Shelter

by Jung Yun

  “Just milk, please.”

  Everyone watches as Gillian adds a slow trickle of milk, clinking a spoon around until the coffee turns to a bland, watered-down shade of beige. Lentz brings the mug to his lips, blowing on it before taking his first sip. No one knows what to say or do next, so they watch this too.

  Ethan walks up to Mae, shaking his tasseled handlebars in the air to get her attention. “Thank you for my bike, Grandma. I named him Boomer.”

  Mae stares at him blankly. Then she scans the parts scattered across the floor until she notices Jin sitting in the corner. She says you’re welcome as she looks away, but the words sound more like a dismissal. Kyung spends so much time teaching Ethan his manners. Please and thank you. May I and yes, ma’am. Whenever Ethan remembers something without being reminded, Gillian lavishes him with praise. Clearly, he’s grown accustomed to this reaction, because he waits for Mae to compliment him. When she doesn’t, he lowers his handlebars and retreats to the corner with Jin. If Ethan is hurt by her lack of interest or affection, he doesn’t show it, although Kyung feels the familiar sting for them both.

  “It was nice of you to come over,” she says, sitting down beside Lentz at the table. “Do you have any news about my house?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You and your husband are free to go back whenever you’re ready.”

  “Good, then. I want to go back today.”

  Everyone looks at her. Even Lentz seems surprised.

  “But we have you all set up here,” Gillian says.

  “No, not to stay. I just want to start cleaning.”

  Jin clears his throat. “Maybe it’s a little too soon for that.”

  “You don’t have to come with me,” she says. Her tone is sharp, sharper than she usually takes with him. “I’m tired of lying around.”

  “The department has a list of numbers, Mrs. Cho. Professional cleaners, I mean. It’s going to be a lot of work for one person.”

  “No, that’s fine. I’d rather do it myself.”

  Kyung thinks this is a terrible idea, possibly weeks or even months premature. Although he’s relieved to see Mae out of bed and determined to do something—anything—he doesn’t understand why she wants to clean her house. He worries that she hasn’t thought through how it might feel to return, to revisit the rooms where things happened. He doesn’t want her to go there alone.

  “If you’re sure you want to do this today, I’ll drive you,” he says. “I can help too.”

  Mae seems irritated by his offer, but they both know she has no choice. Her ankle is still too bruised to attempt the long walk again, and she never learned how to drive.

  She turns to Lentz and smiles at him almost sweetly. “Why don’t you let me make you some lunch before you go?”

  “Lunch?” Lentz seems terrified by this. “Oh, no. You don’t have to do that.”

  “But you must be hungry.”

  He’s about to decline again, but Mae is already on her feet. She hobbles past Gillian and scans the ingredients spread out on the counter, frowning at the disarray. Then she takes over the kitchen like it’s her own, opening drawers until she finds a knife to spread the mustard with, opening the refrigerator to search for another head of lettuce. Occasionally, she asks Lentz a question—Ham or turkey? Cheddar or Swiss?—but not once does she ask why he really came to visit, what news he has to report about the case. Kyung feels like he’s watching her have a nervous breakdown. The others seem to think the same. Gillian nudges him in the ribs. He looks at her, not sure what she expects him to say.

  “So maybe…,” he guesses, “maybe you should have something to eat too?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Mae is searching through a tall cabinet. When she reaches up to grab a box of plastic wrap, the sleeve of her robe falls, revealing a forearm that looks like a branch, ready to snap in half. Gillian has been leaving trays of food outside her door—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—but all the plates keep coming back untouched. As he stares at Mae’s wrist, it occurs to him that maybe she wasn’t eating at the hospital either.

  “There’s a lot of work to do at the other house,” he says gently. “It’s probably a good idea if you eat something before we go, even something small.”

  “Listen to the boy,” Jin says. “Eat something.”

  It’s been years since his father referred to him as “boy.” Instantly, he dislikes it, but his annoyance is quickly eclipsed by Mae’s reply.

  “Can’t you hear?” she shouts. “I—don’t—want—to.” Her tone is so cold, the expression on her face so withering; every carefully enunciated word hangs in the air, suspended in ice. Kyung can’t remember a time—not once in thirty-six years—when Mae talked back to Jin, much less raised her voice at him. The old Mae would never dare. His parents continue staring at each other, staring right through each other until their silence begins to feel dangerous. Kyung can’t believe that his father is the first to look away.

