A Good Family

by A. H. Kim

  “You’re taking a field trip to The Cheesecake Factory?” I ask. “What could you possibly learn at The Cheesecake Factory?”

  Claire looks at me despairingly. “Everyone says it’s the best field trip of the year, Auntie Hannah. You have to help me find the permission slip or else I can’t go.”

  Ally’s delicate eyelids had been heavy with sleep just moments ago, but now she’s wide-awake and eager to help her big sister with the all-important permission slip search.

  “Yeah, Auntie Hannah, you have to help!” Ally insists.

  I reluctantly get out of Ally’s bed, and Ally jumps out to follow behind me.

  “Where do you think it might be?” I ask.

  “I don’t know!” Claire cries. “I checked my backpack and my folder, and I looked all over my bedroom, and it’s not anywhere!”

  “Did you give the slip to Daddy?” I ask. “Do you think it might be in the study?”

  “Oh yes!” Claire says. “Maybe it’s in Daddy’s study!”

  When Beth and Sam first moved into their Princeton home, the room that impressed me the most—and the one room that inspired the most jealousy—was the formal library. The room has dark wood floor-to-ceiling shelves like you’d see in an English manor home, complete with a tall ladder on a railing so you can reach the top shelves. It’s furnished with an antique cherrywood desk, two silk-upholstered wingback chairs and a rich green velvet lounging couch that just invites you to curl up with a good, thick novel.

  Being a librarian, I was curious to see which books Sam and Beth had on their shelves. Next to thrillers by Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum are flowery romances, literary novels, diet books, celebrity memoirs and horticulture guides. A whole section of the library is filled with old law school texts and treatises, and another section is devoted to oversize art books.

  “Hmm, this is an unusual selection,” I commented.

  “Books by the Foot,” Sam responded. “Ten dollars per foot for the regular hardbacks—upward of a hundred dollars per foot for the fancy ones.”

  At first, I was shocked that Sam and Beth purchased books solely for their decorative value, and then realized I would have been even more shocked to learn that Sam and Beth had purchased the books to read. The two of them never seem to read, preferring to spend their free time watching Breaking Bad and House of Cards.

  I walk with Claire and Ally downstairs to the library. As with the rest of the house, the library looks like it hasn’t had a good cleaning in a long time. I need to have a stern word with Maria the next time I see her. Better yet, I’ll insist that Sam let Maria and Jorge go. He really can’t afford them. But I’ll also write them a letter of recommendation and bonus check. After all, they have been very kind to me and the girls, treating us like family.

  I look at the messy pile of papers on top of Sam’s desk: catalogs from Neiman Marcus and Saks and Tiffany’s; appeals for money from groups ranging from Planned Parenthood to the Republican National Committee; dozens of business envelopes from AT&T, BMW Financial Services, Prudential, Mutual of Omaha and more. More than one envelope has printed on it in red font: FINAL NOTICE.

  “I found it,” Claire yells.

  “The permission slip?” I ask.

  “No, Daddy’s phone.”

  Claire holds up Sam’s iPhone, which she’s pulled out of his gym bag.

  I take the phone from Claire, hoping it’ll provide me some clue of Sam’s whereabouts. The phone is locked. I try Beth’s birthday—1210—and the phone springs to life. I need to tell Sam to have a less predictable password.

  There’s the string of texts from me, and another string from Grace. As I scroll backward through the texts between Sam and Grace, there’s a near-constant stream of sorry, running late and can U stay late tmrw? texts from Sam.

  My curiosity gets the better of me, and I start to look at his other texts and phone calls. There’s a slew of missed calls from Martin and Alex, cryptic texts from Charlotte and a series of compromising photos of Lise in various states of undress. I click the phone off, afraid of what I might discover next.

  “It’s here, it’s here!” Claire screams. She pulls a crumpled piece of paper from a pile of worksheets, art projects and Scholastic book order forms gathered in the corner of the library.

