by Nancy Kim
“Why divorce? What about your friend?”
Ahma’s always referred to Janine as “my friend,” even though she’s been my best friend since seventh grade.
“She’s going to live with her mom and visit her dad every other weekend. And holidays.”
“So selfish! Not good for children.”
“Janine’s almost sixteen. Her brother is twelve.”
“Why divorce?”
“Her dad was having an affair.”
I thought that I had dropped a bomb, but my mom hardly blinked. “How does she know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then not sure.”
“They probably didn’t want to give their kids the gory details.”
“No need to divorce because he want sexy.”
“I don’t think that Janine’s mom feels that way.”
“Not good for children.”
“They’re going to be out of the house in a few years.”
“They will be her children forever. If they divorce, their children will divorce, too. Happens like that. Mothers have to care for children first. Nobody else will do that. Not even fathers!”
My mother’s unhappiness cemented the bond between us, as though the distance between her and Appa was inversely, causally related to the bond between us. She was my burden, my obligation, as I was hers.
I hear the door open and the bustling sounds of Ahma hanging up her purse and slipping off her shoes. She walks into the kitchen and sees me peering into the open refrigerator.
“You must have hungry,” is the first thing she says. The second is, “Shut door. You waste electricity.”
Ahma is wearing a sleeveless silk dress and a necklace with pearls the size of marbles. Her arm lacks the wattle that I remember she used to have when I was a teenager, that fatty roll that I’ve recently noticed slipping over the edges of my own sleeveless tees and tanks. I notice a white bag on the kitchen table.
“No food in refrigerator. I forgot to shopping. No, not forget, too busy.”
In the bag is a Caesar salad and a BLT with avocado. There was a time when the idea of Ahma bringing home a BLT for dinner would have seemed absurd. When I was growing up, the house always smelled good at dinnertime. There was warm rice with every meal, some kind of meat or fish cooked in sesame oil, and half a dozen little side dishes of pickled or marinated vegetables and dried fish. I took it all for granted, just as I took for granted Appa’s place at the head of the table, Ahma’s traipsing back and forth from her seat to the kitchen, my family as it was then and, I assumed, always would be.
“I ate with client,” she says. She sounds tired.
“Was it a date?”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
I take a bite of the sandwich. It is delicious, with just the right amount of mayo. The bacon and lettuce are still crisp.
“This is really good.”
“Thanks to client.”
“He paid? Then it was a date.”
“Maybe.” She looks troubled.
“I thought men were supposed to pay.”
“Not if he’s client. Better for me to pay for client. Client is better than date.”
“He can be both, can’t he?”
She shakes her head and clenches her face in annoyance. “Not professional.”
Of course she’s right. I hadn’t really thought about it because it’s never been an issue in my work life. Even with Louis out of my life, the prospects of meeting someone at work are dim. Harry is gay, Randolph Johnson is nearly eighty and married, and most of the supervisors at Restin are women. Except Mr. Park, but he’s the age my father would have been if he were still alive.
“Anyway, I thought you were dating that doctor.”
Ahma’s face lights up, and she straightens her posture. “Have to play in field. Many fishes in sea.”
“I thought he was such a catch.”
“I not catch him. He try to catching me.”
I take another bite of the sandwich, which is no longer as delicious as it was a minute ago. The toast is soggy from the tomato. There’s not enough lettuce.
“Good night,” she says, heading up the stairs.
“Good night,” I say. The bacon in my mouth feels as dry and crumbly as sand.
