This is the longest she’s ever been angry with him, the longest she’s ever gone without wanting to talk things through. Whenever he tries to start a conversation, she’s quick to interrupt, filtering everything he says through the worst possible lens. It’s not like her to be so closed off to him, but there’s nothing he can do to fix this right now. His only goal is to get through the day.
Despite the church’s carefully maintained appearance, the parsonage hasn’t received the same kind of attention over the years. The crooked little house looks the same as it did when the elder Reverend Sung lived there. Although everything is immaculate, scrubbed clean and pine fresh, there’s no hiding the peeling linoleum in the entryway or the trampled shag carpet in the living room—carpet that Kyung still remembers staring at whenever his parents dragged him to Bible study. Even the furniture looks the same, just older and more abused. The sofa cushions sag. The tables and bookcases are all marred and mismatched. Kyung can’t imagine living in the house he grew up in, much less leaving everything as it was before. The thought of this is so strange to him, but he reminds himself that not everyone had a childhood like his. Maybe the memories here are happier; the sameness, a source of comfort.
Without any prior discussion, Kyung and his family branch off into different areas of the house. Gillian and Ethan gather with the women and children in the kitchen. Jin deposits himself on the living room sofa while Connie and Vivi head toward the buffet line in the dining room. Kyung continues down the hall, looking for a place where they’re not. He shakes hands and says hello to people as he passes by, but never stops long enough to exchange more than a polite sentence or two. At the end of the hall, he finds a bathroom behind one door and a study directly across from it behind another. He doesn’t think Gillian can accuse him of disappearing if he leaves the door open, so he slips into the cramped study, surprised by the volume of furniture and clutter inside. The reverend’s desk is the length of a dining table, with loose sheets of paper covering every square inch. Stacked on top is an oversized hutch lined with boxes of ancient software and seemingly broken printers. Kyung sits down in the chair, studying the books on the shelves. About half of them are religious, with titles that seem like self-help: Your Relationship with God. Spirituality in Troubled Times. Lifting Your Soul with Prayer. Curiously, the other half is science fiction, the cheap paperback kind with aliens and spaceships landing on their covers. Kyung picks one up at random and flips through the yellowed pages. The writing is neither terrible nor inspired—just pulp that he wouldn’t think to associate with the reverend.
Across the hall, someone closes the bathroom door, scraping a metal chain to lock it from inside. Kyung puts the book back on the shelf and turns to the desk, scanning the papers in front of him. He notices his mother’s name on one page, and then another. The closer he looks, the more he sees Mae’s name scattered everywhere. The reverend must have been working on his eulogy here, printing and reprinting the text at least a dozen times. He reads a random paragraph about Mae’s devotion to God, and then another about her generosity toward the less fortunate. Like the sci-fi book, the writing isn’t terrible. But it’s not special either. The eulogy reminds him of a horoscope, something so general that it could apply to almost anyone, which he doesn’t necessarily fault the reverend for. What else is a minister supposed to do at a funeral besides say comforting things about the dead? What he doesn’t understand is why the reverend never said any of it at all.
When the bathroom door opens, an elderly man appears, catching himself midstride as he notices Kyung in the study. He walks in and bows, taking Kyung’s hands as he attempts to offer his condolences in Korean. When Kyung explains that he doesn’t speak Korean, the man starts over again in quiet, stilted English. After he leaves, he’s replaced by another old man, then a pair of young women, then a couple with a baby in a sling and a boy about Ethan’s age. The study turns out to be the worst possible place to hide. People stop to pay their respects on their way to or from the bathroom. They form a line down the hall, waiting until their turn finally arrives. Kyung remains standing the entire time, nodding through one conversation after the next with no break in between. Everyone seems genuinely sad and sympathetic, but it’s hard not to notice how they all say a variation of the same thing. They tell him his mother was wonderful and generous. They tell him she was helpful and special and kind. He tries to listen attentively to everyone who walks through the door, but it’s painful. He and Mae were nicer to strangers than they were to each other.
After an awkward attempt at conversation with a woman who doesn’t speak English, he notices Elinor poking her head inside the door. She enters the room and introduces herself, crossing her hands limply over her chest. Up close, Elinor is one severe swipe of color after another. Her hair is an unnatural shade of red that reminds him of an old penny. And her lips are red too—a bright, thickly applied shade of fire engine.