That Was Then... (19 page)

I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“But that’s not true. Do you know how proud your mom would be of you right now, Kim? Can you imagine how she’d be smiling to see that the daughter she raised is fixing this nice meal and using the good china and even putting flowers on the table? That would make her so happy!”

I considered this. “You know, I think you’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right.”

Now I studied Nat for a long moment. “And when did you get so smart, Natalie McCabe?”

“Guess it was the school of hard knocks.” She gave me a lopsided grin.

Then I hugged her again. “I’m so glad you’re helping me tonight.”

Then Nat said that she thought we should take a couple of minutes to pray, to ask God to put His blessing
on the evening and to make sure that all went well. And that’s just what we did.

And amazingly—or maybe not so amazingly when you consider our prayer—things did go well. The food came out just like the little old guy promised. Even my dad was impressed.

“This was an excellent dinner,” he told me as we were finishing.

“Thanks.” I grinned at him. “Natalie helped too.”

“Not much,” Nat said quickly. “I was just the cook’s helper.”

“How did you learn to cook like this?” Jin asked me.

I shrugged. “I guess I’m still learning. But my mom taught me a lot.”

“I don’t know how to cook,” she admitted.

“Really?” Nat looked stunned. “Not at all?”

“Not at all. I eat my meals out or order food to bring home.”

“Wow, that must be nice,” Nat told her. I could tell that Nat was impressed with Jin. And I couldn’t wait until Nat and I were alone and she could tell me what she really thought.

“We have a very light dessert,” I announced, “since I know from last night that Jin doesn’t care much for sweets.”

“And we’ll be serving that in the living room,” Nat added. “Actually, I’ll be serving it.” She looked directly at me. “You three can go and make yourselves comfortable.”

I kind of blinked. “Well, okay.”

Then Nat took orders for coffee and tea, and I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this on her own, and she insisted.

“You have a lovely home,” Jin said as Dad and I walked her into the living room.

“Thank you,” my dad told her. “We enjoy it.”

“It is so much larger than my apartment in Puson. But large places are very expensive in the city. And besides, I am only one person, and I am not even home very much.” She picked up the leather briefcase that was sitting on the hall tree. “I want to give you some photographs, Kim.”

So we sat on the couch and looked at old pictures of some very formal-looking Korean people. It was hard to imagine that these strangers were actually my relatives. Then finally she showed me an old black-and-white photo of a girl about my age.

“She looks like Kim,” my dad said.

“My mother.”

I studied the photo, the serious eyes, small chin, broad cheekbones. “She does look a little like me.”

“She was considered very beautiful,” Jin told me. “Many men wanted to marry her. And her parents were wealthy, so they could be choosy.”

“Did she love her husband?” I asked.

“I think she did. Although they had been married for many years by the time I was born. It is possible they were simply accustomed to each other. It was not the sort of thing they spoke of.”

“Here we go,” Nat said as she carried in a tray with four neatly arranged bowls of raspberry sorbet, adorned with the mint leaves we’d picked earlier from my mom’s little herb garden outside the kitchen. “I’ll be right back with coffee and tea.”

“Does this mean we have to give you a tip?” my dad teased.

Soon we were all eating dessert, examining the photos, and visiting like we’d known each other for years.

“It is so wonderful to finally see you,” Jin said to me as we put the photos away. “To see what a fine young woman you have grown to be.”

“And she plays the violin beautifully,” Natalie said suddenly. “You should hear her.”

“I would love to hear,” said Jin. “Is it too much to ask?”

“Come on, Kim,” my dad urged.

So off I went to get my violin. Fortunately, it was already tuned. I warmed up a bit, then played a couple of classical pieces. I was so caught up in my playing that I wasn’t paying much attention to my audience. But when I finished, Jin was crying.

“I am so proud of you,” she said to me. Then she turned to my dad. “You and your wife are to be praised. You have done a beautiful job.”

My dad looked a little misty eyed just then. He paused, looking at me, then looking back to Jin. “It was as if we were given this young tender shoot. We weren’t
even quite sure what we were supposed to do with her. But we loved and nurtured her the best we could, and she thrived and grew—” he shook his head now, almost as if in disbelief—“and blossomed into this amazing young woman we see today.”

I giggled. “My head is going to be so big that I won’t be able to get through the doorway.”

Jin frowned and my dad explained the corny metaphor, which made her laugh.

“But seriously,” I said, still standing, “God deserves some credit too.” And then, quite out of the blue, I began to talk about how lost I’d felt just a few years ago. I told about how I started this journey, searching for who I was. First thinking that I needed to find my ancestral roots but coming up empty. Then attempting to find myself in Buddhism but only feeling more lost.

“It wasn’t until I gave my heart to Jesus that life started to really make sense,” I told Jin. “And I thank God I figured that out when I did.” I shook my head. “I never would’ve survived losing Mom without that.”

Jin seemed to be considering this.

“And I watched Kim going through all this,” Nat added. “I can tell you that this girl is a changed person.”

“So while my parents deserve a ton of credit for raising me right,” I said, smiling at Dad, “and while Jin can claim a connection to me through DNA, it’s because of God that I am who I am. And I’m really thankful for that.”

We talked some more after that. Mostly Nat and I
asked Jin questions about Korea and the places she’d traveled. Nat even asked her about where she shopped for clothes.