  Mae sets a plate down in front of Lentz. “Here you go,” she says, her voice now quiet and composed.

  The overstuffed sandwich has been hermetically sealed in plastic wrap. Beside it are a pickle, a handful of potato chips, and three miniature candy bars. On top of the plate is another tight layer of plastic, which keeps everything in place—the sandwich at noon, the pickle at three, the chips and candy at six and nine, a red plaid napkin underneath.

  Lentz doesn’t know what to make of this arrangement. It’s probably more than he expected, and clearly more bizarre. Kyung is accustomed to Mae overdoing things—the plate resembles the lunches she used to pack for him in grade school until he begged her to stop—but seeing a stranger react to her domestic excess is embarrassing. It looks crazy because it is.

  “Oh, well … Thank you. I didn’t mean for you to go to so much trouble.”

  “It wasn’t any trouble. I was happy to.”

  Mae volunteers to walk Lentz out. Kyung follows close behind, listening to their conversation. In the doorway, they shake hands, and Mae pats Lentz on the shoulder over and over again like a puppy or a child. Thank you, she says. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Lentz seems embarrassed by her gratitude, aware on some level that he hasn’t done anything to earn it. As he walks to his car, he stares at his neatly arranged plate of food as if its contents might be tainted.

  Kyung shuts the door as soon as he drives off. “What was all that about?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why were you thanking him like that?”

  “I didn’t think I’d be able to go back to my house for weeks.”

  “I’m talking about the”—he hesitates to use the word—“investigation,” which might remind her of the events that need investigating. “I’m not talking about the house.”

  “Well, I like him.”

  “I can tell, but what does liking him have to do with anything?”

  Mae turns toward the stairs, using the banister to pull herself up a step at a time. “He was nice to me that day…”

  She leaves the sentence unfinished, but Kyung feels the unspoken like a blow to the chest. He was nice to me that day—not like you.

  * * *

  Kyung and his parents immigrated to the States when he was four. Jin had just finished his Ph.D., graduating with honors at the top of his class. His tenure-track job offer from an American research university made him the pride and envy of his classmates, who threw him a going-away party that seemed lavish for the times. Kyung still remembers the cake, a tall white one that tilted off to the side, and a gift of three new suitcases, all in matching green plaid. Life seemed very big to him back then. A big party, a big trip, a big plane taking them away, carrying their plaid suitcases in its underbelly.

  Neither Kyung nor Mae spoke any English when they arrived in the States, so they relied on Jin to translate everything they didn’t understand. One day, the elderly Russian woman in the apartment next door gave them a flyer for a free ESL class at the library. Good for wife and boy, s
he explained. At first, Kyung didn’t mind being in the same class as his mother. They always went to the library early, weaving their serpentine trail through the shelves and imagining out loud what it would be like to read so many books. She was hopeful then; they both were, but their enthusiasm soon faded when it became obvious that Kyung was learning faster than she was. Jin berated her for this, shouting when she couldn’t remember the words for things like “breakfast” or “laundry” and telling her he regretted marrying someone so dumb. Every night, Jin quizzed them at dinner, pounding his fist on the table if one of them—usually Mae—answered incorrectly. The look on her face when he screamed at her—such a helpless, terrified expression—this is what Kyung tries to remember whenever she needs a ride. He forces himself to, if only to stifle his annoyance that she never learned to drive, never learned how to do much of anything.

  As he turns into the Heights, he glances at Mae, who’s sitting quietly in the passenger seat with her hands folded in her lap. She didn’t seem the least bit interested in conversation when they got in the car, but now he realizes she’s been watching him, studying him the entire time.

  “Is something wrong? Am I driving too fast?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s stupid.”

  “What is?”

  “I can never go anywhere by myself.”

  Kyung understands that his mother wants to be alone, to lock herself inside her house just as she did in his. She has no idea how difficult it’s going to be to return. Even he feels uneasy about crossing the threshold again.

  “I’ll stay out of your way. Just tell me what to do.”

  Mae looks out the window, leaning her head against the glass, but barely a minute passes and he can feel her watching him again.

  “Why do you keep doing that?” he asks.

  “I’m just curious.”

  “About driving? I’ve offered to teach you. I still can, if you want.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “No, it’s not. I bet you’d learn really—”

  She shoos him off, irritated.

