run around burning shit, getting in fights, shooting at people. How did you shoot people and get on with your life?”

  Shawn thought about it. He’d never been one of the psychos, the ones who savored violence and sought it out. But he’d shot at some people over the years and hit at least one boy he knew of, getting him in the leg. He didn’t lose much sleep over it, truth be told, though he was glad he hadn’t gotten the boy worse.

  “It was part of the life, back then,” he said. “We went to war, and we shot at rival soldiers. It was simple as that.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Maybe simple’s not the word for it. But these were bangers. They knew the rules, just like I did. They weren’t old Korean women in Northridge.”

  “Weren’t bangers that killed Auntie Ava,” Darryl spat. “I don’t understand you, Uncle Shawn. How can you act like it’s worse to shoot her than another banger? Someone like you. Or like me?”

  Shawn couldn’t answer him, and Darryl pushed through his silence.

  “After all this time, you buy into that bullshit. You of all people. That black lives don’t matter. That when you shoot at us, it don’t count. ’Cause we ain’t perfect. ’Cause we deserve it. But Jung-Ja Han don’t?”

  “It’s not about me buying into anything,” Shawn snapped. “It don’t matter what I believe. What I believe won’t keep you out of prison. Haven’t you noticed? I don’t run the police. Judges don’t listen to me. If they think black lives don’t matter, then black lives don’t matter. People can fuss all they want about how things should be, but I’m talking about your fucking neck, you stupid child.” He thought of Darryl in prison, becoming a man in that hard soil, away from light, away from family. It made him want to throw up. Then he remembered the gun—if that gun led back to Darryl, the boy was doomed. He asked, fearing the answer: “Did Quant give you the gun?”

  Darryl shook his head, but Shawn had to be sure.

  “I’m serious. Does he know? Does anyone?”

  “I told you, no. I knew I fucked up as soon as it happened. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Then what’s this I heard about Baring Cross taking credit? Were you talking big before you did it?”

  His mouth was open, and his bottom lip twitched. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “The detective, Darryl. Way he told it, everyone’s saying it’s BC.”

  “That’s ’cause it’s Jung-Ja Han. Everyone knows who she is, that she’s an old enemy. I bet as soon as word got out she was shot, someone started spreading it was our house that did it. But I swear to God, Uncle Shawn. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  Shawn was grateful, at least, for that small relief. “Then where did you get the gun?”

  “I found it,” he said, not elaborating.

  “What do you mean, you found it? Where?”

  Darryl looked down at his feet. “It was in Dad’s car. Under his seat.”

  Shawn felt his lip curl. He took a deep, heaving breath, his nostrils flared. Five minutes out of jail, with a parole officer on his back, Ray had gotten himself a gun. And stashed it, like an idiot, where his kid could find it.

  “Where is it now?”

  “I hid it. In the house. But it’s gone now.”

  He hushed up, and Shawn understood. The cops found it when they searched the house. They hadn’t held Ray on nothing after all.

  “Dad’s in jail ’cause of me,” said Darryl. “He confessed. Because of me.”

  Shawn nodded, watching as his nephew dropped his head into his hands. Darryl looked up at him, eyes red over the tips of his fingers.

  “Tell me, Uncle Shawn. What do I do now?”

  Twenty-Three

  Friday, September 6, 2019

  Yvonne was fine, and then she wasn’t. She went to bed early, citing a headache, waving off Grace’s suggestion that she call the doctor. It was nothing, she said, she’d only exhausted herself taking a walk; she’d been overconfident in her recovery. Grace believed her. Yvonne had been doing so well.

  Grace woke to her father shouting her name in the stone dark dead of the night. Sightless, she rushed across the house, the black hallway, not yet free of the webby hold of her dreams. Her feet were cold. Everything else felt unreal.

  In shaded lamplight, Yvonne burned and shivered; her heartbeat filled the room. Her hair clung to the wet pillowcase. Her fevered skin radiated corrupt warmth. It was the pale parchment yellow of her chattering teeth.

