by Min Jin Lee
“I love you,” he said.
Ella looked at him. “What did you say?”
It was too late to take it back.
“I love you, and I’ll wait until you’re finished with this marriage.”
“David. What are you saying? You’re engaged.”
“I know. But it has occurred to me that she deserves someone who loves her the way I love you. I think I agreed to my mother’s suggestion about Colleen because I respect my mother, and she’s so ill. Colleen has taken such good care of her, and I felt grateful. And you were married, and I’m thirty-six years old. Maybe those aren’t good enough reasons.. . . I think I’ve been waiting for you anyway, and I didn’t even let myself admit these things because it’s wrong to covet someone else’s wife.” Once he confessed, he felt freer from his anxieties. He sat up straighter and looked at her carefully. Their relationship might have been ruined forever, he thought. She might think he was an awful person.
Ella tilted her head in disbelief. He was serious, and she looked at his wavy hair, parted in the middle, his beautiful eyes, and the upward curve of his lips. She loved him, too. There was no one else she liked more than David. She swayed her head slowly from side to side.
“But is it any less wrong now? Your words, I mean, your feelings. David, you’re nearly married, and I got your wedding invitation only last week. Maybe you’re getting cold feet.. . .” She couldn’t imagine being a party to hurting another person the way Ted had hurt her with Delia.
“I’m not getting cold feet. That’s not it. I’m going to tell her right away. Even if you don’t. . . don’t feel the same way.” David studied her eyes as best he could, but he couldn’t read them properly. Did she love him, too? Ella wasn’t a donor for the school or an old friend of his—he could read most people instinctively. It was different when you were attracted to someone; the reading came out fuzzy. All he could feel in the moment was his wish—his wish for her to love him—and this wish was clouding his perception. But he felt certain about Colleen.
“I can’t marry her. One person shouldn’t serve as a substitute for another.”
Ella paused for breath. How was it possible to digest the sheer number of things that could happen in a day—the cruelty of Ted, the hardness of her lawyer, the need she felt for her daughter, the love of David. The love of David. How was that possible? No one had ever spoken to her so plainly about his feelings except for Ted. And she had believed him. There had never been anyone else except Ted. The idea of dating (Casey had mentioned it already a few times) had sounded ludicrous. And sex (Casey had mentioned that, too) seemed impossible. There was also the herpes. She hadn’t had an outbreak in almost a year, but still. Herpes wasn’t curable. If she had the virus, she could shed it when she had symptoms: That’s what the doctor had said. How could she explain that to someone? How could she explain that to David? Why would anyone want to touch her?
“I don’t know how I feel.. . .”
“Of course.” David couldn’t hide his disappointment. “I picked the dumbest time to say such a thing.”
“No, no, David. That’s not what I meant. I’ve struggled with these feelings for you, too.”
His eyes lit up.
“I thought what I felt was admiration. You know? And I wouldn’t have admitted having a crush on you or anything like that because a woman who’s married shouldn’t. . . I mean. . . you’re not supposed to feel anything like that, right? And—”
She couldn’t tell him that she felt like a diseased person. She had a permanent sexually transmitted condition. If David had told her that he had herpes and she didn’t, she wouldn’t have cared. She would have understood, gotten through it. But she couldn’t imagine him understanding. How could he? Ted once told her that deep down, all men wanted virgins.
“I’m not helping. I’m sorry,” David said, thinking that he shouldn’t have mixed her up about his feelings when she was going through this tough period.
“No, David, you’re my dearest friend. I see that now. And thank you for saying what you did. It means. . . so much.” Ella had stopped crying. She felt pulled into the stare of his enormous eyes, fringed with light brown lashes. He looked afraid. She’d never thought much of blue eyes, and Ted had said it was self-hating for a Korean person to admire blue eyes; but when Ella had pressed Casey for details about Delia, Casey had told her that Delia’s eyes were blue. Why had she always believed so much of what Ted had said? Why can’t something beautiful be just that? she wanted to say to him now. Not all blue eyes were beautiful, but David’s were extraordinary. She wanted to kiss his eyelids—the silvery skin, the thin blue veins stretching beneath them like the roots of a tree.
