Suburban Renewal

by Pamela Morsi

  I had snuck home from work one afternoon, to try to get caught up on paperwork without being interrupted from the production floor every five minutes. Mrs. Chai had left early and Hye Won wasn’t coming over until after the drugstore closed. Corrie was watching over the new mother and baby. She came into the family room where I was sitting at her little home-office desk.

  “Jin and the baby are both asleep. I’ve got to run to the store for more diapers,” she told me. “Here’s the monitor.” She plunked down a piece of blue-and-white plastic that looked like a teddy bear walkie-talkie. “If she calls for anything just tell her I’ll be right back. Don’t let her get out of bed!”

  The not-out-of-bed thing was Korean. She was supposed to recover for three weeks. Corrie had recovered in three days. But she was now completely committed to these ancient rules from the Koryo dynasty.

  “Okay,” I said. “If she needs something, I’ll help her.”

  It was only a few minutes later when I heard a voice on the monitor.

  “Who’s there?” Jin asked.

  “It’s Sam, honey,” I answered. “What do you need?”

  “Was that Corrie’s car I heard leaving?”

  “She went to get diapers,” I said. “She’ll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Do you need something?”

  “Sam, I’m going to jump into the shower real quick,” she said. “If you hear the baby cry, come up and check on her.”

  “You’re going to take a shower?” Corrie had explained that not only were traditional Korean mothers not supposed to get out of bed, there were no showers or bathing for twenty-one days.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked her.

  “I promise not to wash my hair,” she said. “But I’ve just got to shower. When it comes to that, I think there’s more Oklahoma in me than Korea.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” I said.

  Neither of us did and as far as I know, no one ever suspected, though I’m pretty sure Jin sneaked several more showers before her time was up.

  Once her lying-in was completed, Jin and Makayla, or Little Mac as Nate and I called her, became the center of our family life. Corrie had taken the year off from teaching to be at home with the new baby. And I think we both found grandparenting as freeing and energizing as parenting had been confining and exhausting.

  Little Mac was the prettiest, sweetest, most intelligent baby I’d seen since our own were tiny. And she was loaded for bear with personality. Charming, funny, gleeful, stubborn, willful and rebellious. Exactly the kind of kid you would expect to get from having Nate and Jin as parents!

  Finally, since apparently nobody else would, I broached the subject of marriage.

  “So when are you two going to tie the knot?” I asked one snowy cold winter afternoon when everything in town was closed up for bad weather.

  Little Mac was sitting in her jiggle seat, a sort of vibrating sling chair, looking around as we all watched her inspecting us.

  “That’s really none of your business, Dad,” Nate said.

  His words were not angry or disrespectful, but I was stung by them, anyway. Jin tried to soften the blow.

  “There’s no hurry,” she assured me. “Everything is going so well, why would we want to mess that up?”

  “Well,” I said, “maybe because it’s nice for mommies and daddies to be married to each other. You don’t want her having to explain things to her little classmates in kindergarten.”

  “By the time Little Mac gets to kindergarten,” Nate said, “most of the kids in her class won’t be from families with two married parents.”

  He was probably right, but I didn’t like it, anyway.

  “Nate, I know you’ve made a life out of never doing anything that we want you to do,” I said. “But this is not about getting my goat or acting out against your mother and me. You are somebody’s father now. You can’t be that and still act as irresponsible as a kid.”

  Nate glowered at me, preparing for a sharp comeback, when Jin reached a hand over and touched my arm.

  “It’s not Nate,” she said. “He’s taking the blame for me. But it’s not him. I’m the one who’s just not sure.”

  She looked down at Little Mac and then back at me.

  “There is so much that I want for my life,” she said. “Things that I can’t have here in Lumkee. I’m not ready to give up on that. If I marry Nate, then I’m giving up.”

  Her defense was admirable. And I knew there was some truth to it. But I looked into Nate’s eyes and knew this wasn’t the whole truth.

