We’ve righted ourselves now and huddle together on the edge of the bed. Lloyd has returned to the window, looking out and muttering to himself. There’s no way President Reagan is meeting with a stranger with a gun. A chill even colder than I thought possible seeps deeper into my chest. He said he’d kill one of us. Faye says over and over again, “Oh my god, oh my god.” Heather whispers, “Shh . . . it’d be stupid, he needs us alive.”
Daiyu whispers back, “There’s four of us, Heather. He doesn’t need all four of us.”
“Stop, he’ll hear you,” I say to them, but he has heard already, and he bounds over to us. I DECIDE. ME. I DECIDE WHO LIVES AND DIES. YOU GET IT?
He can’t mean it, he can’t mean he’ll do it, but I would never have believed we’d be here like this if you’d told me. You would know how to persuade him.
He hauls Daiyu to her feet. “No, no, no, no,” she squeals. COME ON. He pulls. I wonder if I can move my feet just enough to make it to the door. Watching her head hanging in front, I feel pity and then have a burst of hope for her. Run, Daiyu, I urge silently. As if I’ve said it aloud, she looks back, and there’s nothing but fear in her eyes. I realize that she thinks he’s going to shoot her, thinks that he meant her when he said the first girl would die. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? He jerks her arm so she turns around, faces the window. “Don’t kill me, please,” she says.
Run, Daiyu, I think. Pull away. Hit him with your bound fists and run for the door, push away the desk and the chair. If you’re fast, Daiyu, he won’t have a chance to shoot you. “Daiyu!” I call to her.
SHUT UP. Lloyd shoves her in front of the window.
Lloyd sweeps one half of the curtain aside with an arm, avoids standing in front of it himself. The sunlight is shocking. Like on an airplane when you’re flying in the dark and dawn arrives through someone’s window. I raise my wrists to keep the light from hurting my eyes. Heather and Faye turn their faces. He holds Daiyu in front of the window but stays off to the side himself. Daiyu flinches from the light and whatever is on the other side. Line of fire. “Duck down,” I yell to her. She bends, and he jerks her back up. He could break her arm, snap it, she protests. She says he’s hurting her. Her shoulders are shaking. He tells her to hold up her hands so they can see he’s taped them. He holds the handgun against her temple.
“Someone’s in the hall, Lloyd, don’t.” Words like this tumble from my mouth, and I hardly know I have the breath to speak.
FUCK. He throws Daiyu to the floor and slams the curtain closed, then runs to the side of the door. It’s dark again in the room. BACK UP, FUCKING BACK UP, OR I’LL KILL ALL OF THEM RIGHT NOW.
26
You and Lloyd used to go running when the rest of us were laid out under the giant fans in the Great Hall, massed together the way we were in Korea that summer. Lazy American teenagers who didn’t know how to cope with tropical weather, the humidity cloaking our bodies. I saw Lloyd. I saw the way he replied to your questions about political factions in the Korean government, about North Korea’s leader Kim Il Sung. I saw him wave his hands and explain. You told me something about Lloyd, about his childhood, but I didn’t pay attention. I wanted to know about you, only you. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. What have I done?
27
I didn’t believe my father when he told me his version of love. “You kill for it sometimes,” he said. “I would kill for your mother, you, and your sister. I’ve seen people kill for less.”
We were driving in the car, and he pointed to a smokestack in a city like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and he said, “Yoona, tell me, what does that smoke coming up over there tell you about the direction of the wind?” I was six years old. Willa made a face at him. “No fair, you asked me that two years ago, and Yoona heard your answer.”
“I don’t remember what you said,” I told her.
“Stupid,” Willa said.
“You’re stupid,” I returned.
“I see a rest stop,” my mother interrupted. “Who needs to use the bathroom?” She told my father to pull over, and when he did, my mother insisted Willa get out of the car with her while my father and I waited for them. He turned on the radio, which was a relief because he never said anything to me when my mother and sister weren’t around anyway, and I didn’t have to answer his question about smoke. The announcer said someone had murdered someone with a knife over an insult in a parking lot. “That’s stupid,” I said aloud. That’s when my father said Americans have no patience and then added Koreans know about suffering. Long-term suffering. “You have to be patient. You have to endure for people you love. I’d kill to protect your mother, your sister, and you. That’s what war shows you. You kill to survive. To survive, you’d eat a handful of uncooked rice, even.” I didn’t ask him where his patience was when he lost his temper in our house. I knew better. He was the kind of person who believed his own lies. Other people confused me, but not him. Many people confused me. My mother, for example. Why did she stay with my father?
28
I didn’t know how much you’d understand about my family. And I couldn’t tell you, not when you thought I was like you. You would never have let your father beat your mother. You would have thrown yourself between them. I never did that. Why didn’t I do that? Instead I pleaded from a distance. Many times I was too late. Just before I got on the plane to Korea, I came home to find my mother in the kitchen, her hand on a drawer handle by the stove and my father standing over her. He walked off when I entered, and I helped my mother to her feet, and we gathered her coat and car keys, and I drove her down the driveway and away from him forever. I told her it was forever, and she agreed she’d never return to the house. And then as we neared the town limits, she said she had to go back. She’d left soup on the stove, and she had to go back to turn off the heat. I ignored her, driving on, but she insisted. At a stop light she even opened the door, and I turned the car around, telling myself it was only for the soup. But I knew I’d failed to save her.
29
“Someone’s in the hall, Lloyd,” I repeat. Watching Lloyd by the door listening to see if I’m right shows me I could have a plan. I can convince him of whatever I want. Heather must understand, because she says, “I heard it too.”
Lloyd kicks the door. GET ME THE PRESIDENT, DAMN IT. GET OUT OF HERE. I’LL SHOW YOU I MEAN IT.
There’s silence on the other side.
In another minute, he’ll start shooting through the door. I start talking. “You showed them you aren’t stupid. And you showed them Daiyu—you’ve done your part,” I tell him.