by Nancy Kim
“I know you want baby ever since you were little girl,” she says, putting out her hand, palm-side down, at waist level. “Always play mommy. Like mommy was something special.”
“It is special.”
She doesn’t say much to me about my pregnancy after that, although frankly, I don’t see much of her the next couple of weeks. She is pretty busy with all her setmeups and work. I start to pack, just a few boxes. Ahma doesn’t ask me about the packing, and I delay telling her about my plans to move. I thought she would be relieved not to have to put up with a crying newborn at all hours of the day and night. But when I finally tell her, she looks hurt.
“What if you have emergency?” she asks.
“I have a phone.”
She frowns. “Why not stay here?”
“I want my own place. I’ll feel more comfortable. And Mr. Park needs someone to look after his house while he’s away.”
She nods. It is easier for her to accept my leaving if she can believe it is only because I am doing somebody a favor.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Ay! Ay! Ay!” Ahma scolds, roughly pulling the last box out of my arms even though she is already carrying a large shopping bag around one wrist.
“It isn’t that heavy,” I say, but she hisses angrily as she trips up the flagstone walkway in her heels. I unlock the door and let her into the house. Ever since I’ve started to show, Ahma has treated me as though I were made of glass. Even though I am only in my fifth month, my regular clothes no longer fit, except the occasional drawstring skirt or oversize sweatshirt. Against my wishes, Ahma went out and bought maternity clothes that are more stylish than anything I am used to wearing.
“Supermodel design,” she says, handing me the oversize shopping bag. I must admit that she has good taste. Inside the bag are two Empire-waist jersey knit dresses, two pairs of black stretch pants, a denim skirt, four funky-patterned long-sleeve shirts, and two strappy tanks with extra support.
“No reason to look ugly when pregnant anymore,” she says, without looking at me.
“Thank you,” I tell her, resisting the urge to give her a hug that might make her regret her kind gesture.
She is dressed as though ready to go to a nightclub. She met someone who looks promising. A financier, originally from Hong Kong, who is recently widowed. She thinks that they understand each other better because the cultural differences aren’t so great. She told me this as she wriggled into her skintight designer denim and fastened her chandelier earrings to her earlobes. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled, and I realized that as energetic as she has always been, she’s never looked so alive.
“Not bad,” she says as she sets the box down in a corner of the living room. “Kind of dark.”
“It’s just the time of day,” I say defensively. “You should see it in the mornings. The light comes streaming in those windows.” I point across the doorway to the kitchen windows.
Ahma wanders around the living room. She sees the picture of Mr. Park and his wife on the shelf above the fireplace.
“He married American lady?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“He look like your father. Handsome,” she says. “But lady look cheap.”
I don’t tell her that her husband had an affair with the cheap-looking lady.
“It was just the style back then. Everyone used to dress like that.”
“Not me,” she says. “I was back then, too.”
I am struck by the truth of her words, a truth that she doesn’t realize. She was back then. My parents were married at the time the picture was taken. Had the affair already started? Was Mr. Park’s wife going to meet my father later, in that same tube top and miniskirt? It is odd to contemplate. I am grateful now to Mr. Park for leaving the words in my father’s notebook untranslated, for just telling me enough to understand him better. It is easier for me to remember what I want about my father without knowing everything. Unlike my mother, who now knows too much.
She must have found his notebook and read it after he died. That would explain why she decided to throw all his things away, why she stopped grieving so abruptly, why she was so determined to move on with her life. She may have had her doubts and suspicions about their marriage, but she couldn’t have known for certain. Not knowing made it possible for her to continue living their lie.
But after reading his notebook, she could no longer deny the truth. She could throw it away in the garbage with all his other belongings, but she could not unread his words. He had betrayed her. But even worse, for all those years, she had deceived herself. Perhaps that was what hurt the most.