  Grace held her mother’s hand while Paul called for help. She spoke frantically at Yvonne, squeezed her bony fingers. Weakly, slowly, Yvonne squeezed back. Her eyelids trembled and her lips parted in the shape of Grace’s name. No words came out. Only breath. Shallow and ragged and fast.

  She was unconscious by the time the ambulance came, and Grace watched as the EMTs strapped her to a stretcher and loaded her in. Grace couldn’t believe this was happening again. The second time in less than two weeks.

  They tailed the ambulance in silence, Paul driving while Grace wavered between terror and disbelief, her eyes following the red flash of the siren light.

  Yvonne was already being rushed to surgery when they made it into the waiting room. It was ridiculous that they were back here. Grace wanted to shout at someone—this was a mistake, a bad joke. A surgery for a fever! That was dream logic. She longed for the relief of waking up with tears in her eyes and a sob in her throat, every other thing forgotten.

  When the sun rose, Yvonne was dead. The gunshot wound in her colon had become infected, and her body had gone into sepsis—that’s what the doctor said, carefully, after her condolence, to admit no fault, to offer no true apology. Grace went off on her, and neither Paul nor Miriam tried to hold her back.

  She wasn’t even sure what she was arguing. The words flowed out of her without thought, and she kept them coming, committing herself to the moment, the problem, the person to hold responsible. When she was finished, she knew they’d have to discuss arrangements, that she’d have to sit down and let someone else take control. When this scene ended, she’d have to face the immovable fact that her mother was dead, that there was no mistake they could fix that would bring her back.

  The coroner would come to take her away—her death was a homicide, so she would have to be cut open. Without speaking, they decided to stay with her until it was time. Grace felt sick at heart and utterly stunned. The shooting had not prepared her. She thought they had made it, that they were home safe.

  It still seemed like Yvonne might get up, that she might only be sleeping a very deep sleep. The alternative made no sense at all. It was wrong and impossible, world bending, like a black hole: her mother’s body, there under a sheet not two feet away; her mother’s oppressive, irretrievable absence.

  Paul sat close to his wife, his head lowered near hers. His eyes were shut tight,
and he was mumbling, his Korean indecipherable, clogged with tears. She’d never seen him this emotional before—it added to her feeling that none of this could be real. She watched as he searched for Yvonne’s hand under the sheet, as he found it there, steadily lifeless, and pulled back away.

  Miriam rested her head on Grace’s shoulder, and Grace felt her sleeve dampen with her sister’s tears.

  “I know this is kind of fucked up, but I was feeling lighter, these last weeks, than I had in two years,” said Miriam. “I wasn’t happy she was shot, but in a way, it felt like this huge weight was lifted. Like she was taking her punishment, and we could finally move on. As a family.”

  Grace stared at the lump of Yvonne’s body—the cadaver. These last two weeks had been torture for Grace. For the first time in her life, her mother had shifted on her, become someone she didn’t understand, someone she’d been, underneath, all along. It shook her all the way through, made her question everything about who she was, where she came from, the lies that made her life possible, that had made her. She had thought, for a moment, that she’d learned how to live with her new reality, that she had engineered a way to keep going, to pay her account and slide back into the way things were before. She’d been wrong. She wasn’t even close to finding her answers—she needed her mother to help her, to explain herself, to give Grace the things she needed, whatever they might have been.

  Miriam droned on, her words buzzing against Grace’s shoulder. “This was supposed to be the beginning of something. You found out what happened, and we were all going to work through this together. Learn and grow. Maybe become better people.”

  Yvonne was done giving now. The conversation was over. Her silence was her final word.

  “But I’m thankful we had this last reprieve. That she didn’t die thinking I hated her.”

  Miriam might as well have torn her heart out. Grace could hardly move for the bitterness and regret that coursed through her body, filling her nose and mouth so it was difficult to breathe. It was true: after two years of stubborn estrangement, Miriam had come back just in time for a reconciliation, at what turned out to be her mother’s deathbed. Yvonne died with the comfort of her firstborn’s return. There was no question about it. Miriam was the one bright spot in her final days on earth. It was so unfair, Grace had to stop herself from scratching her sister in the face. She shrugged her shoulder instead, making Miriam remove her head.