Shelter (20 page)

Kyung can't remember the number of times he's passed Marina on the couch and wished her gone, blinked somewhere far away. But sitting across from her now, he sees how young she is, how permanent the damage of her life back home and her life here. There's a point, he thinks, when no amount of psychiatry or pharmacology can help a person lead a normal life. He passed his long ago. There's no helping her either, but he still feels the need to try, to extend the hand that was never offered to him.

“I won't let anyone send you away.” Before he has a chance to second-guess himself, he adds: “This is my house, and you can stay here as long as you need to.”

Marina brightens immediately. She doesn't understand the dynamics of his family or the hell he'll take to defend this decision, and for the time being, he doesn't want to think about it either.

“Thank you, Mr. Kyung. I be helpful here, I promise. I make things easy for you and Miss Gillian.”

She gets up from her seat and tiptoes through the maze of cookware, resuming her place beside an empty cabinet. He's about to tell her no—just leave it—but she's already kneeling on the floor and leaning into the cabinet, scrubbing the far reaches with a sponge. In this position, the back of Marina's petite figure resembles a violin. Wide at the shoulders and hips, cinched narrow in the middle. The further she reaches, the higher her nightgown climbs, revealing faded pink underwear with blue and yellow stripes. Nothing about what he sees—the Bugs Bunny shirt, the thick woolen socks, the baggy, stretched-out underwear—should appeal to him, but the longer he stands there, the more turned on he feels. It's disgusting, he thinks.
He's
disgusting. He backs out of the room, his face lit with shame, and walks stiffly up the stairs. For a moment, he considers waking Gillian, but he knows better than that by now, and just the thought of her irritated, exhausted rejection begins to deaden what Marina awoke.

Upstairs, he opens Ethan's door to check on him and finds the boy asleep next to Jin. The two of them are curled up together on the cot. Ethan's little bed is empty; the race car–patterned covers are still made up, as if he didn't spend a minute there before crawling in beside his grandfather. Kyung wonders how many nights they've been sleeping like this, and who suggested it first. It's jarring, such an outward display of tenderness from someone who never seemed the least bit tender. Kyung tiptoes to Ethan's side of the bed and tries to lift him up. He whines and turns toward Jin, stretching himself out long. The boy is taller now, even taller than when the summer began. It's hard to believe that anything could grow so fast. Kyung was terrified when Gillian gave birth, watching the doctor raise their tiny baby into the air, so slick and fragile and noisy from his first breath. He didn't feel any of the joy he expected at the sight of his son, only worry. He worried when Ethan cried and cried for no apparent reason; he worried when he wouldn't walk like other babies his age and then worried he'd crack his skull open when he did. He worried that Ethan was slow to learn his letters and numbers. He worried that television would make him sullen and rude like the neighborhood kids. Parenthood felt like nothing but a lifetime of worry, which made Kyung worry even more.

He tries to pick him up again, but Jin startles awake, clutching Ethan with one hand and the bedsheets with the other.

“It's me,” Kyung whispers. “It's just me.”

Jin adjusts his glasses, which are still perched on his nose. He keeps blinking at Kyung, as if he doesn't trust that he's awake. “What are you doing?” he whispers back.

“Nothing. I just came to check on him.” He motions toward Ethan, who's still asleep, his mouth open and whistling.

Jin adjusts himself, pulling the sheets higher and the boy closer.

“You should let him sleep in his own bed.”

“He's fine here.” Jin looks down and brushes a sweaty wisp of hair from Ethan's forehead. “Just let him be.”

His father and son look like they belong together, like they've always been this close. But it bothers Kyung to see them this way. It feels like Jin is slowly taking over everything that matters.

“We have a system now, and you're ruining it. It took us months to train him to sleep alone.”

“He can sleep in his own bed tomorrow. He'll wake up if you move him now.”