That night I have a dream that I am making dinner. Ahma is sitting at my place at the dining room table. I am rushing back and forth, carrying plates of steaming spaghetti. The noodles are very long and drape over the edges of the plate, and huge meatballs sit in puddles of tomato sauce, like in a cartoon. I keep bringing more and more food to the table, hot cast-iron pots of kimchi stew, a tray of BLTs, a platter of barbecued short ribs. My face is dripping with sweat, and I am wearing a white apron and a chef’s hat. Ahma is calm and cool and doesn’t lift a finger to help me. In fact, she is painting her fingernails, seemingly oblivious to my tremendous expenditure of energy. She paints each nail a flaming orange, lifts it up, paints it and blows on it to dry, paints it some more. Her hair is big and fierce, like a supermodel from the nineties, but she doesn’t look ridiculous. She doesn’t really look like herself, either. She’s Caucasian and about sixteen years old, but I know that it’s her. There is a grunting sound in the background, and I think it’s coming from me as I rush back and forth, back and forth. I don’t know why I am in such a rush, since Ahma doesn’t seem the least bit interested in the food. She just paints her nails and blows, and paints and admires. Then I realize that the grunting is not coming from me. I am cooking for my husband, who is sitting at the head of the table. In my dream, I suddenly stop and look at him, as though I just now realize I have a husband. He is furry, with giant paws for hands, like a giant grizzly bear, but something is wrong with his face. I can’t figure out what it is, and then I realize that my husband has no face! Just fur but no eyes or nose. A furry faceless mug with a pit for a mouth that opens when he roars to express his disappointment at the horrible cook he married.
When I wake, I see that I am in my old room with the fading, peeling paint on the walls, the familiar white dresser with the fake gold trim, the books from my high school English class—Madame Bovary, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby. The house is quiet. I tiptoe downstairs. There is no grunting, faceless bear-ogre husband at the table. The kitchen is clean, the counters wiped down, and the dishes removed from the draining board.
Of my three jobs, I like Restin best. It is my longest commute—usually a forty-minute drive because of the traffic—but I like the change of scenery. The town of Restin is in the hills, separated from its sexier and more glamorous sister, Restin Beach, by the interstate. Restin Beach is the ultimate Orange County city, with multimillion-dollar homes with ocean views, a Mercedes-Benz in every driveway, silicone in every breast, and Botox in every forehead. Restin, the town, is down to earth, less intimidating, and everyone drives a Ford pickup, a Honda, or a Prius. Most of the residents have lived there for decades, meaning that it’s not a town filled with only wealthy C-level executives, venture capitalists, and plastic surgeons. Thanks to some local legislation and zoning laws, development is limited, and the hills are unmarred by McMansions. There is a commercial district, which is just three short blocks, with a hardware store, a drug store with an old-fashioned ice cream counter, and a general store that sells jeans and Hanes T-shirts. It is a typical small town in an America that no longer exists, an anomaly in cutting-edge SoCal, where modernist houses built sixty years ago still look futuristic. The folks who live in Restin are wrinkled and friendly and let their hair go gray and their breasts sag, unlike their injection-filled neighbors across the interstate.
I would love to live in one of the cute cottage-like bungalows, but that can never be more than a dream. The homes, while not as expensive as those in Restin Beach, are still north of a million, thanks to the overheated real estate market in Southern California. In other words, far, far out of my freelance bookkeeper’s reach. I used to think, Maybe, someday. But I’m starting to realize that it’s more l
ikely to be Never. I’m plagued again by the nagging feeling that time is passing, but not in the way people talk about when they say, Time flies! Time for me doesn’t fly so much as tiptoe past, as though trying not to draw attention to itself, like an early-departing guest at a bad party.
Tuesdays and Thursdays as I pass through town, I fantasize about living in one of the cute craftsman cottages with the brick porches and river rock chimneys. I might have a dog, a big friendly beast that wags its tail and lies loyally at my feet while I drink my morning cup of coffee and read the newspaper. I cook dinner in this house because it’s a fantasy. There is a pot rack over the stove, and the whole house smells like freshly baked bread. There should be children in this fantasy and a husband who is sweet and sensitive and plays guitar in front of the fireplace. The kids are young, and there are two of them, a boy and a girl, or two girls, or two boys—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are little and play nicely with each other, laughing happily while I bake bread and sing to the music that my soulful husband strums on his guitar . . .
