“I agree. I only make ramen or the same jjigae nowadays.” Mina remembered her daughter’s favorite meals—kalguksu, sujebi, braised mackerel in the fall and winter, naengmyeon in the summer—and how much time and care she put into feeding them all back then. She wanted her daughter’s life to be full so that she would never suffer, so that Mina could erase all the hardship and deprivation she had herself endured.

But the past always had a way of rising back again when so many of the questions had remained unanswered, wrong-doings remained unacknowledged, when a country torn by a border had continued for decades to be at war with itself. Both the living and the dead remained separated from each other, forever unsettled.

“Were you ever married?” Mrs. Baek asked.

In Seoul, by now, the leaves hanging would be their brightest, their most beautiful against a gray sky. The gingko and maple would glow yellow and red down the streets and up the hills. The crisp fall air would pierce her mouth, her throat, her lungs. She and her daughter ran through the fallen leaves, kicking and laughing.

But she hated those red leaves now, the season that took her husband and daughter away from her, too.

“He died,” Mina said.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mrs. Baek placed her chopsticks on the table. “Was he sick?”

“No. It was an accident.”

Mrs. Baek reached out and squeezed her hand, the first time Mina had been touched with purpose in a long time. She could feel something sprouting inside of her chest as if Mrs. Baek’s kindness was the amber-colored light stretching longer and longer each day in spring.

But it was still only autumn. A season of dying. And when she thought about those trees, how they must look at this moment—the saturation, the brightness—ablaze, all she could imagine was the blood that must have been in the road, after a reckless driver, rushing on his way to work, mowed her family down.

Margot

Fall 2014

UNDERNEATH VAULTED CEILINGS AND STAINED GLASS catching the faintest of morning light in delicious jewel tones, Margot could feel how beautiful and safe a church could be—the sinuous burn of incense, the calm lemon oil on wood, the rituals, the incantations and song. It had been years since Margot had gone to church herself. In her teens, she had fought with her mother about what she viewed as the oppression, the boredom of worship. But seeing the windows now, she remembered how as a child, she would stare at the stained glass and think of pieces of candy like Jolly Ranchers. She had wondered what the windows would taste like if she could climb up and lick them.

The Irish priest greeted the gathered in Korean with a bit of his native lilt. The pipe organ played and the choir sang clearly. Every cell in her body vibrated with music. She couldn’t understand the lyrics, but she could feel their meaning, the seduction of their gentleness, their meekness in front of a God who would reward them, a God who would always restore order and peace to this world.

She closed her eyes. Did her mother believe in any of this? Or did she just need to belong? Did she only need to return here every Sunday to restore order to her spirit and mind? She could understand why her mother needed to believe there was a heaven after all of this—after all her anxiety, her loneliness, the frailties of a body that could be taken from her, apparently, at any moment, this body that suffered, that belonged to and dissolved into the earth like that of any animal.

And her mother’s ashes. What would she do with them? What would her mother have wanted for herself?

Whether she was in heaven or simply gone, Margot ached for her mother. Umma. Tears streamed down her face, dripped from her chin onto her chest. She licked the salt away from her lips. Amen hummed around her. While the priest read from the scripture, his Korean calm and fluid as a creek, she kept her face lowered, collecting herself. She wished she could understand the words, but instead the Korean washed around her like water, chest-deep. Her head spun from the frankincense. She couldn’t sit still any longer.

After the homily, more prayer, she stood to receive the communion, but instead of walking toward the altar, she bolted out the front door into the morning light where she could finally catch her breath. The sun glowed through haze and smog like an ember dying. She sat on the cold concrete steps as finches flitted and chirped through trees. Pigeons cooed under roof eaves.

After all those years of fighting with her mother who feared Margot would go to hell one day, Margot was now here searching for what everyone else was—answers, safety, relief.

She had hoped to speak to the priest or a deacon after the service, find out what she might do for her mother, her ashes. At the same time, she was embarrassed by the fact that she couldn’t afford to do anything proper for her mother. First she had to sell her mother’s store and car. Suddenly, she felt a profound sense of shame—as she had always felt around most other Korean Americans—that she had grown up fatherless and poor. Among Korean Americans, many of whom were Christian and from middle-to upper-class backgrounds as a result of status-filtering immigration laws, a child out of wedlock, a missing father, seemed to be particularly embarrassing when family success represented all that you had in this country far away from home. Anyone who failed was defective. She and her mother had been defective—not the dream, not the conventional shape of a family and success.

Their existence was criminal. Her single mother was undocumented. Margot was fatherless. Shame, shame on them all.

The heavy wooden doors crashed open as the parishioners emerged. Margot stood at attention, searching the crowd that streamed around her. With a jolt, she recognized Mrs. Baek dashing by in the shuffle. Margot almost said something, but instead she followed her to the congested one-way parking lot where groups of people, mostly middle-aged and elderly, chatted, while cars backed out of spots with care.

Mrs. Baek had reached her car and went to unlock it when Margot caught up with her.

“Mrs. Baek,” Margot said.

She jumped and turned around with her keys, sharp, sticking out of her hand, while teeth flashed between her red lips, the edge of a snarl. Startled, Margot raised her hands up in front of her chest as if protecting herself. Why was Mrs. Baek so scared?

“Oh my God,” Mrs. Baek said, eyes wide, catching her breath. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, I was happy to see you. I don’t know anyone. You go to this church?”

“I just started,” she said. She smoothed the bun on top of her head and loosened her grip on the keys. “I never really did, but my first time was last week.”

“I see,” Margot said, wondering why she had begun attending.

“Did you go to church with your mom?”

“While I was growing up, but not recently.”

Mrs. Baek nodded. “Are you going to have a service?”

“I think so, still trying to figure it out. Her ashes are at the mortuary. I don’t think I’ll be able to have a service until after I sell my mom’s store, her car. Maybe at the end of the month, or in early January.”

Mrs. Baek fixed her eyes on the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. “She never told you or asked for anything, right? She never had any requests?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“She wouldn’t want you to spend so much money.” Mrs. Baek reached out and squeezed Margot’s arm. “Now that you’re alone, you have to take care of yourself, right?”

Margot nodded and tilted her face upward to blink back sudden tears, noticing a white trail in the sky like a scar. She looked back at Mrs. Baek, whose eyes had softened into dark brown pools that shimmered in the morning light. Despite the distraction of her red lips, she had the soulful face of someone who felt deeply. She was the kind of woman Margot would want to be one day—stylish, genuine, self-possessed, and confident.

“There are ways to honor your mom privately, don’t you think? I think that makes the most sense. It would probably just be me and Alma, you know, if you had a service. Maybe some people from church.” She smiled. “But she wouldn’t want you to spend a lot of money.”

Margot suddenly remembered what Miguel had suggested about Mrs. Kim after snooping around the Calabasas house on Friday night: that if she had fought with Margot’s mom, who was having an affair with her husband, her only motivation would be money. She already had a lover. She couldn’t have been jealous romantically. But if Mrs. Kim was motivated by money, a desire to protect herself financially, what could that reveal about whether or not Mr. Kim was Margot’s father? Could her mother have been seeking support? Maybe Mrs. Baek would know.

As Margot was about to ask, Mrs. Baek turned away toward her car. Opening the door, she said, “I miss your mom.” Her voice trembled, eyes downcast. “Maybe—maybe that’s why I came here, you know? I just had this impulse to come here.” She glanced at Margot before wiping tears from her cheeks. “Maybe I was hoping to see your mom? That’s silly, I know. She was always here on Sunday.”