  Corrie

  1999

  I had always thought that I loved teaching more than anything. But I soon found out that I loved being home with Makayla most of all. Jin was a very good mother. She did parenting the way she did everything else, consistently overachieving. Because I didn’t have to worry that any of the baby’s physical, emotional or spiritual needs were not being met, I could concentrate on just loving the stuffings out of her!

  Mrs. Chai, Jin’s mother, who now allowed me to call her Cho Kyon, was attached to her, too. But she had her grandson, Michael, Song’s little boy, with whom to share her time.

  I was very hopeful of having a Korean-American wedding very soon, and I read everything I could on the subject. And I put together a folder of ideas and cultural trivia that might be helpful when the time came.

  I was able to utilize some of it, but not exactly as I had hoped. Hye Won had finally been introduced to the right young man and a hasty wedding was in the offing.

  David Kim was shorter than Hye Won, not nearly as smart, and as the minister at a small Korean Presbyterian church in Oklahoma City, he had much less earning potential. But I liked him.

  Jin didn’t feel the same.

  “Hye Won is selling out,” Jin informed me. “She’s afraid that she’ll never marry, so she’s settling for this major loser. The only reason she’d give this guy the time of day is that he’s Korean.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “No,” she answered. “She says that he’s perfect for her. That he’s the guy she’s been waiting for all her life. But I don’t believe her. He’s Korean. She’s only marrying him because he’s Korean.”

  Jin’s certainty about that struck me as a bit of “thou doth protest too much,” and I wondered how much Nate’s not being Korean actually worked against her willingness to commit to him.

  I also worried about Nate’s willingness to commit to her. Of course, I had heard Jin tell Sam that she was the one who didn’t want to marry. But I saw no evidence that my son was ready to make any vows. In fact, he seemed to be extremely content with his life and eager for things to continue exactly as they were.

  He worked in his workshop doing what he liked. His father provided the roof over his head and the food on his table. He was back inside the house again with his beautiful live-in girlfriend who put few demands on his time. And his happy, healthy baby girl could be safely left anytime for free baby-sitting with his mother.

  Nate was a very fortunate young man. I was afraid he would never take on the responsibilities of a husband and father. Why should he bother?

  In April, Lauren brought home a new boyfriend for the weekend. Actually, she called him her “gentleman friend,” I suppose because it was difficult to consider him a boy.

  Gilkison Oberfeld was nearing forty, closer in age to Sam and myself than to Lauren. While we were aware of that, it seemed to have escaped our daughter’s attention. He was tall and slim. His hair was thinning on top and the sides were showing hints of gray. But he was well dressed in expensive clothes and wore a big diamond ring with a lodge emblem.

  She had met Oberfeld at her church in Waco. He was a businessman and investments counselor, successful and conservative. He had opinions on everything and he wasn’t hesitant about sharing them.

  Lauren cornered me in the kitchen in the first fifteen minutes
that he was there.

  “Don’t mention Bill Clinton, affirmative action or immigration,” she warned. “He’s a really kind, good, Christian man. But he has some very strongly held beliefs and I wouldn’t want him to get off on the wrong foot with my family.”

  We tiptoed around him as best we could, discussing the weather and how Tulsa compared with Waco, his business and the more favorable tax structures in Texas over Oklahoma. We also covered the stock market and how more money could be made investing in stocks than in small business. I asked him questions about his family.

  “My father grew up on a ranch near Schulenburg. They’re Germans, but they’ve been in this country practically since the Alamo was new,” he joked to me. “And my mama—” he shook his head incredulously “—my mama’s family is what passes for royalty in east Texas.”

  He seemed to think this was very funny. We all laughed politely.

  “Braydon is an English name,” he informed us. “As is Maynard, your maiden name, Corrie.”

  “My family seems to think they are some Scot-Irish mix,” I told him. “I don’t think Sam knows much about his heritage.”

