Yolk

by Mary H. K. Choi

  “Whatever, it doesn’t matter.” I hear the tears fall dully onto my lap. Onto her borrowed clothes.

  She’s right, though. The completeness of Holland Hint’s disregard gave me purpose, direction. It became a brittle carapace of protection. Beneath the veneer I was the thinnest I’d ever been. I didn’t need Holland Hint. I didn’t need Mom, I didn’t even need June. By the time my older sister left for college I was ready. Mom, Holland, my friends, they all served as great practice.

  “Can we go?”

  She sighs. I keep staring at the white streaks of shoe polish on the van next to us. I hope someone gives them a kidney. Even if I don’t know why anyone would.

  chapter 36

  I sneak up to Mom’s bedroom. She and Dad are watching TV downstairs, June’s in the shower. When I was little, I’d take off all my clothes—underwear and everything—and get into Mom’s bed pretending I was her. An adult. A beautiful woman. A desirable woman.

  Little kids are such creeps.

  I slide the mirrored panels of her closet aside. The scent of mothballs overpowers Mom’s perfume. I breathe deep. I love the feeling of the fabric on my face. I dig in the back, beyond her everyday boring work stuff, for the white garment bag. It’s all still there. Unworn. Waiting. I unzip it, pulling the hanger through the hole in the top of the nylon bag, freeing just the blazer’s shoulders. Her suit is tiny. With the prim, shiny, outdated buttons so close together that it gives the impression of doll’s clothes. I hold my cheek against it, the crepe whorls scratchy against my skin.

  I return it and search for my favorite. Mom’s hanbok. It’s still as delicate as I remember, but as I pull it closer, I see them: pinholes of light. A series of holes. A greedy moth’s meal clustered under the armscye of the jeogori. An ache branches along my chest at the stolen potential of all these beautiful clothes. Saved with such earnestness only to be ruined.

  When the water stops, I return the clothes and slide the closet door back.

  I’m watching June as she watches Mom watch TV. This is it. I’m on pins and needles wondering if she’ll tell them everything. The cancer, the surgery, that she won’t be able to give them grandkids.

  “See, this is not representative of contemporary Korean entertainment,” June says to me instead. I glance up at the screen. It’s some show where contestants come out singing, while wearing huge, strange masks or cartoon mascot heads.

  Our parents are on the couch while we’re lying on the floor at their feet. June’s using the wooden block that Dad keeps trying to convince us promotes circulation as a pillow and my arm’s going numb from supporting my head while lying on my side.

  “They remade it here,” says Mom, unblinking. June shoots me a look. We’re always surprised when Mom actually listens. “Masked singer,” she says in English, without tearing her eyes from the screen. She does this sometimes. Defies the version of her in our minds. Like senior year when I discovered she had strong opinions of the Spurs starting lineup.

  A cat face sings “Memory” with its head hitched at an unnerving angle, as if its neck is broken. It’s made only more creepy by the rich male voice and the slim-cut red suit on the body below.

  The camera cuts to a close-up of a young woman in the audience swooning.

  “This is why you never got into K-dramas,” June says to me. “You’ve been watching boomer TV. Your Korean would be so much better if you got into it. It’s passive learning.” She turns her pillow longway, as if there’s a more comfortable angle on a literal block of wood on your skull.

  “Um, excuse me, you only ever watch Gilmore Girls,” I retort.

  “First of all, it’s because my Korean compared to yours is incredible. Second of all…” She sits up for this part. “Two words: Lane Kim.” Satisfaction lands on her face like a gavel thwack. “And don’t you talk about Lorelai and Rory like that. Pull it together. And Sookie. Also, Jess.”

  “Lane’s Mom is sus, though.”

  “That Mom had a lot of disappointments in her life,” she says, lying back down. “You can tell she’s seen shit. Show some respect.”

  Dad changes the channel again. Now it’s a supercut of sons returning home from the military and bursting into tears as their mothers alternately leap and collapse into their arms. The classical piano music swells without release.

  That gets us both right in our feelings.