“Close your eyes,” she said to him.
David closed them, and Ella reached over to kiss his eyelids as she had just imagined doing. His eyes remained closed. The kisses had touched him like a blessing, like he had been loved, that he had been cured.
Ella covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, my God, what did I just do?” She felt as though she’d woken up from a spell. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I mean, I do. I wanted to—”
David opened his eyes. He had kept them closed to savor the tingling sensation.
He smiled at her. “I should go,” he said. If he stayed, he felt certain that he’d try to make love to her, and that wasn’t what he should do. It would ruin everything that he wanted with her. He would wait.
“But this is your office,” Ella said, giggling.
David smiled and looked about him as if he needed to make sure. He actually felt light-headed. “I mean to my meeting. Can we have dinner tonight?” Then he remembered that he needed to talk to Colleen.
“I have to go home. To Irene.”
“Oh yes. Of course.”
“You can call me tonight. At home. After Irene goes down for the night.”
“Yes. I will.”
Ella nodded, feeling confused and oddly happy. They would talk tonight, and she looked forward to talking to him for many days after. She got up from the sofa, and David rose thereafter.
They were packing to leave Delia’s apartment. The movers were scheduled to come on Tuesday, and Delia was in charge of handling them. The renovations on their new apartment were finally done. The three-bedroom wouldn’t be as comfortable as his town house, obviously, but anything would be better than living in Delia’s tiny apartment another week longer. Delia also liked the new place; she’d never lived anywhere with a view, and this one was of the East River. There was a doorman and an eat-in kitchen. Ted wanted all new furniture. She’d said yes to everything. There was only one thing she cared about.
“What did Chet say? About Irene?” she asked Ted.
“He said I had a very good shot at getting joint custody.” Ted hooked the metal rod inside the wardrobe box. “I should go see her soon. I have to call Ella about that. But she’s going to be in no mood. . .” Ted made a face. He didn’t feel like dealing with her crying again.
“I’m sure she’ll let you see her.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will, too.” Ted hung up his suits neatly in the box. He kept the one he’d wear on Monday and saved two shirts.
On the other side of the apartment, opposite the coat closet, Delia folded a red parka trimmed in white rabbit fur and tucked it into a heavy-duty garbage bag. She was pretty sure she’d give it away. Ted had started his new job at Lally & Co. last November, and he’d taken her to several business dinners where wives of colleagues or clients had been in attendance, and she’d had to think more carefully about her clothes. Ted never said anything critical, but from the looks of the other women, Delia became more conscious that her wardrobe was too bright. She often wondered what Ella wore or how Ella behaved at these functions. Ted didn’t talk about Ella, and though Delia had no wish to hear anything bad about her, sometimes she couldn’t help worrying if she was doing a good job as the future wife of the head of investment banking of Lally & Co. Ted had gotten a big job—th
at was the phrase that his HBS friends used about his new position. Lally & Co. had recently acquired Jones Hobson and was a threatening competitor to Kearn Davis in terms of assets managed and in the underwriting business.
“Ted, I think she should get the house.”
“I found that house. I spent nearly a whole year getting it up to speed. Even with my bonus next year, it will take me another year or so to buy one of equal quality. And Ella doesn’t even like the house—”
“You said you renovated it with the proceeds from her apartment sale.”
“Yes, but I paid for the down payment and the mortgage and a good chunk of the renovation. The HVAC bill alone was—”
“You don’t want your first wife to be angry with you,” Delia said, walking toward him. “You just don’t.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“And you don’t want your second wife to be angry with you, either,” she said, grinning. She stood a few inches away from him and kissed him, dipping her tongue lightly in his mouth.
