She couldn’t stand her job as an administrative assistant—the data entry, the proofreading, creating brochures in that tiny appendix of an office with the adobe red walls, the single, dusty task lamp she used every day. She couldn’t bear the weather in Seattle. After a life in Los Angeles, she had never adjusted to the gray winters.

And when she did catch a glimpse of the things she wanted (a more creative job, art classes, a stronger sense of community outside of work), those things would disappear before she could touch them, back into the mess of her mind. She’d get distracted by other lives—the problems of men. Her two-month relationship with her coworker Jonathan last year had been disastrous. His self-absorption combined with his generic f lattery—the compliments about her thoughtfulness, her empathy and intelligence—was seductive. She had this keen feeling that if she could support him endlessly—through his grief over his deceased wife, his adult son who struggled with addiction—she would be rewarded with his attention, his admiration forever. She could disappear around him and still feel good about herself.

But of course, he broke her heart. He was an it-hurts-meto-hurt-you, an I-love-you-but-I’m-not-in-love-with-you kind of man. It was all so dull and predictable in the end.

And now that her mother was dead, there was no one to run from except herself. She wasn’t even a daughter anymore. She’d have to become someone else.

Her foot cramped in its stop-and-go position over the brakes. This slow miserable parade.

“Look at that sunset,” Miguel said.

Her mind shifted to the riotous sky, its mesmerizing wash of pinks and oranges. She had always loved those sublime colors that suggested both the beginning and the end of everything. The sun in LA could be a real drama queen, quietly blazing in a tulle of smog all day until the evening asked her to leave, and she became all flourish and flames.

Exiting the 101 later in twilight, the car wound up hills, past expansive homes of varying architectural styles—Mediterranean, Tudor, Cape Cod—complexes of both good and bad taste but mostly expressions of large bank accounts, impenetrability, power. Manicured lawns, a pristine green, not a leaf or twig or stem misplaced, maintained by armies of workers who lived and traveled far daily from much poorer parts of the Valley and LA, who spent hours in the sun, working while remaining invisible.

Margot couldn’t believe her mother had a lover who lived with such wealth less than thirty miles away from her in Koreatown. Could he also be her father? Perhaps she not only wanted to find out more about Mary Kim but also whether or not Mr. Kim could be her dad. It seemed absurd to follow an impulse toward such an elaborate story. But why else would her mother be dating this wealthy man all the way in Calabasas? What would they have in common with each other except the past?

Growing up, she only knew that her mother had worked at a supermarket when she had first moved from Korea and met a man there who disappeared after she became pregnant. Her mother never explained why and refused to give away any details about him—his name, his personality, his face. Eventually, Margot stopped asking.

Margot had always imagined her father as a quiet, nondescript person who still worked at a grocery store, and potentially had his own children and family, or had been a perpetual bachelor, breaking hearts wherever he went. She had preferred the latter, someone cruel. That way she never had to wonder why she and her mother had been abandoned, discarded like the peel of a fruit.

But now she couldn’t resist the potential of this story—that Mr. Kim could be her father, that her mother had found love in the final year of her life, that a vengeful wife had confronted her mother, maybe even killed her, whether on purpose or by accident. As far-fetched as this scenario seemed, it made more sense to Margot than her mother randomly falling in her own apartment, only to have her out-of-town daughter find her body days later. She understood that both life and death could be random, unnecessary—but she needed more from her mother’s story. And now that her mother was dead, Margot was no longer afraid of any truth.

They pulled up in front of the address Margot had received from the tour operator earlier this week. It was a white two-story Mediterranean-style home, expensively kept with its dense lawn and swaying palm trees. All the lights were on, blazing in the evening dimness. A tiered stone fountain gushed water indefinitely as if the drought, or any other problem of this planet, could not touch this blessed house and land. In the driveway, a brand-new Lexus SUV and Mercedes sedan posed as if straight out of a holiday car commercial.

“Maybe you should go down a block? So they don’t see the car,” Miguel said.