  I think about the YouTube video of Danny Song’s return to the states after he did his two years. I wept openly. That one hit different since he was Korean American. Still, I hear my sister clear her throat discreetly as Mom switches the channel over to the CCTV that monitors the restaurant.

  “How many times do I have to ask Cherry not to wear white sneakers?” Mom tsks to the screen at the unsuspecting waitress, who can’t hear her.

  She scans the grid of images and enlarges selectively.

  The aerial view of the front of the restaurant by the hostess stand is full of people waiting. Dad straightens up, alert. Mom quickly clicks through to the main floor of the restaurant. Then the view of the booths to the side.

  “It’s building,” says Mom.

  Dad’s already on his feet and pulling on his puffer vest.

  Quick as a flash Mom starts brushing her teeth, kicking off her house shoes, and returning to the TV as if anything’s changed in the last fifteen seconds.

  Honestly, you’d think they were firefighters.

  June’s sat up to watch them.

  They’re ready in less than two minutes. “Don’t wait up,” says Mom, not even looking back at us. Dad’s already in the car because I can hear the garage door opening.

  I don’t believe them. I look over at my sister to see if she’s disappointed that they’ve abandoned us on our last night.

  She takes the remote and shuts off the TV.

  The silence bears down on my shoulders.

  Other families would have a special activity planned. They’d watch a movie together with a big bowl of popcorn. They’d talk to each other. “Why are they like this?”

  “Like what?” She gets up on the leather couch, lies down, and stretches out extravagantly.

  “They just left.”

  June yawns. Irritation charges through my spine. She only doesn’t care because I care.

  I get up and sit right on her legs. “Aren’t you mad?” She squirms beneath me. “They could have done this any other night,” I continue. “Like, any night that we’re not here.”

  Instead of shoving me off, June pats my back. “People aren’t abandoning you just because they go.”

  “Whatever.”

  I stomp upstairs, washing my face to go to bed. The room’s stifling. It feels as though the carpeting’s heating up the memory foam of the fold-out mattress. I can’t tell if it’s hotter down here or cooler since heat rises. I’m fuming. Livid at June’s patronizing tone, pissed that our parents are so insensitive that they can’t tell when something is so obviously amiss.

  There’s a glow-in-the-dark plastic Virgin Mary, a holdover from the eighties, about the size of a G.I. Joe action figure, presiding over us from the bureau. A dim, judgy night-light.

  “Hey.” June pushes the door open.

  I ignore her.

  “You literally went to bed a second ago,” she says.

  I still don’t open my eyes.

  “Jayne.”

  “Jesus, what?” I kick the covers off.

  “I’m sorry, are you busy?” I can hear the amusement in her voice.

  Finally, I sit up. “What do you want?”

  June stands in the doorway, backed by the hall light, and I can’t see her face. She turns and walks away.

  “June?”

  I hear the stairs creak. It reminds me of when she used to run ahead, hide, and jump out to scare me as revenge for following her around the house. And how, later, when she was in high school and I was in eighth grade, she’d call me in the middle of the day and bark, “What?” making me think I’d called her. It takes eve
ry ounce of restraint not to see where she went.

  “It’s so fucking hot,” she says when she returns. She’s brought the old electric fan out from the garage. A Sanyo with blue fins that we used to put our faces right up against. We loved the way it garbled our voices and blew our hair around.

  She sits down on the floor with her back up against the bed and switches it on.

  Finally, some air circulation. The breeze is fluttery on my skin.

  “We should open the window too, though, right?” I ask her.

  She rolls her eyes, huffs, gets back up, and mangles the venetian blinds with a plasticky clatter. I get up to help. The vacuum-sealed window lifts after a moment. The house alarm beeps twice in rapid succession. My brows rocket up to my hairline.

  “They don’t set it anymore,” she says and shakes her head. “God, you were so fucking bad at sneaking out. How hard was it to remember that the alarm code is Mom’s birthday?”

  She sits back down next to me. I feel her warmth settling along my side even though we’re not touching.

  “Should we open the door?” I ask her.