Jin is right, but Kyung doesn't know how he can stand it. When Ethan was younger and prone to nightmares, he often crawled into the space between him and Gillian, who continued to sleep through the night. But Kyung could never get comfortable. He'd feel his arm tingling under the weight of Ethan's head, and then a deadness as his blood began to slow. It usually took him hours to drift off again, and even then, he slept lightly, frightened that he'd crush the boy simply by turning the wrong way.

“How's your mother?” Jin asks.

The question irritates him, not because it's meant to change the subject, but because his father shouldn't have to ask.

“Why don't you”—he lowers his voice again as Ethan stirs in his sleep—“why don't you try talking to her?”

“I have.”

Kyung is about to tell him to try harder, but he remembers the cruel flick of Mae's wrist as she let go of his hand during the prayer. It's not Jin's fault that she's mad at him.

“She's all right, I guess.” No sooner has he said it than Kyung quickly reconsiders. “I mean, not really. Now that she's done with the house—I'm not sure. I don't know what she'll do next.”

“Whatever she wants.”

“What does that mean?”

“Let her do whatever she wants, whatever she needs to do.”

This has never been the dynamic of his parents' marriage. Everything was always about making Jin happy, or at the very least, not making him unhappy. Sleep, food, silence, absence—whatever he wanted, Mae tried to give it to him. And she always managed to get it wrong. Years ago, she had to throw a dinner party together with less than an hour's notice. A visiting professor had come to campus for a lecture and Jin invited him and his colleagues to the house afterward. Kyung had never seen his mother run so much or so fast in his entire life, cooking and cleaning and making herself presentable, sometimes all at once. When the guests finally arrived, he still remembers the expression on her face when one of them asked for a glass of white wine. She didn't have any—only red. The woman didn't seem to mind, but from then on, his mother looked different to him. Uneasy. It didn't matter how many compliments she received about the house or the dinner or her hospitality. The wine was the only thing she could think about. The irony of it was, when the guests left and Jin flew into his usual rage, he said he was hitting her because she'd looked so unhappy all night.

“Don't,” Jin says.

“Don't what?”

“Don't raise your voice.”

Kyung doesn't understand at first, but he realizes he's been frowning. He softens a bit, aware that his son's presence provides a barrier of safety he's never felt around his father. Jin doesn't want to scare the boy again.

“Why did you two even get married in the first place?”

“What kind of question is that? You shouldn't ask—”

“But I'm asking.”

The mirror of his father's face startles him. Kyung feels like he's seeing himself aged by thirty years. The eyes are droopier, the skin redder and more wrinkled, but the outline is still the same.

“We weren't even supposed to. I wanted to marry her cousin.”

“So why didn't you?”

“Because she was poor.”

“But your family was poor too.”

“My parents thought I could do better. I was almost finished with my degree—that was a big deal back then.” Jin scowls, but now that he's started, he can't seem to stop. “If I couldn't marry a rich girl, they said, I should at least marry someone middle class. Your mother's parents—they owned a store. Not a big one, but respectable. They offered mine a dowry.”

“You mean like money?”

“Yes, money.”

Somehow, it seems only fitting that what brought his parents together, what's kept them together all these years is the same thing that Kyung worries about every waking minute of his life. It's like a disease they passed on through their bloodlines, mutated into a new form for his generation.

“I still don't understand why you're selling the house.”

“Because she likes to decorate. If we start somewhere new, it'll keep her busy.”

“But busy isn't the same thing as happy.”

“People your age,” Jin says, not making any effort to hide his disdain. “All you do is think about happiness. You think I was happy when I first came to this country? When I was trying to get tenure and no one said I could?”

“There's nothing wrong with—”

“If you think too much, you won't ever accomplish anything.”

Had the words been phrased differently—a little kinder, a little earlier in life—they could have formed the basis for something meaningful passed down from father to son. But said in this moment, they don't resemble advice so much as judgment.