She does not know that I know, and I will not tell her. What would be gained? I want to spare her more shame and hurt, both of which would be compounded by my knowledge. She has changed so much this year. Would she have been able to do that if, every time she looked at me, she was reminded of my father’s betrayal? The past would have lurked like a troll under a bridge, blocking the path to her future.
I offer her some tea, but she refuses.
“I have to meet Wayne,” she says. Wayne is the financier from Hong Kong, the reason for her sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks. “He take me to dinner. Nice restaurant.”
“Not La Chemise,” I groan.
“Not French restaurant. Japanese. Best sushi. Very fresh. Famous chef.” She looks at me, and a shadow of concern darkens her face. “You want to come?”
I shake my head. “No. What would Wayne think?”
“He don’t care. He Chinese!” she says, meaning that he understands that family is part of the deal.
“No. I’m just going to relax and watch some TV and unpack.”
“Take lots of rest. Don’t let feet get too fat.”
“I will. I won’t. Have fun.”
She gives me a peck on the cheek. I wave to her as she pulls her car out of the driveway.
I make myself a cup of green tea. I will have to replenish Mr. Park’s stash before he gets back. His tea comes curled in balls that slowly unfurl as they steep. It doesn’t have the bitter edge of the cheap green tea that I buy.
I drink my tea and watch the daylight fade over the hills until there is nothing but a hazy orange across the skies. I get up and start to unpack the last boxes. I want to be ready when the baby comes, and there is still so much I need. Janine promised me a baby shower, despite my protestations. She knows me well enough to realize that even though a shower will embarrass me and make me feel uncomfortable, I will love every minute of it.
My feet hurt so I sit in the leather chair and turn the television channel to a news program about climate change. Melting glaciers, hurricanes, wildfires. I watch patterns of red and green on an illustrated map, and the red rapidly spreading across the screen. I see pictures of a tourist village in Switzerland twenty years ago, a winter wonderland for vacationing Europeans. Pictures of the same village today show dusty brown shops and empty streets. In only a hundred years. Fifty years. Twenty years. This is what it means to live, to build a life, to populate a planet. This is what it means to be part of the universe, to be interconnected. The cumulative effects of billions of people over time.
After I found out I was pregnant, I applied to the master of accountancy program at the university. If I’m going to support a family, I’m going to need a better-paying job. It was a decision that I made alone, and one that I finally shared last week with Ahma and Janine. My mother seemed pleased but didn’t say anything.
“But aren’t you too . . . old?” Janine asked. “By the time you graduate, you’ll be . . .”
“The same age I would be if I didn’t do it.”
There was no point in waiting for the perfect time, the perfect person, the perfect opportunity. I understand better now that there is no choice to opt out of a life. It is about more than simply seizing the day. It is about the accumulation of days, the way each moment, each decision, connects to the next, how just the sheer number of decisions, no matter how small or see
mingly inconsequential, can shape your life, can be your life. The incrementalism of existence, the winds that eventually create canyons. The years pass, so stealthily, whether you choose to pay attention or not, whether you are ready or not. You have more need of time than it has of you.
It seems so important now to be ever vigilant, ever mindful, of how I spend my days. I stand and stretch, arching my back. I instinctively rub my stomach, even though I have not yet felt any movement. My doctor promises me that I will, any day now.
I empty one more box, the one that Ahma carried in for me. Inside are papers—my passport, old bills, bank statements. Hidden carefully underneath everything is the large yellow envelope. I open it. Inside is Appa’s notebook. I look at the characters, my father’s handwriting. I wonder whether my father regretted his life, and if so, what parts of it. Did he regret his affair? Marrying Ahma? Having me? It is the last question that troubles me the most. I know that it would have been easier for him to leave my mother if it hadn’t been for me.
But I am not to blame for his unhappiness. It was his love for Crystal River that, like a weed, wound its way through our family and stifled the passion that my father must have felt at one time for my mother, strangling the bond that could have grown between them and that was necessary for our family to flourish. It was his love for the woman he could not have that made him unable to love the woman he married.