  “I remember now,” Claire says. “I came here last week to give Daddy the permission slip, but he was taking a nap, and then I had to dump everything ’cause my juice pouch leaked all over the place.”

  Claire picks up the crushed Lunchables box that sits next to the pile of school papers, and she extracts a slightly soggy Oreo from the debris and takes a bite. I cringe while Ally begs for her sister to share.

  I clear a small space on Sam’s desk so I can fill out the permission slip and sign my own name; I don’t feel comfortable forging Sam’s signature. Claire and Ally bounce around the room doing a happy dance. I get the girls to brush their teeth and go to sleep, and then I sit down in the library waiting for Sam to come home. As I wait there on the velvet couch, I silently pray for his safety.

  But a tiny part of me just wants to kill him.

  It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning when I hear the garage door open. Sam stumbles into the house, reeking of gin and musk perfume.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, turning on the hallway light.

  “Fuck, Hannah,” Sam says. “What’re you doing here? Where’s Grace?”

  “The girls called me at six o’clock to say you were missing, so I had to rush here and relieve Grace.”

  “I told Grace I needed her to work late tonight,” Sam says.

  “That’s not what Grace says,” I say. Between Grace and Sam, there’s no question who’s a more reliable source. “And anyway, late doesn’t mean two in the morning.”

  “I was having a couple drinks with the guys at the club and lost track of time.” Sam rubs his eyes and turns off the light.

  “The club bar closes at midnight,” I say, turning the hallway light back on again. “And you smell like a skanky cocktail waitress.”

  “Okay, okay, you caught me, big sister,” Sam says cheekily. He pats me on the head and leans on me for balance. “I’ve been moonlighting as a skanky cocktail waitress to make some extra cash. And, boy, are my feet killing me.”

  Sam laughs at his own joke and starts heading up the stairs. I block his way.

  “What now, Hannah?” Sam whines. “I’m drunk and I’m tired and I really need to take a piss right now.”

  “No, what you really need to do is come with me and explain what’s going on.”

  Sam doesn’t have the energy to argue. He follows me to the study.

  “Look at this,” I say. I point at the towering pile of papers on Sam’s desk, and he bursts out laughing.

  “You really gonna give me shit for having a messy desk? What is this, fifth grade all over again?”

  “Sam, this isn’t funny. Grace told me about how much money you owe her—hundreds of dollars. What possible reason do you have for coming home late night after night?”

  “I’m a golf pro, Hannah. My income depends on rich white men wanting to spend time with me. I’m like a fucking whore. One or two hours of after-work drinks can turn into hundreds or thousands of extra dollars in my pocket,” Sam says. “It’s called sales.”

  “That’s all well and good if you actually had hundreds or thousands of extra dollars in your pocket,” I say, “but that doesn’t seem to be the case. When I loaned you the money, you promised me that you’d live by a budget. You’ve got two little girls upstairs who depend on you. For once in your life, be a responsible adult.” Even drunk, Sam knows that once his big sister gets into one of these moods, he’s better off just shutting up and letting me talk.

  “Okay, then, Hannah, what do you want me to do?” Sam asks. “At fucking two o’clock in the morning?”

 
“First of all, you need to clean up this mess,” I say. I grab all of the catalogs and start throwing them into a brown paper grocery bag. “You can’t think straight with all this junk.”

  “Wait,” Sam protests, “you can’t throw those away.”

  “I know,” I reply, annoyed. “I’ll put them in recycling later.”

  “No, not that. I mean, I send them to Beth.”

  “You send what to Beth?”

  “I send the catalogs to Beth.”

  “Why in the world does Beth need catalogs in prison?”

  Sam pauses. “She picks out the clothes I should buy for the girls. And for myself.”

  I can’t believe Sam spends good money to send junk mail to Beth in prison. Sam keeps looking at me with his outstretched hand until I relent and give him the paper bag of catalogs.

  “Can I at least throw away the Republican Party appeals?” I ask.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Sam nods. “Listen, I’m not a child. I can go through my mail myself.”

  “Apparently not.” I toss envelope after envelope into the waiting bag.