  “You’re so dumb,” she says, laughing, extending her leg out to hook it open with her foot. “There.” This is the best part of having a sister. Since we were raised by the same lunatic, under the same conditions, June knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  “It’s not a thing, you know,” she says. “Fan death.”

  “Fan death” is a pervasive Korean superstition that if you fall asleep with a fan running without opening a window or door for ventilation, you’ll suffocate. It makes no sense logically or scientifically, but there’s no convincing Mom. Or me, evidently.

  “I just don’t want to hear about it in the morning,” I reason.

  “Sometimes I think most of what Mom told us is stuff she made up.” June’s voice is becoming raspy. She’s pressed her cheek against the knee of her tented legs. Once her foot twitches or she coughs dryly, she’s about to fall asleep.

  “Fan death is a myth,” she says. “Just like lying down after a meal won’t turn you into a cow.”

  “I love how that only applied to kids. Meanwhile Mom and Dad always passed the fuck out after lunch on their days off.” I smile at the memory.

  “Writing someone’s name in red would definitely kill them, though,” says June. “That’s just science. And possibly the story line to a Grudge sequel.” She leans and knocks her shoulder to mine. I smile. The first time we watched that movie, I slept in June’s bed for a week.

  We sit in silence for a moment.

  “It’s so weird.” I stretch my legs out in front of me. “I didn’t ever believe her, but I didn’t not believe her. I don’t think to question anything she’s ever told me.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” June stretches her legs out next to mine. “I always thought that if I just did everything the way she told me to, or the way she’d do it, that she’d love me more.”

  I stare at June’s doll feet.

  “I always figured Mom didn’t like me anyway so what was the point?”

  “She loves you,” says June gruffly. “She’s just the worst at letting you know. I don’t think you can change people by acting a certain way. Just like how being skinny or smart doesn’t make them treat you differently.”

  “I just want Mom to like me.” I reach behind my sister and pull on the white bed skirt, releasing it from where it’s hitched up on the box spring like a girl with her dress tucked into her panties. I don’t mention the part where I wish my sister liked me, too.

  June pats my leg with uncharacteristic affection.

  “She likes you,” she says and then laughs. “She told Helena Park, so it must be true.”

  chapter 37

  Mom drives us to the airport the next morning. I expect her to say something profound, something worthwhile, but all she can talk about is how she’s packed us lunches of kimbap.

  “Did you remember everything? I put your clean underwear and laundry on your suitcases.”

  “Yeah,” says June, who’s sitting in front. Dad’s at the restaurant for payroll.

  “When will I see you girls again? Christmas?”

  I look in the mirror, daring June to sign us up.

  “We’ll see,” she says. “Depending on your behavior.”

  Mom scowls, and they both laugh. I watch the backs of their heads. I try to catch June’s attention in the mirror, but she only has eyes for Mom. It breaks my heart that she thinks she’s doing Mom a favor by not telling. I can tell she wants to.

  “Thanks for the food,” says June, instead of all the other things lingering in her expression.

  “Yeah, Mom, thanks.”

  Mom turns and pats my leg. I love that she’s put on lipstick for the short drive. “Don’t wait so long to come back,” she says to me.

  I pop my door open.

  Mom gets out and grabs our bags. Then she does something she’s never done before. She gathers both of us into her arms. “Ah, my daughters,” she says. “When will we be together like this again?”

  She reaches for our hands. Her palms are papery and rough. “You’re both going to get married off and probably move away even farther,” she says. “Serves me right for leaving my own mother behind. They say that daughters are never yours to begin with.” She squeezes our hands tightly, pursing her lips. I wonder if she’ll cry. “And I guess they’re right. Ji-hyun I knew would go away from the moment she was born. But you…” She palms my cheek. “You I thought I’d get to keep, my smallest blood clot.”

  I feel June watching us.

  “Bye, Mom,” I tell her, stepping away. June hugs her as I check my boarding pass for the hundredth time.

  “Be nice to each other,” she says. “You’re all you’ve got.”

  It’s not until we’re past security that I burst into tears.

