“Is that what you do with Ethan and me?” she asks.
Gillian knows him better than anyone; she’s loved him better than anyone. But even she can’t see who he really is. Kyung’s face reddens; his palms and armpits go damp. Every part of his body begins to betray him, sending signals he can’t hide. The only answer that she wants and deserves to hear is no. The word is right there, a single syllable on the tip of his tongue. All he has to do is say it, but the coupling between his mouth and brain suddenly seems disconnected. He pries his legs off the plastic straps of the chair, crossing and uncrossing them again as time slowly runs out. The longer he doesn’t respond, the less truthful he’ll sound when he does, but something inside him feels broken now, worn out with overuse. Gillian waits for him to deny it until she can’t wait anymore. Then she dusts herself off and walks toward the house, taking in the silence like the reply that it is.
FIVE
Marina’s release from the hospital brings the math into sharp focus. Kyung’s three-bedroom house is too small to accommodate five adults and one child. There’s nowhere to put her except on the living room couch, where she sits and sleeps in plain, uncomfortable sight. Although Gillian won’t admit it, he thinks she regrets taking her in. Marina’s presence isn’t good for the boy; it isn’t good for anyone. One look at her is an instant, unwanted reminder of the attack, so they all scramble to leave the house in the morning, to be somewhere she isn’t. Jin takes Ethan to the park or zoo, while Kyung and Mae return to her house to clean. Gillian offers to divide her time between them, but neither pair is eager for her company, so she goes to the library or coffee shop, unaware of the slight and grateful for the time to read.
Mae is furious that Marina is staying with them. Like a scratched record that skips in the same predictable place, she suggests that Kyung send her somewhere. A home, she says vaguely. Although she never explains whose home or where this home might be, it’s obvious that if Mae could snap her fingers and make Marina disappear, she’d do so without thinking twice. Kyung assumed that his mother would have more sympathy for the girl, but no such bond or loyalty exists. If anything, they seem to operate in sharp contrast to each other. Marina’s pain medications leave her in a stupor, a state she lingers in throughout the day, while Mae is a blur of activity, focused only on returning things to right.
“A maid,” she sneers. “Who in the world would take in a maid?” Mae is standing in her living room, placing figurines on the bookshelves as Kyung looks on. “And you didn’t even ask if I’d mind.”
By now, their argument is so familiar, Kyung knows his lines by heart. “Where do you expect her to go?”
“It’s not like she’s homeless. She has an apartment of her own.”
“In a building with no elevator and six flights of stairs. Imagine Marina trying to live there without any family around to help her.”
“But why is that your problem? You barely even know her.”
“It’s not my problem—it’s Dad’s. Remember? Marina listed him on her college forms as her emergency contact.”
“So tell your father to give her some money so she can go to a hotel.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
Mae runs her fingertip across the length of a shelf, inspecting it for dust—something she’s already done twice. She ignores his suggestion, just as he ignored hers. Kyung would like nothing more than to get Marina out of his house, but he’s never talked to Jin about money. He’s not about to raise the subject now.
“Marina needs people,” he says. “People who can check on her, make sure she’s okay.”
“Your father can buy people too.”
She makes a point of turning to look at him as she says this. Kyung isn’t sure what he sees in her eyes. Not judgment. Complicity, maybe. She goes back to her work, exchanging a small glass vase on one shelf with a set of candleholders from another.
“I don’t like coming downstairs and seeing her on the couch … the way she’s always sitting there, just staring at me.”
Earlier that morning, Kyung heard voices drifting up from the living room while he was getting dressed. He cracked his door an inch and heard his mother and Marina speaking in angry, muted whispers, the kind that people reserve for arguments they don’t want others to hear.
“What were you two talking about today? Before I came downstairs?”
Mae moves the vase an inch to the left, and then a fraction of that to the right. She crosses her arms and steps back, cocking her head as she examines her work. “I don’t know.”
“It sounded like an argument.”