  “Wait, I might renew my subscription to Maxim,” Sam says.

  “No, you’re not,” I say, throwing the renewal envelope away.

  Once I’ve gotten rid of the junk mail, I pull my handy letter opener from my purse and start slitting the business envelopes open, neatly stacking their contents into two piles: statements that don’t require any action, and bills that need to be paid.

  I see the tuition notice for Princeton Country Day. The bill says thirty-five thousand dollars is past due.

  “Sam, why’s the school still asking for tuition? You told me you’d pull Claire out of school if she didn’t get a scholarship.”

  Sam takes the tuition envelope and sets it aside.

  “The school said I missed the deadline for this year, but I could apply for next year,” Sam says. “I really don’t want to pull Claire out of school. She’s thriving there.”

  “You always say that, Sam. Like that’s an excuse to spend money you don’t have. Claire is supersmart. She’d thrive anywhere.”

  “Message received, okay? If Claire doesn’t get a scholarship next year, I promise to pull her out. I really mean it this time.”

  I let it drop for now. Looking at the pile of letters, one in particular catches my attention.

  “Sam, this notice here says you’re overdue paying Beth’s life insurance premium.”

  “What’s it matter?” Sam says. “It’s not like she’s making any money these days, or that she has any potential to make money in the future.”

  I put the life insurance letter into the “to be paid” pile and continue working my way through the mail. After I finish, I turn to Sam and ask, “Sam, where’s the notice for your life insurance?” Sam doesn’t answer.

  “Sam?”

  Sam averts his eyes.

  “Oh my God, Sam. Have you learned nothing in life?”

  My parents emigrated from South Korea to the US so that my father could pursue his graduate degree in linguistics. My father wasn’t any ordinary graduate student. He combined a brilliant and original mind with a genuine love of languages. At a time when Korea was barely emerging from two devastating wars, my father taught himself basic Latin, French, German and English, in addition to being fluent in Korean and Japanese. Being offered the opportunity to study at an American university was a dream come true for him.

  When my father received the paperwork to apply for a student visa, he filled out the document in his clear, crisp hand. My parents agreed to use my father’s family name, Min, as their last name and were discussing potential first names.

  “They should be American, so that people can pronounce them,” my father said in Korean, “and the two names should go together, so that people will remember them easily.”

  “Mickey and Minnie?” my mother suggested.

  “I’m trying to be a respected scholar.”

  “George and Martha? What could be more respect-worthy than the father and mother of America?”

  “Can you imagine me as George? And you as Martha?”

  The young couple chuckled. Even in translation, they could never be George and Martha.

  My father looked down at my mother’s Korean passport. Her maiden name, Song, was printed beneath the photo of her pretty face, a playful smirk peeking out from under her official-looking stare. The word for song in Korean is no-rae; the word for play is no-rah.

  My father looked over at his own photo, his black hair slicked back with Brylcreem, the sad droop in his dark eyes offset by charming crinkles of sly humor. My parents were both so happy the day they got their photos taken in preparation to go to America. They were practically drunk with joy.

  “Nora,” he said. “We’re going to be Nick and Nora.” Nick and Nora Charles were the smart and sassy, privileged and perennially drunk couple from the Thin Man movies, which my parents had seen at the tiny moviehouse in Seoul. To my parents, Nick and Nora were America.

  Years after they immigrated, my parents died in a car crash on a highway just outside Buffalo. The roads were icy, and the other driver had gotten drunk at an office holiday party. My parents were completely sober. The other driver survived.

  It was the winter of Sam’s sophomore year at Princeton. I was working as an assistant librarian at a small law firm in New York City, and Sam was planning to take finals and then go back home for Christmas. I got the news of my parents’ deaths by long-distance phone call, and I took the train that night to Princeton to tell my brother in person. Sam never returned to college, partly because he had no interest in academics—he was practically flunking most of his courses anyway—and partly because we couldn’t afford it.