“You’re so stylish,” Nat said.

Jin looked slightly embarrassed. “To use an American term, my girlfriend says that I am a
shopaholic
.” She held her hand over her mouth. “And I’m afraid it is true.”

“Well, I’d sure love to go shopping with you,” Nat said.

I nodded. “Yes. Nat wishes she could be a shopaholic too.”

We all laughed.

Finally it was getting late. “I have an early morning flight,” Jin told us. “It is probably time for me to go.”

“I can drive you back to the hotel,” I offered. Dad and I had already prearranged this idea as a way for me to have the last few minutes with Jin.

“And I’m on clean-up crew,” my dad said.

“I’ll help,” offered Nat.

So they told Jin good-bye, and I drove her back downtown in my Jeep.

“Kim,” she said as I pulled up to her hotel, “you are an impressive girl. You are beautiful and smart. You play the violin and cook. And you can even drive!”

I laughed.

“No, I’m serious,” she said. “I cannot cook or drive.”

“You don’t drive?” I said, amazed.

She shook her head. “No. In the city, there is no place for a car. I never even learned to drive.”

I patted the steering wheel of my Jeep. “I love driving. And I love my Jeep. I call her Daisy.”

Jin laughed. “A Jeep called Daisy!”

“And can I tell you a secret?”

Her eyes lit up. “Yes! Yes! Please, do. I can be trusted.”

So I told her about the advice column in the paper. “It’s called Just Ask Jamie,” I said. “And about twenty other newspapers have syndicated it.”

She nodded. “You will be rich.”

I laughed. “Well, not rich. But it is fun.”

“Will you send me copies of this column? This Just Ask Jamie?”

“For sure.”

“I am going to look into your God, Kim. And your Jesus.”

“Really?”

She nodded firmly. “Yes. I can see He has done a much better job with you than I did with my life when I was your age.”

I didn’t say anything.

“But I wouldn’t change it.” She smiled now. “Because then you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

“God really does bring good things out of bad.”

“I think you are right.” She turned to the door. “Now how do you open this?”

So I hopped out, went around, and opened her door. “Like this.”

She laughed. “You are very talented.”

“May I hug you?” I asked her now, unsure as to what she’d think of this request.

“Oh, please. Please do!”

And so we hugged. And when we let go, we were both crying.

“I am so glad to know you,” she told me. “But I do not know how to be a mother, Kim.”

I nodded. “I already had a mother. And to be honest, you don’t seem old enough to be my mother. I think I’d rather think of you like a sister.” I smiled at her. “I never had a sister.”

“Oh, that is perfect!” She clapped her hands. “And now you must promise to come to Puson sometime. You must come and see where your roots were first planted. Before your shoot was carried over to this country.”

“I would love that.”

Then we hugged again.

And now I’m thinking that I really would like to go to Korea. I’d like to see where Jin lives and works and who her friends are. Oh, I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon. But maybe someday. In the meantime, I will continue getting to know Jin—not as a mother, but as a sister. I can deal with that.

Today was the first day back at school after spring break. Spring break was pretty uneventful, but I didn’t really care. It was kind of nice to just hang out. Nat and I hung around town and did some pretty ordinary things, and as a result, I’m feeling kind of relaxed and refreshed and ready to hit the books again.

Jin and I have been keeping up a fairly steady e-mail correspondence. As promised, I sent her some copies of my column, and she was impressed. She has a friend who’s an editor at a newspaper and is actually going to ask him about syndicating it. That would be my first foreign syndication. And I’m pretty sure it’s a long shot. But it’s fun to think about anyway.

I’ve had several disturbing e-mails from my cousin Maya during the past couple of weeks. It sounds like her
mom is really going off the deep end. Maya says that sometimes Shannon leaves home for several days at a time, then she comes back like nothing’s wrong. But the e-mail I got today was really unsettling. So much so that I’m asking Dad to take action. Maya needs help.

Dad frowns as he reads the e-mail I printed out for him.

“Sorry to dump on you,” I say quickly. “And as soon
as you get home from work. But I’m worried about Maya.”

He nods and sits down at his desk. “You should be.”

“She sounds so desperate. So hopeless.”

“This would break your mother’s heart, Kim.”

“I know, Dad. Is there some way we can help her?”

“She seems to be asking for help…”

“In her own way, I think she’s screaming for help. You remember how strong and independent she was when they were here? Could you imagine that girl asking anyone to help her?”

He shakes his head as he studies the e-mail. “I think you’re right about your aunt, Kim.”

“You mean the drug thing?”

He nods.

“Mayas the one who told me that. I guess I wasn’t so sure at first. I mean, it just seemed weird. You think about kids doing drugs…not grown-ups, not parents.”

“Grown-ups can be just as messed up as kids.”

“I’m amazed that Maya’s not more messed up.”

“But for how long?” He slides the e-mail back to me. “What do you want to do, Kim?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, it’ll be mostly up to you.”

“Are you thinking about asking Maya to come here?”

“Are you?”

I nod. “You’d be willing to take her in?”

“Would you?”

I think hard about this. “I know she can be a pain, Dad. But if we established some rules, right from the start, maybe it could work.”

“You’d be the one stuck with her for the most part, Kim. Of course, we have no idea how long she’d be here. She might get sick of us after two days.”