“Yeah, my car’s just a little out of place.” She pulled forward along the curb. She said in a grande dame voice, “Hello, 911, there appears to be an average-looking automobile outside the grounds at this time.”

“We could be housekeepers.”

She laughed despite the pounding in her chest. What if a neighbor saw them? Were they trespassing, breathing in the citrus blossoms, the new car smell of this neighborhood? She felt foreign and alien.

After parking down the block, they strolled down the sidewalk through the bronze gate that had been left wide open. Perhaps a car had pulled in temporarily, or the residents always left the gate ajar, which seemed odd but worked in their favor that night. As they approached the house, Margot and Miguel ducked, scampering across the lawn until they reached a row of boxwood to hide behind while they peered through a large window into the silent, empty house. Elegantly unlived-in with mostly monochromatic holiday decor—pine cones and boughs painted platinum and white atop a mantel covered in silver photo frames. An ivory tufted sofa and armchair with clean, inviting lines.

“It’s nice in there,” Miguel said. “Like in that Anna Win-tour kind of way.”

“It’s like a magazine.”

“Do you want to look around the back?”

“No, I don’t think we should—”

Margot froze as a pearl-skinned woman of an indeterminate age appeared in the center of the living space. In her long creamy nightgown, she cradled a crystal of whiskey with slender fingers crowned by oxblood nails. A lithe, compact body, eyes kept low. She moved in and out of their sight line, pacing like an animal in a cage as if possessed.

Margot closed her eyes, afraid she might faint. She had an impulse to run now, forget everything. She never had a father. She never needed one. She had her mother at least—a mother who was often unavailable but nonetheless protected her, perhaps protected her too much, but she had done so because she had known how sensitive Margot could be, how emotional. But now that her mother was dead, Margot had been thrust into seeing her, into seeing them both for who they really were—women who survived on their own. They thrived in their own country of two. They were in a way, despite how they might’ve appeared to the outside world, perfectly fine.

Miguel tapped her arm. A man in his forties—handsome, chiseled as a movie star—entered the room. Wearing a black crewneck sweater and dark slim-fit jeans, he smoked a cigarette with an intense Tony Leung face. He perched himself on the edge of the white sofa as if unable to relax, unwilling to get too comfortable. They appeared to be in some intensely somber discussion—brows furrowed, prolonged silences between words.

“Damn, he is fine,” Miguel said.

“We should go,” Margot said. “I don’t think—”

The man stood, snuffing out his cigarette in an ashtray.

Margot and Miguel ducked behind the bushes. Edging her face upward, she caught a glimpse inside of the couple kissing in an embrace.

“Let’s get out of here.” Margot pulled Miguel’s sleeve, and they scrambled away, low to the ground. As soon as they emerged out of the open gate, they slowed down, trying to appear as casual and ordinary as possible, as if they were only two people out on an evening stroll. The cold air burned her lungs. A queasiness rose from her stomach up into her chest. She could taste the bile at the back of her throat.

“Whew,” Miguel said, shutting the car door. “I guess widows just wanna have fun?”

“Somebody traded in for a new model.”

She pulled away from the curb, making sure no one followed them.

Down tree-lined roads, branches veined the night sky between stately homes lit like welcoming lanterns. But the images of the woman and man kissing, her sullenness despite the airy perfection, the heaven of that house, had been burned into Margot’s head.

“I wonder how old she is?” Margot asked. “That had to have been his wife, right? Officer Choi said he had no kids.”

“How old was her husband?” Miguel asked. “Sixty-four, I think.”

“I feel like the oldest she could be . . . would be forty? Maybe fifty?”

“Do you think she just found this guy?” Margot asked. “Maybe. Or he could’ve been her lover from the get-go.”

“You mean, while her husband was alive?”

“A little side dish,” Miguel said. “But then she would have no reason to fight with my mom, right? I mean, why would she care?”

“Money?”

“What do you mean?”