But the harsh reality is that I don’t know how to paint, can’t carry a tune, and have never baked bread. I crunch numbers for a living, I’m allergic to dog hair, and I don’t deserve to have any children. Anyway, Restin is out of my reach, like all my fantasies.
Today, I am in the back office of the library. I have to reconcile numbers from the last book sale. I’m angry at myself for having missed it. They were selling hardcovers for a dollar each. Mr. Park walks by as I am settling in at my desk. He is the director of library sciences.
“Good morning, Mrs. Markson,” he says. “Long time, no see.”
“Yeah, it’s been busy,” I say. I haven’t told Mr. Park that Louis and I are divorcing. Why did I even bother changing my name when we got married?
I turn on my computer and wait for it to boot up.
“It’s starting to be the busy season for this department now,” he says.
I nod. He tells me that the library donated the funds from the book sale to an elementary school in Santa Ana where one of the librarian’s daughters teaches fifth grade.
“It’s not in the Restin school district?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Does it have a fiscal impact?”
At first, I think he is asking whether it has a physical impact. Mr. Park’s English is very good, but sometimes the rhythm of his speech is a little off and I have to process his words in the context of his sentence. My father had the same way of speaking. I have often thought about how much Mr. Park reminds me of my father. They even look similar, and not just because they are—were—both Korean men of about the same age. I wonder if Mr. Park knows anyone who could translate my father’s notebook for me. Besides being Korean and the director of library sciences, he’s also the head of the Multicultural Studies Collection. If anyone could help me, it would be him. He must know someone.
“No, no fiscal impact. I think it’s great that the staff had a fundraiser for another school.”
He smiles and nods. “Yes, good to share the wealth. Sarah’s daughter told her that the students in her class have to share textbooks because there are too many students and not enough money for books. Outrageous! Meanwhile, Restin schools have a surplus every year.”
Mr. Park often shakes his head that a country as rich as ours doesn’t have better social services, cheaper health care, or more accessible public transportation. He has a “Pro-Choice” bumper sticker on his Prius, and his desk is littered with donation receipts from various causes and thank-you notes from organizations like Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, and HANA, an environmental group in Hawaii, where he grew up. He’s so different from my parents’ friends, who seem more interested in their golf handicap and designer handbags than climate change or income inequality. Even living in idyllic, time-warped Restin, he manages to stay informed. He will often make comments about current events or cultural references that just make me blink with confusion. Maybe he reads People magazine on the can. But that can’t be it. I know, because I read People on the can, and that hasn’t improved my ability to make conversation or given me any interesting insights on global warming.
“Where do you live?”
I’m a little taken aback by his question. Mr. Park rarely asks me anything about myself. He is friendly enough, but our conversations have never been about anything personal—except, of course, politics, if you believe that all politics are personal.
“Um . . . in Green Hills,” I say. He nods his head, and I can guess what he is thinking. Country club, politically apathetic, luxury-car driving, designer-label obsessed. Typical Orange County Korean American.
“Your parents golf?”
I nod. “My mother does. My father’s dead.”
Mr. Park looks shocked and a little embarrassed, which is precisely the reaction I want. I didn’t need to tell him that my father is dead, of course. But it bothers me that he thinks he knows what I’m about.
“I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “Yeah, so am I.”
I turn back to my computer. Mr. Park stands quietly for a moment and then walks away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ahma is not home when I get back Wednesday evening, but she left a foil-wrapped container on the counter. I open it. Bindaeduk. Korean mung bean pancakes with peppers and pork. She even prepared a small bowl of vinegar and soy dipping sauce. There is no note.