  “You really should take an interest,” Gilkison suggested. “I know it’s not politically correct to talk about bloodlines. But science is learning more and more about genetics. It’s proving that who we turn out to be is as dependant upon our heritage as we always thought it was.”

  Neither Sam nor I made a comment on that.

  “This spinach dish is wonderful, Mom,” Lauren piped in. “You’ll have to give me the recipe.”

  “Jin made it,” I told her.

  Lauren glanced down to the end of the table where Jin sat feeding Makayla, who was in her high chair.

  “I didn’t know you could cook,” Lauren said.

  “I’m just learning,” she responded. “I’ll give you the recipe, but my mother says the secret is the freshness of the spinach. So it probably doesn’t taste the same if you don’t buy your produce from her.”

  The last little facetious comment was meant as a joke. Everybody laughed but our dinner guest.

  “So, Jennifer, where are you from?” he asked. “You don’t mind me calling you Jennifer, do you? I hate diminutives.”

  “My name isn’t Jennifer,” she replied. “It’s Jin, J-I-N. And I’m from here. I was born in Tulsa.”

  He chuckled as if she’d made a joke. “Okay, I’ll go with that,” he said. “But your heritage is Chinese or Japanese, right?”

  “Korean, I’m Korean-American.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” he said. “Lots of Koreans are Christians.”

  “Her sister just married a Presbyterian minister,” Lauren piped in.

  Gilkison nodded his approval.

  Bringing up Hye Won’s wedding somehow made Jin respond defensively.

  “I’m not really religious,” she replied.

  “Obviously,” he said.

  He turned his attention back to his grilled chicken breast and I thought that the direction of the conversation might die a natural death. But it wasn’t to be so.

  “What do you mean by that?” Nate asked.

  Lauren’s eyes widened and she turned her gaze to me for help. My mind was a blank. I was helpless to change the subject.

  Gilkison shrugged and smiled. “I meant that it’s obvious that an unwed mother living with her boyfriend in his parents’ house is probably not very concerned with moral behavior or religious values.”

  “You bastard!” Nate responded.

  Sam held up his hand for silence.

  “Mr. Oberfeld is a guest in our house,” he stated emphatically.

  “A guest who certainly needs to make an apology,” Gilkison said. “Believe me, I meant no disrespect to your…to Jin. And I am in no position to judge the personal life of anyone else. As I’m sure Lauren has told you, I am divorced.”

  He paused.

  “It was my ex-wife who sought the divorce,” he went on to explain. “But I do hold myself very responsible for not being able to keep my marriage together. We have four wonderful children who now suffer from the stigma of coming from a broken home. It shames me and saddens me. And it’s a mistake I will not make twice.”

  The last comment was made with a quick glance toward Lauren.

  She gave him a little smile.

  The weekend didn’t get a whole lot better. We improvised and made him a guest room out on the sunporch. Nate and Jin made themselves scarce, Jin deciding at the last minute to make an unprecedented overnight visit to her brother’s house with Makayla. And Nate just went out to his shop and stayed there.

  Sam and I persevered.

  It wasn’t easy. We found Gilkison narrow and rigid, but he could also be thoughtful and kind. And he was conspicuously crazy about Lauren. So Sam and I tried to put the best face on it and stick to topics and activities that no one could object to.

  I spent my time showing him photo albums of my little girl when she had truly been that. He admired her over and over again and she preened under his praise.

  Sam got him into a business discussion. It went well as long as the talk was about stock sectors, industry growth and market direction. Things got a little dicey when Gilkison suggested Sam should sell his business.

  “It’s a waste of time and energy to keep slogging at that, day by day,” the man told him. “You’ve made a profitable company. Sell it to a corporate food-service firm. You’ll make more money taking your cash and investing it.”

  “Okie Tamales isn’t an investment. It’s my job,” Sam said. “What would I do if I sold out?”