“It's crazy to sell your house so she can decorate a new one. The market—you're going to get killed.” Kyung regrets his choice of words, but his other option—
you're going to take a beating
—is no better than the first. “You're not going to get what that place is worth, not even close.”

“I don't have to worry about things like that anymore.”

It's hard to tell whether Jin is bragging or simply being objective about his wealth. But either way, he's earned the right not to worry, to do something foolish because he wants to and can.

“It's your decision, I guess.” Kyung pulls the covers over Ethan. “You should take those off now.”

“Take what off?”

He motions toward Jin's glasses. “You'll break them.”

“I can't sleep without them anymore.”

Kyung nods, aware on some level that sharing a bed with Ethan, feeling the boy's warm breath and small hands against his skin, probably helps his father feel safe. But their closeness has the opposite effect on him. “Tomorrow,” he says.

“You'll call the realtor for me tomorrow?”

“Yes, but that's not what I meant. Tomorrow, you have to let him sleep in his own bed.”

*   *   *

Gertie is clearly pleased with the house when she pulls into the driveway. She bounds out of her car like a Labrador and starts taking pictures of the exterior, something she never bothered to do at Kyung and Gillian's. Instead of the conservative black pantsuit he saw her wearing last, she's dressed in a T-shirt and shorts with a sweater wrapped around her waist, and her hair is tied back into a stubby ponytail that looks like a paintbrush.

“Morning,” she calls out. “What a gorgeous home your parents have. Absolutely beautiful.”

He's standing on the front steps waiting for her, but she continues to click away with her camera, assuming what hasn't been agreed to yet—that the listing is hers to sell. Kyung is content to wait and stare at the sky, which is cloudless and blue, still like water. He doesn't remember when the seasons changed and spring finally turned into summer.

“Sorry about the workout clothes,” she says sheepishly. “I'd just finished with my trainer when you called.”

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he says, bracing himself for her furious handshake as she joins him on the steps.

He didn't expect her to be available the same day he called, but he could sense something change in her voice as he gave her the details. A property in the Heights seemed to interest her. The address did too. Is it one of those houses at the very top of the hill? she asked. And as soon as he confirmed it: yes, of course, she said. How soon could he meet her there?

Gertie snaps a photo of the garage and two more of the lawn. “Nice landscaping,” she says. “But I can see why your parents want to sell, given their situation.”

He glances at her, confused by her cheerful tone.

“It's a lot of upkeep,” she continues. “Way too much for an older couple.”

Gertie doesn't seem to understand what happened here, but Kyung isn't sure if he's obligated to tell her, if a crime is something he has to disclose, like a leaky roof or a bad furnace. He holds the front door open and follows her into the entryway, which has been cleared of its rubble, leaving only a tall bronze coatrack and a matching umbrella stand.

Gertie runs her hand along the polished wood banister. “Stunning,” she says. “The details are in pristine condition.”

Her enthusiasm for his parents' house is so different from her reaction to his own, which in retrospect was largely disinterested and diagnostic. Having never seen this house before, Gertie doesn't understand all of the things that are wrong with it. And she misses the clues—the stains on the drapes that the dry cleaner couldn't remove, the faint discolorations on the walls where so many paintings used to hang, but no longer do.

“Did your parents restore everything themselves, or was the work already done when they got here?”

The house had been built in the 1800s. The previous owners bought it as a wreck and spent nearly ten years on renovations, only to run out of money as the end was in sight. Jin quickly stepped in and bought the house, the furniture, and anything else the couple was willing to sell—even their massive boat, which had only touched water twice since changing hands. He was pleased with himself for finding such a bargain, which never sat right with Kyung. He often wondered what had happened to the couple and where they ended up.

“All the big projects were done before my parents bought it,” he says. “Mostly, my mother just focused on the decorating.”

They move into the living room, where Gertie examines a lamp with a base made of dark blue crystal. It was once part of a set, but its broken twin had to be swept out with the trash, lampshade and all.