I KNOW, I KNOW. BUT THEY WERE IN OUR WAY—DON’T YOU SEE THAT? THEY’VE ALL BEEN IN OUR WAY. HOW CAN WE SAVE JAESUNG IF WE’RE NOT ABLE TO DO THE HARD THINGS? HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THAT PART. YOU KNOW HE WAS RIGHT.
Something suddenly occurs to him. He shakes his head as if he’s emerged from being under water. IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO LET YOU WALK AWAY BEFORE I GIVE YOU THIS . . .
He inserts his hand into his inside coat pocket, at the chest. When his hand emerges, I think it’ll be another gun. My father had a series of pistols. I flinch.
I hear a click, but nothing happens. Sunlight warms the room. Lloyd seems oblivious to it. He’s silhouetted with his back to the window, and his hand emerges from his coat pocket. In one motion, he unfurls pale-blue infants’ footed pajamas with a tag dangling from the sleeve. IF WE COULD JUST FREE HIM, HE COULD SEE THIS. LOOK, IT HAS SNAPS. YOU CAN SNAP IT TOGETHER LIKE THIS.
The blue footie hangs from Lloyd’s hand, and his fingers rub one of a row of snap buttons that run down the baby pajamas. WE CAN GET HIM OUT. I PROMISE YOU HE’S ALIVE.
I don’t imagine you outside the cab window anymore. Instead you’re in a prison without windows, and you don’t believe I’m coming for you. Your shoulders slump, your head bends to your chest, and your feet are bare. I see Lloyd and myself, maybe a baby in my arms, bursting into your prison cell. You didn’t forget, you’d say.
“Wait,” I call out.
103
He shoots me. And then there’s the sound of voices and sirens, and I feel cold air, as if it’s winter and I’m in a snowstorm. But I’m flat on the floor and above me is the white ceiling. Suddenly, I’m wrapped in a sheet, and hands hoist me up, and then the sun is in my eyes, and the rays are strong like when we were in Korea, pressing down on our heads. Something tells me to turn my head to the left, and I hear your voice. Just like the last time I saw you, you’re saying, “Wait.” And then you’re here. Your face floats above me, and you say, “I told you I’d see you soon,” and I can’t believe it’s really you. Lloyd had me convinced you were in a North Korean prison, but here you are. How did you get here?
People crowd in, and you’re pushed away, and I say, “Don’t leave me,” but they’re prodding and pulling at each other, and you disappear from view. And then for a long moment there’s silence, which makes me think I’ve lost my hearing. And then someone says, “Watch out,” and there is another explosion of gunfire, but this time many bursts, as if I were sitting too close to fireworks on the Fourth of July. The floor vibrates, and I feel rather than see Lloyd disappear from this life. I say, “Wait, you were right, Lloyd,” but he’s gone. And I hear someone say, “That was close. We thought he was down. Everyone thought it was over. Who knew he would still try, even in that state, to shoot the girl?”
Which girl? Where are Faye and Heather?
“One, two, three, lift,” someone says by my side, and I’m suddenly on a stretcher. Beyond is the face of a kind woman who looks like our postal carrier in Lakeburg, who says, “You’re going to be all right.”
“Heather, Faye?” I ask.
“They’re fine.” She’s sticking a needle into my arm.
“Could you find Jaesung for me? He was just here a minute ago.”
“The detectives will answer all your questions, don’t worry, honey,” she replies and pulls a blanket tight over me and tucks it under the stretcher. I tell her I have to see you, but she and others are rushing me downstairs now, and the stretcher sways from side to side. “Go back,” I tell them. “He doesn’t know where you’re taking me.”
“Shh . . . ,” the woman coos to me. “There’s no one by that name. Close your eyes and count backward from ten. I promise you it’ll be all right.”
104
The finality of her words comes crashing down around me. No one by that name. I can’t trust my own eyes anymore. Didn’t I see you a minute ago? Or is Lloyd right about you? Are you in a prison in North Korea? The concrete walls, the iron bars, the floor stained with blood and shit and hopelessness—did you shake those bars in despair? What have they been doing to you? Then all of a sudden I remember again your face outside the window of a cab in Seoul, your hand on the edge of the door, your beautifully imperfect finger. A voice in my head—did it know the future?—shouts at me, Get out of the car right now. Open the door. Tell him you don’t want to leave yet.
And you said, “I’ll see you soon.”
There’s a rush of air. We’re outside, and there’s the sound of car engines starting up around us, like when I saw you last in Seoul. Lloyd is gone, I have no doubts about that. But you? Why does it feel like a promise even after all this? I’ll see you soon.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Timing has been a significant factor in the publication of this book. The perfect agent for me, the perfect editor, along with friends (who provided the perfect support for me) came into my life at the perfect moment. Even my family cooperated in spectacular fashion. As this manuscript goes into production, I’m deeply grateful to the following: My husband and our daughters; my teaching partner and confidant, Patricia Dunn; my lovely agent, Cynthia Manson; and my brilliant editor, Vivian Lee.
Thanks to Dara Kaye, Janice Lee, Al Woodworth, Marlene Kelly, Merideth Mulroney, Emily Mahon, Dan Byrne, and Gabriella Dumpit.
I couldn’t have written this book without Kate Brandt, Gloria Hatrick, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Maria Maldonado, Kim Lopp Manocherian, Alexandra Soiseth, Katharine Houghton, Gwendolen Gross, and their families.
Thank you to my own family, particularly Cathy and Henry Byon, and their children and spouses (especially Juyeon Byon). Many of your stories and questions made their way into this story.
To Nancee Adams, Joy Castro, Steve Edwards, Susan Greenberg, Julie Iromuanya, Jennifer Manocherian, Kreesan Pillay, Alan Russell, the fabulous Sarah Lawrence College community, the Saturday Fantastics, and the Thursday group at the Scarsdale Public Library—I’ll always be grateful.
For their friendship and inspiration, thanks go to Mary-Kim Arnold, Kathy Fish, Michael A. Horowitz, Ed Park, Linda Rodriguez, Matthew Salesses, Gabriel Spera, and Peter Tieryas, to name a few.
Last but not least, I want to thank those who seemed to believe in me long before I did: my childhood teachers Grace Dorman, Donald Mudge, Myron Rew, and Dwight Willson. I also want to thank my dear old friend Theresa Choh-Lee and her husband, H. J. Lee, who said I’d better get my novel published so they could organize a reading for me (I’m ready!), and a fellow student in a writing class I took in New York City years ago, who told me once he’d see my book in a shop window someday. I never forgot.