  “You’d do something else,” Gilkison told him. “Get your cash out while you can. Lauren told me you got burned in the eighties oil bust. Don’t hang on to this business until it washes out, too.”

  “It’s a food business,” Sam said. “People are always going to want food.”

  Gilkison shook his head. “That’s where you little guys get gummed up. It’s not the product anymore. It’s not about making tamales or toasters or techno-bits. It’s about making money. If you can’t see that, then you’re destined to be run out, bought out or bankrupt.”

  Quickly I changed the subject. “So, Lauren,” I said, “are you going on another mission trip this summer?” Before she could respond, I drew Gilkison into the conversation by directing a comment his way. “We worry when Lauren’s away from home, but we’re always fascinated by the stories she brings home. She sent us photos last summer of her eating a guinea pig on a stick.”

  Lauren smiled uneasily.

  Gilkison’s tone was adamant. “Lauren won’t be going on any more of those trips,” he said. “I simply can’t permit it. It’s not safe or even advisable for a young, single woman to be out in those dangerous, dismal places working with people from primitive cultures. I can’t imagine how you’ve allowed it.”

  Sam and I shared a quick, meaningful glance.

  Neither of us had been supportive of Lauren’s evangelical treks. And for some of the same reasons that Gilkison voiced. But hearing it said aloud made it sound more priggish and narrow-minded than we’d considered ourselves to be.

  “These are church trips,” Sam pointed out. “Doing good work for people less fortunate than us.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve never been a big supporter of global missions,” Gilkison said. “I’m not opposed to sending Bibles or doing radio broadcasts, but I think we have plenty of needs in our own church without looking outside the community for a way to spend money.”

  By Sunday afternoon, I was glad to see them drive away in his gleaming white Land Rover that was almost too large to fit in our driveway.

  We waved goodbye from the porch. When they were out of sight, we turned to go into the house and Sam slipped his arm around my waist.

  “Whatever she wants,” he said.

  I nodded. “I’m hoping this guy isn’t it.”

  Being home, even helping with Makayla’s schedule, gave me lots more time for working on Education
-Environments.com. I was still doing mostly gratis work for low-income school districts, so the business wasn’t really getting bigger.

  Amazingly, my vision and philosophy of the needs of the environments was growing tremendously. I owed this expansion in my thinking to Jin’s pregnancy and all the research I’d done of Korean culture. I began to see differing cultures as a variable in the success of design. By using what we know about the classroom populations, I was able to utilize diversity as a positive influence.

  On an afternoon in early May I was working on a comprehensive work-flow design for a third-grade classroom in a school district in coastal Georgia that had twenty-two black children and eleven Vietnamese. I was so involved in the details, I wouldn’t have noticed the weather if Jin hadn’t interrupted me. She came into the family room barefoot. Her shirt was still unbuttoned. She’d been nursing Makayla and now had the baby against her shoulder, trying to coax a burp out of her.

  “Have you looked outside?” she said. “It’s looking really bad out there.”

  I stopped to save my work before glancing up. As warm as it had been at noon, a little rain would be welcome on the spring flowers.

  Looking out the French doors of the family room the afternoon sky had turned a yellow so dark it was almost green.

  “Turn on the TV,” I said.

  Jin grabbed the remote from the cushions on the couch and punched it on. The Tulsa station was giving out the beep-beep-beep warning and they were showing a brightly colored radar map of the state—it was mostly yellow with large red blotches. The voice-over provided an announcement.

  “The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning. Repeat, this is a tornado warning for the counties in northeastern Oklahoma. Tulsa County is included in this warning. A funnel cloud, potential tornado is being tracked on Doppler radar and verified by local law enforcement near Prattville, heading north/northeast at approximately thirty miles per hour. Persons in far north West Tulsa, the northern suburbs and Lumkee should seek shelter immediately. If you must remain in your home, take cover in a cellar or a first-floor interior room away from windows.”