  “I’m gonna get us some magazines,” says June, turning away but squeezing my arm before she goes.

  The moment wheels hit tarmac I text Patrick. I’m home.

  He sends prayer hands as I grin stupidly into the aisle.

  “Are you staying with me?” interrogates June when I get off the plane.

  “Uh…” I’d been planning to ask. I have no idea if I even have running water at my place. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Yes. God, shut up,” she says, yanking my forearm. “Just hurry. I fucked up and already called the Uber. It’s coming in four minutes.”

  As we’re sprinting through the arrivals hall, I think of how much June and Mom have in common. Manufactured urgency is their absolute favorite emotion. I get it. Control feels good no matter how small the triumph. If anything, it’s amazing that Mom doesn’t move to New York. She’d love the energy if she gave it a chance. In New York you always feel late regardless of the circumstance.

  Back in her apartment, we slump on the couch with our jackets on. Bags dumped at the door.

  “Holy shit,” she says. We were silent the entire ride home.

  “I know.”

  “So tired.” My sister keels over and closes her eyes.

  It feels so good to be back but I know in a matter of minutes, she’ll be asleep and we need to figure out food.

  My phone buzzes in my hand. It’s Patrick. When am I seeing you? and then I want to hear everything.

  I smile, remembering our phone call. There’s so much I want to say.

  Cringing, I take the risk. Tomorrow?

  Instead of tossing my phone across the room from douchechills, I leave it facedown on the coffee table and groan like an old woman.

  “I’m so hungry,” June says.

  “Same.” I get up to check the fridge. The turkey chili I made for her last week is still in there. The lidless saucepan has a ladle stuck in it. I pull it out and scrape it into the trash.

  “At least I put it in the fridge,” she calls out.

  “We’re going to have to get groceries,” I tell her.

  June groans.

  “I can go
.” I wipe my hands on her crusty-ass kitchen towel. “Do you need anything?” I ask her, reaching for my coat.

  “Fuck.” June groans again. “I’ll come with you.”

  Trader Joe’s is a madhouse. I grab a basket so we can move quickly, but June upgrades for a double-decker cart. I watch the back of her head as she aggressively rips through the crowd. Everything is a contest with her. I wrest her cart away before she can drive us into the tangle of abandoned shopping carts that’s been left in the middle of the frozen foods. If June steers, there’s no way we’re not catching a fistfight.

  “Why do people do this?” she asks no one in particular, waving her hand at the carts. “It’s so inconsiderate.” We’ve been back in New York for a few hours and already the luxurious spaciousness of Texas is a distant memory. The store is a pit. The kind that requires four flag bearers to negotiate the enormous winding serpent of impatient New Yorkers from devolving into melees over riced cauliflower and smoked trout. Normally I’d rather spend the day at the literal post office than shop at any Trader Joe’s, but I need my provisions. My prewashed salads, my zucchini noodles, my tamari rice cakes.

  June disappears and reemerges with a paper shot glass of sample coffee. I drink it. I’m touched that she added almond milk. I toss the paper cup into the wooden barrel and miss. I furtively look around when I pick it up. I grab a carton of egg whites, salsa, beef jerky, and a sleeve of tricolor bell peppers. I swap the salsa out for hot sauce. The jar’s too heavy.

  June throws a stack of frozen meals into our cart. “This is garbage,” I remark, picking up the frosty tray of enchiladas.

  “It’s not garbage; it’s vegan,” she says, adding one more plastic-enrobed brick while holding my gaze. “I make it when I’m tired.”

  I grab four more sheepishly and add them to the cart. I feel guilty all the time when I forget she’s sick. As if the cancer will discover my negligence and multiply faster out of pique.

  June disappears down the bread aisle, so I eye-fuck a pouch of salt-and-pepper pistachios, wondering how many servings it would be if I inhaled the whole thing. That’s when I hear my sister yelling for me, Jayne and then Ji-young. Mom used to do this, scream our Korean names in public. I’m mortified. I text her back. JFC what? But she doesn’t answer. I wind the cart to the next aisle, and there she is, smiling and waving me over. Talking to someone.