“When did she find out about what Mr. Park was doing to you?” Margot asked.

“After your father died, she finally told me about her relationship with him. How they reconnected this summer, what had happened to him and her and Lupe before he disappeared. She never told me that story before. I don’t know why. Maybe she was ashamed?” She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “I told her the truth about why I had left Hanok House—Mr. Park bought the restaurant to be closer to me.”

“Did you ever go out with him?” Margot asked.

“We went on a few dates at the beginning of the year. I never returned his calls. He bought the restaurant and started showing up everywhere—downtown, the park where I used to walk. So I quit working at Hanok House.” She groaned, exhausted. “I’ve spent so much of the past nine months looking behind me.”

“Why didn’t you tell her earlier?” Margot asked. “Maybe she could’ve helped you somehow? Have you told anyone?”

Mrs. Baek shook her head. “We hadn’t seen each other in over twenty years. What could she do? All she would do is worry about me. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted us . . . to start over again.” She placed her head in her hands, elbows on the table. “But after your dad died, and she told me the truth, your mom and I—we realized that it was the same person. Mr. Park is the same man who tried to rape Lupe years ago. Who knows how many people he has hurt?” Her voice broke.

She lifted her face, revealing the depth of how crushed she had been, how so much of her life had been about finding beauty and wholeness, the kind of meaning that stories gave us, gluing herself back together—the perfectly lined red lips, the dark crescents for brows, the shimmering brown eye-shadow on her lids—after being smashed by the circumstances of her life over and over again.

Margot closed her eyes. How each of these women deserved so much more from this world.

“She told me to take the gun.” Mrs. Baek wiped her nose on the sleeve of her gray robe. “But . . . every time I look at it, I—I feel sick.” Her voice grew hoarse.

Margot’s heart thumped. If she could reach for the gun, what would she do with it in her hand? She had never held a gun in her life.

“She said she didn’t need it anymore, that I needed it to protect myself, but I kept trying to explain . . . I couldn’t explain to her . . .” She cried, covering her face again.

“What couldn’t you explain?”

“That . . . that my husband . . .” Mrs. Baek lowered her hands. Her eyes bore into Margot’s. “He would get so angry sometimes, so angry at the world. He would—he hit me in the face.” She grabbed her throat as if protecting herself.

“God, I’m so sorry,” Margot said.

“One day, he—pointed a gun like that at me.” She stared at the gun on the table. “It looked exactly the same. And I grabbed my purse and ran. I never went back. I left forever. He was going to kill me.”

Margot imagined Mrs. Baek in her car like her mother, eyes hard, as she steeled herself for the long drive, that long drive once to Las Vegas. Mirrors and glass obscured by films of dust. Margot had never been to Texas, but she could picture the bright and wide landscape—all yuccas, breathtaking mountains, ocher land, and sage—as Mrs. Baek fled for her life.

There was a sudden stillness as if the whole room was holding its breath at once; the silence before a tidal wave crashes down.

“How did you end up with the gun if you didn’t want it?” Margot asked. She reached forward to touch Mrs. Baek’s hand, but she pulled away.

“I was trying to . . . She was reaching toward me, to give me the gun.” Mrs. Baek closed her eyes, her face crumpling. “I changed my mind. She . . . she was so stubborn.”

“Did you push her?” Margot asked.

“I didn’t think . . . It all happened so quickly.” Her voice broke.

“Did you push her?” Margot repeated.

Mrs. Baek nodded yes.

Margot burst into tears.

“And you left her there to die?” Miguel asked, wiping his eyes.

“I didn’t know what to do. I never wanted to . . . I couldn’t . . .” She sobbed weakly, covering her face with her hands. “There was no way to save her. She was gone.”

Margot finally knew the truth. It had been an accident.

“And you took the gun?” Miguel asked.

“I didn’t want to leave it there in case . . . it would look suspicious.” Mrs. Baek hiccuped through her tears.

Margot’s ears rang in the exhausted silence that followed. She was both heartbroken by her mother’s death and Mrs. Baek’s life and relieved to know that, in the end, Mr. Park hadn’t harmed her mother, that there was no malicious intent. In a way, her mother was now free. She had died trying to help someone she loved, her friend.

“What are you going to do now?” Margot asked.

“I don’t know. I’m leaving town.” Defeated, Mrs. Baek stared at the ground. “Margot, I’m so sorry about what happened. I didn’t think—she never mentioned that you might be coming home.” She sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “If only that Mr. Park would’ve just left me alone.” She gritted her teeth. “This is all his fault.”

“Should we call the cops?” Margot asked. “I mean, after you leave. We can’t just let him get away with doing this to everyone. You and Lupe, you can’t be the only ones, right?”

Mrs. Baek shook her head.

“I think we have to call the police,” Miguel agreed. “We don’t have to say anything about your mom’s death. It could just be about him, his stalking, his behavior. We could just—”

“You don’t understand,” Mrs. Baek said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“I don’t think you have to leave,” Margot said. “It’d be better if you stayed. We could do this together. I’m sure there’s other women, maybe at Hanok House, or from the supermarket back in the day—”

Mrs. Baek seized the gun with two hands, knocking the dining chair down behind her as she stood. She pointed the barrel at Margot, then backed herself into a corner, arm trembling from the weight. It was the shaking of that arm that terrified Margot the most, as if Mrs. Baek was mustering all her strength to not shoot them all right now.

Margot held her breath as if underwater. She imagined them all submerged, tumbling in the waves, trying to hold on to each other. But this time she wasn’t worried about her mother. She was worried about herself. She was worried about Miguel. She would do anything to save them.

“I’ll figure it out, okay?” Mrs. Baek said, gasping. “I need you to—I need you to leave now.”

Was that a faint smile? A glimmer appeared in her eyes as if she had designed a solution. As if this gun, Mina’s death, had been part of her story, its symmetry, all along. Its purpose was clear.

Mrs. Baek lowered the gun and said, “I am ready.”

A DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, MARGOT STEPPED OUTSIDE of her apartment building into a bright yet hazy late-December light—an atmosphere with that specific quiet deflation after a major holiday, as if the air had been let out of the world until the impending celebration on New Year’s Eve. The sulfurous smell of leftover fireworks mixed with exhaust added to the afternoon’s malaise, like the entire city was hungover.

Margot had spent most of yesterday at her mother’s apartment with Miguel discussing what they should do after the incident at Mrs. Baek’s. She had a gun. She had killed Margot’s mother. But they couldn’t call the police, could they? It was an accident. And Mrs. Baek could’ve harmed them if she had wanted to, but she hadn’t. Instead, Margot and Miguel had slid out the door and run downstairs into the car parked on the street.

Mrs. Baek had clearly suffered enough. She needed freedom. She didn’t deserve any more pain than what had already threatened to break her—an abusive husband, a stalker, a dead best friend. Crime and punishment. She would have to live with herself somehow, and escape Mr. Park, this city that sometimes chewed you up and spat you out.

Margot wished that she had gotten Mrs. Baek’s number so that she could contact her somehow, make sure that she was safe. But it was too late. And although she had been relieved to finally understand what had happened on the night of her mother’s death, she still didn’t have answers about her mother’s life—the safety-deposit box.

Who was the other family—the husband and child, pigtailed in a red T-shirt and leggings? Did Margot have a half sister somewhere? And where was her mother’s mother, Margot’s grandmother, who Mrs. Baek said had survived the war? Was she still alive? Did Mina ever contact her? Would she want to know about Margot, or would she be ruined by the death of her Mina, the daughter she had lost in the war?

Now haunted by the weight of these questions, Margot finally felt like an adult.