He smiled at her. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. “I’m smarter than I look.” He raised his eyebrows. She turned him on just by talking to him.
Delia kissed him again. “I like smart men. Very much.” She pressed her body closer to him, then drew back. “I have never doubted how smart you are, Mr. Kim,” she said. “But you want custody, right? And you won’t get everything. Nobody gets everything.”
“Watch me, honey.” Ted would take that as a challenge. His intention was to get everything—to win every point.
“Do you want the house?” she asked.
“I don’t want to lose the house.”
“Oh, Ted. I don’t care about the house. We can get a better house.”
“You haven’t seen this house.”
“I don’t need to. We can stay in the new apartment, and it’s so close to Irene. And when you get a new place, it will be close to the old one so we can see Irene as much as possible.” Delia felt happy to say her name. She wanted to be a stepmother. She loved Ted, and of course she would love Irene. “I’d love to see her. Soon. Can’t you bring Irene here?”
“I don’t know. I usually just visit her when Ella is there. She’s walking, but she’s not potty trained yet.”
“I know how to change diapers.”
Ted sealed up the wardrobe box with packing tape. Ella wouldn’t want Delia to be with Irene. The lawyer had said to avoid unclear behavior. The baby talked some, but would she tell Ella about Delia?
“All in good time, my love.”
Delia walked back to where she’d left her work. She had more clothes to sort through.
“I didn’t know you liked kids so much,” he said.
“I love kids. You know I love kids.” A corner of the closet was nested with dustballs. Delia grabbed a rag from the table.
“We can have kids. As many as you want. I like kids.” A lot of the guys on Wall Street with big jobs had three or four kids. Their favorite complaint was the cost of private school tuition.
Delia wiped up the dustballs, trapping them beneath her rag. She threw the rag into the garbage can. “But what if I can’t?” she said quietly.
“Of course you can,” Ted replied, not in the least perturbed.
“Ted. . .” Delia looked at him.
“Yes, sweetie.” He had finished his bit of packing. There wasn’t much for him to do. Delia had already finished the kitchen things.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Ted didn’t know what to say. She was serious.
“I’ve tried to get pregnant for years. And I can’t. Is that going to work with you?” She closed her mouth and look at him straight. If he wanted to leave right now, she would let him.
“Oh,” he said. Should he have asked her why? The determination in her face was not easy to take. He had actually thought they would have children together. The idea of just the two of them was a little lonely.
“We could adopt. And we’ll have Irene.” Delia picked up the loose plastic hangers from the floor.
Ted shrugged. Adoption seemed like taking on other people’s problems. Who knew what you could get? How could you verify their backgrounds? He said nothing.
“There’s all kinds of technology now.” Ted felt brightened by the things he’d heard about. A few of his colleagues had had kids through IVF. He pushed the box off to the side of the room. He turned to her and saw that Delia was now seated inside her coat closet, odd pairs of shoes heaped about her folded knees, her arms clutching her legs. He went to her.
“Hey? It’s okay. We’ll work this through,” he said. Delia wasn’t crying. That was her way. His Delia was stoic, the way he was.
“I want you, Delia. And we’ll have Irene.”
She smiled at him. He did love her. Delia didn’t bring up the town house again. She would trust that Ted would get everything he wanted. Maybe they might even have a child of their own. Who could say for sure? When she was with Ted, everything did seem possible.
2 STEAM
DOUGLAS SHIM REACHED FOR HIS OVERCOAT from the long row of hooks along the bumpy concrete wall of the church basement. He’d already put on his walking cap. He patted his suit pocket and felt the hand-drawn map of where Charles Hong lived.
Apparently, the choir director had the chicken pox. As chair of the church hospitality committee, Douglas traveled to the homes of the infirm and elderly each Sunday. In these visits, however, there were times he wished he weren’t a doctor. Even as Elder Shim reminded the bedridden parishioner that he was an eye surgeon and didn’t specialize in whatever ailed him—liver, pancreas, gallbladder, prostate, the list went on—he found himself having to play the doctor anyway and listen to the patient describe his illness and treatment in a muddled fashion. Douglas was routinely asked to render a second opinion for which he felt unqualified. Elder Joseph Han and his wife, Deaconess Cho, were accompanying him to Brooklyn today, and he scanned the room to find them.