I microwave my dinner and then plop down on the couch, in front of the TV. The bindaeduk is delicious, even though I microwaved it instead of frying it in the cast-iron pan. With my fingers, I pull apart a piece of the bindaeduk and dip it into the sauce. I taste the fluffy meal, soaked in the spicy salty-sweet sauce, and then the other goodies inside—thin slices of tender pork, slivers of sautéed chili, red bell peppers, and buttery leek. Eating this reminds me of my father. We used to sit on the couch together and eat bindaeduk, with a beer for him and a glass of milk for me. If either of us had suggested that Ahma come and join us, she probably would have protested that she had too much to do, that dinner would never get done, and that beer made her dizzy. But the suggestion was never made, so Ahma never had an opportunity to so adamantly refuse.
The sound of the door opening startles me. It takes me a moment to realize that it is only Ahma and that I have fallen asleep on the couch with my empty plate on the coffee table, the bowl of sauce giving the room a slightly fermented smell. I quickly pick up my plate and the bowl and take them to the kitchen, giving each a brief rinse before sticking them both into the dishwasher. Ahma doesn’t call my name the way she usually does, and my heart quickens for an instant. Something doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s not Ahma but an intruder? Would a burglar use the front door? I recall reading somewhere that most burglars use an open window or an unlocked door—the path of least resistance.
“Ahma?” I call softly, as though my whisper were something that burglars couldn’t hear but mothers could.
The shuffling in the entryway stops. I peer around the corner of the kitchen wall and see Ahma’s figure in the darkness. I am relieved that she is alone.
“What are you doing? You scared me!”
She doesn’t laugh. “Did you eat dinner?”
“Yes, did you?” I hope I wasn’t supposed to leave a pancake for her.
“Yes.”
She is still standing in the entryway, as though she is afraid to come into the house, and she is avoiding looking at me directly, as though she is afraid of me. I take a few steps toward her, and she turns around and spends too much time taking off her shoes. “Where did you go?”
Ahma finally stands. Her hair is messy, and her lipstick and mascara are smeared. The undefined dread that has been coursing through my blood solidifies in the pit of my stomach like poured cement.
“What happened?”
“Not your business.”
“Did you get fired?”
She frowns and shakes her head.
“
What happened?”
“Crazy man. So crazy!”
“A crazy man attacked you?”
Ahma’s face is a mask that would crack with the right question, but so far, I am not asking it.
“Some crazy man on the street attacked you? Did he take your purse?”
She shakes her head.
“Was it someone you know?”
She nods her head, and her eyes fill with tears. “Why you still awake. You should sleeping!”
I know what she really means. If you didn’t live here with me, you wouldn’t know of my humiliation.
“Who was it?”
She starts to walk upstairs.
“Was it a client? Somebody you work with?”
“No worry for you. Mind your business.”
“Was it Stephen?”
My mother’s head is held high as she nods once. I follow her up the stairs.
I sit on the bed while she showers and brushes her teeth. I wait until she is in her nightgown and tucked underneath the covers. I wait while she turns off the lamp next to her bed so that I can’t see her shame. She talks to me, in Korean, in a voice that droops with sadness and pain. I don’t understand some of the words, because they are words that I never had to learn, grown-up words, but I am able to guess their meaning from the context.
She and Stephen had met for dinner again. They went to a nice restaurant, and she let him pay. He surprised her with a present, a gold charm bracelet with one charm—a squash racket. He told her that he would buy her a surfboard charm next, after he taught her to surf. When he suggested that they go back to his house, she agreed, even though it was late and she was tired. He made her a drink, even though she doesn’t drink. She accepted the invitation because she was being polite, and she accepted the drink because she knew that he didn’t want to drink alone. They sat on the couch and he put on music, and Stephen started to kiss her. My mother was alarmed and uncomfortable; he smelled funny up close—“like wet laundry that forgot to put in dryer”—but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings since he had been so nice to her, had taken her to dinner, and had bought her a present. Because she felt so neutral about him, she underestimated how excited he was getting. She thought that she would tell him that she had to go soon, after he had a few more kisses, “maybe five or six kisses to make fair,” but she couldn’t find the right break in between the kisses because he didn’t seem to need air, and he went over his maximum-kiss limit.