This thought fills me with sadness. My sympathies had been only with my mother, who loved a man who refused to love her back. But now I understand that my father, too, deserved sympathy, because he was the one who could not be with his true love, and so he was the one who suffered the most.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
April 5, 2010
Last night, I had the most beautiful dream. Shirley appeared before me in a cloud of white and gray. She beckoned to me with arms that became beautiful swan’s wings. I reached out to her and felt one of her wings flutter across my hands. They felt so soft, like powder sprinkled on my skin. When I awoke, I noticed the skin on the back of my hands had become mottled with brown spots. I didn’t dare show them to my wife.
My longing for Shirley became so strong then. That is when I felt the pain in my chest. It felt as though my heart were breaking. But I know that is silly. If a heart could actually break like a china cup, mine would have shattered many years ago.
I feel it will be time soon. It will be time for me to come home. This is what she whispered to me before she touched me. This is what I eagerly await. This is what I wish so hard to believe.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would not have had the opportunities in my life if it weren’t for the sacrifices made by my parents, Yeun Soo and Mi Wha Kim, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. They taught me so much over the years, including what makes a good marriage, how to live with humor, compassion, and honesty, and the importance of taking ownership of one’s life.
This book is in many ways a collective effort. I thank my agent, Priya Doraswamy of Lotus Lane Literary, for encouragement, patience, and guidance every step of the way—and for finding the perfect home for this book at Lake Union. I thank Erin Calligan Mooney and Danielle Marshall for taking a chance on an unknown author and for managing the book and the entire process with such care and attention, David Downing for diligent editing and asking the tough questions needed to strengthen the story, Nicole Burns-Ascue for shepherding the production process, Bill Siever and Sylvia M. for fine-tuning edits, and the rest of the Lake Union team for their work in bringing this book into the hands of readers.
I am extremely fortunate to have a generous, understanding, and loving family willing to be my support network and sounding board. Many thanks to Mina, for reading drafts, sharing my angst, and bestowing your youthful, wise counsel—the story and I are both better for it; to Amelia, for your dry wit, clever insights, and the irresistible dumplings and baked goods that brightened many dreary days and made writing infinitely more enjoyable; and, of course, to my husband, Seth, for the dinners, much appreciated cups of chicory coffee, hugs, morning runs, long walks, and so much more—all of which lifted my spirits and made it possible for me to find the time, space, and energy to write. I love and appreciate you three so much. This book is as much yours as it is mine.
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
How does Alice change over the course of the book?
Alice observes that her mother changes after her father’s death. How does her mother change? How do her mother’s changes compare with the changes Alice experiences?
Alice feels conflicted when she gives her father’s notebook to Mr. Park to translate. What eventually makes her do it? Have you ever experienced a similar situation where you had to share a personal secret with someone who was not a trusted friend or confidante?
What do you think leads Mr. Park to suspect that Shirley is Crystal River?
How would you describe the relationship between Alice and her mother?
Alice and Janine have been friends for decades. What keeps their friendship strong? Do you have a childhood friend whom you have remained close with over the years?
The book is clearly set in Southern California. Could the story have taken place elsewhere? Are there aspects of the story that make it distinctively Southern Californian?
What type of place is Restin? What draws Alice to the place?
The characters each view themselves in a specific way. Does their self-image reflect reality?
What are your feelings toward Alice’s father? Are you sympathetic? Disdainful?
Alice muses that her life did not turn out the way she expected. What do you think she expected her life to be like?
What keeps Alice and her mother from being openly honest with each other? Do the secrets they keep from each other enhance or diminish their relationship?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2020 Mina Burns
Nancy Kim is the author of several nonfiction books and a novel, Chinhominey’s Secret. She was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in Southern California. She received her BA and JD from the University of California, Berkeley, and an LLM from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a law professor and an expert on contracts, and she has lectured at universities around the world. She currently lives in Southern California with her husband and two daughters.