  Sam and I were now impoverished. I had the Hoboken condo and some savings in the bank, but Sam had nothing. It blew my mind that my parents could be so irresponsible. Despite my mother’s constant badgering on the subject, my father failed to purchase life insurance for either of them. My father had so much going on in his life, he didn’t have the time.

  Besides, he figured, he was much too young to die.

  hannah

  twenty-nine

  After our parents’ deaths, I did whatever I could to hold Sam and me together, to ensure we kept some semblance of a family. That first year was the hardest, with each passing holiday serving as a painful reminder of what we had lost. The first Thanksgiving without our parents, I made a Butterball turkey with all the fixings and invited over Sam’s friends, mostly his Princeton classmates who weren’t going home. Sam called it the orphans’ Thanksgiving.

  Today, as I make the long drive from Hoboken to St. Michaels, I realize this is the first real family Thanksgiving I will celebrate in over twenty years. When I arrive at Le Refuge, Eva has already put the Willie Bird farm-raised turkey into the oven. The delicious scent of the roasting turkey is making my stomach growl. Eva asks me to help her make some appetizers to take the edge off everyone’s hunger.

  “I can’t believe this,” Eva mutters. “I should’ve just gotten some frozen ones from IKEA or Trader Joe’s. No one gives a shit if they’re homemade.” She cracks several eggs into a large bowl, grabs a balloon whisk and starts beating in the heavy cream.

  “Excuse me?” I ask. I can barely hear Eva over the drone of the kitchen fan as I cook the onions. “Finely chopped with a full stick of butter over very low heat,” as Eva directed.

  “I said I can’t believe I’m making Swedish meatballs,” Eva says. She reaches over to turn off the fan over the range. “I hate Swedish meatballs.”

  Of all the foods in the world, Swedish meatballs seem to me one of the more innocuous, but I don’t say anything. Eva and I rarely spend any time one-on-one, and I don’t want to risk annoying her with my unsolicited opinions.

  Eva takes a swig from her glass and consults the rec
ipe. She’s using a dog-eared copy of the Junior League of Washington, DC, cookbook from the early 1970s. The red wine–stained and grease-spattered Swedish meatball recipe is credited to the Embassy of Sweden. Eva adds generous pinches of salt, pepper and allspice to the liquid mixture and resumes whisking.

  “Growing up,” Eva explains, “we had to have Swedish meatballs with gravy and lingonberry sauce whenever the Embassy was entertaining guests.” Eva unwraps the butcher-paper packages of fresh ground beef, pork and veal and plops them into the liquid. She uses her bare hands to stir the mixture. Her simple platinum wedding band is sitting in a saucer by the sink. She reaches for the large tempered-glass bowl of fresh bread cubes soaking in milk. She squeezes the milk from the softened bread and adds handful by handful to the meat mixture.

  “Mother suggested that we serve something more refined on occasion—gravlax or roast venison, for example—but the Ambassador insisted that visitors to the Swedish Embassy always expected Swedish meatballs, and it was Swedish meatballs they would get.”

  Eva looks over at my pan of onions. They’re starting to get brown on the edges.

  “Turn off the heat,” she directs. “You want them soft, not bitter.”

  I comply. We wait for the onions to cool.

  Eva goes to the farmhouse sink and washes her hands. She opens another bottle of wine, fills her glass and tops off mine, which I’ve barely taken a sip from.

  Eva scrapes the onions into the bowl and gives the mixture one more kneading before walking with the bowl over to the kitchen table, where she’s already laid out an array of sheet pans covered in crisp white parchment paper. It reminds me of the clean paper on the examining table at the doctor’s office. Sam told me Eva’s fancy dermatology practice caters to politicians’ wives in suburban Virginia. I wonder whether she has a good bedside manner.

  We sit down at the table together, our glasses of wine within reach. Each of us has a stainless steel scoop with which we measure out the meatball mixture. We shape the mixture into round balls and place the meatballs onto the parchment. I can’t help but notice that Eva works fast, and her meatballs are just as perfect as mine.