Leah approached him by herself, as ever, her steps small. Her braided hair was pinned into a bun, and her head resembled a white flower on the stem of her neck. She wore a simple tan-colored coat.
Douglas broke into a smile. “Ah, Deaconess Cho. We didn’t have a solo from you today. It’s too sad, don’t you think, when I have to hear your perfect voice get swallowed up by those toads in that choir of ours?” He grinned like a naughty child waiting to be chastised.
Leah was incapable of responding to his teasing. Her friend Kyung-ah would have known what to say, but she was on the other side of the basement, drinking coffee with her sister.
“Where’s the elder?” he asked. Elder Han usually walked ahead of his wife, with the deaconess following closely behind.
Leah swallowed before speaking. “Tina had her baby.”
“Uh-muh. I didn’t know she was pregnant.” Douglas smiled broadly. The doctor had a great fondness for children.
Leah turned a bit. She hadn’t told anyone except for Kyung-ah and some of the girls in her geh that her younger one had gotten pregnant in what must’ve been within days of her wedding. Very much the time frame in which Casey had been conceived. But for Tina and Chul, the condom had broken, and they hadn’t wanted an abortion.
“And she’s still in medical school?” There was concern in his voice.
“She finished the first semester of her second year, but she’s taking a break for now. Until things get a little easier. Chul is finishing his third, and this is an important year for him.”
“It’s important for both of them to finish,” Douglas said with a deep nod for emphasis. The deaconess’s expression grew more reticent. “So is Elder Han visiting the baby?”
“Yes.” Leah anticipated the judgment. It would’ve made more sense if she had gone to California to help with the baby, but she would not travel. The last time she’d been on a plane was when she’d first come to America. “He went to California on Thursday. I stayed here to take care of the sto
re. One of us had to. Stay, that is.”
“Of course, of course.”
“It’s a boy,” she offered.
“How nice for you.”
“Yes, finally. A boy.”
Douglas raised his eyebrows. He’d never wished for a boy. Ella was a wonderful daughter to him.
“They named him Timothy. After the young man who helped St. Paul.”
“Yes, yes. A fine name.. . . Deaconess Chung can’t come with us today,” Douglas told her. He was a little nervous about this but didn’t want to show it.
“Oh?” Leah blinked. She’d never been alone in the car with Elder Shim.
“She had to take her son to his chemistry tutor. Stanley’s going to take his Regents exam in June, and she said he’s failing everything. I thought she might start to cry.” Douglas made a worried face. “He’s always giving her trouble with his schoolwork. You see, sons are not so wonderful,” he said.
Leah smiled. Elder Shim was being nice, because she didn’t have any sons. Her husband, too, had never complained that she hadn’t given him a son.
Douglas motioned toward the exit near the parking lot and paused. He wanted her to walk ahead of him, so Leah took the first step.
Douglas drove a dark green Subaru station wagon. He opened the passenger door for her. Leah smelled Japanese air freshener—something like grapefruit or orange. There was a tin of pink waxy deodorizer by the cup holder.
“What are you carrying?” he asked, buckling his seat belt. On her lap, the deaconess was holding three stacked metal containers wrapped in a large packing cloth. It had been a long time since he had seen do-si-rak containers—what day workers in Korea would have used to carry their lunch.
“Soup and some fish I made last night.”
“How nice,” he said. In the back of the car, he kept cases of canned fruit juice for sick parishioners. The choir director would get a case.
“Oh, the fish.” Leah wrinkled her nose. “Should we open the window?” she asked, anxious that the smell of soy sauce and garlic from the fish might bother Elder Shim.