“How dare you say that?”
“Something’s different about you,” he said. “It’s like you’re a robot. I don’t think Jaesung would understand.”
“You don’t know what he would understand. Get out,” I said.
Fatigue threatened to knock me over. He was shouting again. “You never believed me. That’s the only way you can talk to me like this. The only way, because you don’t think it’s real. You don’t care about him. You’re cutting him off like you did all those times in Korea. You’re breaking your promise to him.”
“Get out, Lloyd,” I said. It seemed to be the only statement I could make in any form. I repeated it over and over again. I held open the door and stood there.
The air in the room swirled as he bounded up from the bed, stomped to the doorway, stormed through it, and slammed it shut behind him. That was fine. I was used to doors slamming in my house. Without changing my clothes, I crawled into bed and closed my eyes. I felt my shoulders heave and realized I was crying myself to sleep. I gave in to sheer fatigue. The smell of the laundry detergent my mother used, the one I remembered throughout my childhood, lavender and something they called “spring wind” on the label, filled my senses and carried me to sleep.
I woke to the smell of bacon and eggs. Lloyd held a tray in front of him. My first thought was that my mother was in the kitchen. “Should she be cooking?” I said.
“Should who be cooking?” he replied.
“Why are you here?”
He shrugged. “Willa called from the hospital. Your mom is awake,” he said.
It all came back to me. The hospital. I hurried to the bathroom to wash my face and then returned to look for clean clothes to wear.
“You’ve got to eat something,” Lloyd said from the bedroom door.
“I should go,” I mumbled and dug into my dresser for folded shirts. I had no time to deal with Lloyd. Something in here must be dark and plain, but my high school self seemed to have had a fascination with bright colors in frilly ruffled material. Such silly mall-store clothes in peppy candy colors. I was forced to wear a tank top with daisies and jeans.
“I remember you wore this the day I met you. I like it better than the stuff you wear now,” he said. “College girls think it’s intellectual to wear plain things. You look better in patterns, Yoona.”
I ignored him and went back to poking around for a sweater. I felt his hand on my shoulder and whirled around. “Stop touching me,” I said.
“You have a thread—wait,” he said and plucked something from my shirt, but I didn’t see anything between his thumb and forefinger, and I wondered if he was lying. He followed me to my parents’ room, where I found a sweater in my mother’s closet. It was a rough shawl-necked cardigan with strands of gray-and mustard-colored thread woven through thick maroon wool, one of the few things my mother had brought from Korea when she’d immigrated. I’d thought it ugly, but she wore it late at night over her nightgown. I decided to wear it now over my shirt.
“What’s with all the guns?” Lloyd said. I kept forgetting he was in my house.
I turned to him now and let out a sigh. “What are you talking about?” I said, and I knew I sounded annoyed.
“These,” he said, pointing to parts of a handgun on my father’s dresser.
“He collects them. Goes to garage sales and things like that. He’s obsessed with guns,” I said.
“It’s in pieces,” he said.
“He’s got ones that work someplace,” I said just to shut him up.
“He’s an asshole who glorifies guns,” Lloyd said. “I hate that he hurt your mom, that he did that to you.”
“You can go now. I’m fine.” I was standing at the front door, ready to lock up the house, and he was standing in the middle of the room, judging my family.
“You said you hated him. I don’t blame you. He’s a coward. The worst kind. Look at him and his guns. Probably doesn’t even know what a real gun is.”
“He knows,” I said and then regretted it even as I wondered why I was defending my father.
“You mean the shotgun and the handgun he has here?” Lloyd opened the front hall closet, reached up to the top shelf, and then thrust the handgun, laid flat in his palm, at me. “He hides them in obvious places.”
“Get that shit away from me,” I said and went outside.
A minute later he was outside too, and I locked the door after him, and we walked to his car. He knew the way back to the hospital without my directions. “Go home,” I said to him when he pulled up at the entrance. I tried a lighter touch. “I appreciate this, but I’m okay. Please, go home to the city, Lloyd.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re overreacting because of your father. I’m not your father,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” I said without meaning to. It just struck me as I stared at him that he hadn’t heard anything I’d said these past three days. I wondered whether he had ever heard me.
“Stop pushing me away. I’ll handle your dad, don’t worry. I know how to deal with bullies.”
Anything I said would be a waste of time. I felt his eyes on me as I slammed his car door and walked through the front entrance of Lakeburg General. I repeated to myself over and over again to remain calm and assured myself Lloyd would leave. He had to leave. I’d invited him into my life, and now I wanted him gone.
I was mad at all men. As I made my way through that hospital to my mother’s room, I was mad at everyone, even you. That comment Lloyd made about the clothes I’d worn in Korea made me wonder about what you’d think of me now. But of course that wasn’t the only thing. I had to stop in the bathroom to throw up. I knew I had to deal with being pregnant. I had to figure out what to do before it was too late.
81
The way to the door is clear. I can see that, even from my view from the floor. Lloyd didn’t push the desk back in front of the door after Daiyu left, and Heather takes advantage of that now and turns the knob before Lloyd yanks her away by her hair. She’s thrown back into Faye, who rolls away to avoid the collision. Lloyd isn’t satisfied with that. He jumps on top of Heather and starts hitting her with a hard object in his hand.
Finally I’m on my feet, and I’m pulling at Lloyd’s coat. “Stop, Lloyd. Stop, you’re killing her.”
I don’t think about it even as Lloyd takes a second to hit me, the metal of the gun slams into my head, and I’m knocked to the floor for the second time. But I feel a strange exhilaration even though I can’t get myself to move from where I’ve landed. It’s what I should have done when my father hit my mother, what I’ve always willed myself to do, and here I’d done it. I hear Faye screaming and Lloyd making this ooph sound as if he can’t catch his breath, and I wonder, What is that pile of clothes he’s thrashing on my bed?