  It’s sad that she thinks this way, but this has always been her problem. She never believed she was capable of anything. Jin made sure of that early on. Now isn’t the time to convince her otherwise. She’ll accuse him of not wanting to drive her around, which was always his motive for offering to teach her in the past.

  Kyung slows down as he approaches the house, spooked by its eerie calm, even in broad daylight. The neighbors and reporters who filled the sidewalks the last time he drove by have all dispersed. But a scrap of forgotten yellow tape flutters from the front door, and the curtains are still drawn.

  He parks in the driveway and turns to her, lowering his voice as if the house can overhear them. “You really don’t have to do this right now. We can go back home if you’ve changed your mind.”

  Mae takes his cell phone from the dashboard and gets out of the car, slamming her door shut. He assumes she heard him, but she clearly doesn’t care. She’s too busy punching a number into his phone, squinting at the tiny buttons on the keypad. Kyung shakes his head, aware that they’re falling back into the same old pattern again, the one in which he pities her and tries to help, and she treats him badly because she hates herself for needing him. It’s impossible to be near someone like this, someone who brings out the best and worst in him, who punishes his attempts to be kind. Gillian says that rudeness is a weak person’s idea of strength, a line she probably read on a bumper sticker or a box of tea. If she were here, she’d encourage him to try to be nice, even if Mae doesn’t deserve it, even if trying makes him feel like the child he used to be, always pushed away for offering his mother a hug.

  By the time he gets out of the car, Mae is talking to the landscaping company, asking someone to send a crew over to cut the grass and tend to the flower beds, which are lightly scattered with dead petals and leaves. There’s also an issue with the trees, she says. One of the Japanese maples needs its branches trimmed. Tomorrow? he assumes the person on the phone asks, because Mae fires back: “No, it has to be done today.” Then she adds, “¿Rápido, comprende?” and he’s not sure what surprises him more—the fact that she knows some Spanish, or the sharpness of her replies. Not once during the conversation does Mae say the words “please” or “would you” or “could you.” She just sounds curt and entitled, oblivious to the fact that it’s a Sunday, a day when most people—even her gardeners—have other plans. Kyung doesn’t see the problem as clearly as she does. The landscaping appears slightly less perfect than usual, but the Japanese maple that supposedly needs trimming looks no different from its twin on the left, and the grass is still short and even from the last time it was mowed. When Mae gets off the phone, she surveys the rest of the house, shading her eyes from the sun.

  “Do you think it’s necessary to have that work done now?” he asks.

  “That’s what I pay them for.”

  “But is it really necessary for them to come today—of all days?”

  “This house is my business,” she snaps. “You just mind your own.”

  Their arguments always begin like this. He gets angry with her for getting angry with him, and suddenly both of them are being equally awful to each other. This time, he resolves not to take the bait. The only way his brain can cope with what happened to Mae is to find a more peaceful way of being with her, to manufacture a silver lining even if he runs the risk of suffocating in it. He follows her up the lawn silently, trying not to notice the same things he saw the week before. Instead of the bank of drawn curtains, he stares at the pattern of the flagstone path. Instead of the flowerpot filled with marigolds, he studies the wrought-iron hummingbird feeder hanging from its post. When he unlocks the door and pushes it open, he braces himself for her reaction, but Mae doesn’t even stop, much less react. She just speeds past the damage as if she doesn’t notice it, stepping awkwardly over the broken furniture and toppled plants. There’s something not quite right about this, something almost frightening about the way she disappears into the kitchen and returns with a fistful of garbage bags.

  “Take these,” she says. “You can start in here.”

  “Doing what?”

  She waves her hand at the floor without looking at it. “Sweep up. But put any valuables you find on the dining table so I can go through them.”

  Kyung catches her wrist, holding the birdlike bones in his fingers. “You’re sure about this? You don’t want to—talk or something?”

  Mae shakes herself free. “No, I just want to know what I lost.”

  She leaves him in the entryway, uncertain if he should follow or simply do as he was told. He’s tempted to remind her that what she lost amounts to more than just things, but the longer he stands there, the more it makes sense. Her greatest source of pride, her greatest source of security in life was this house and all of its contents. Caring for them was the only thing she did that his father ever praised. Maybe putting it all back in order will help her feel normal again, whatever normal means now.

  Kyung finds a broom in the hall closet and starts on the floor, sweeping potting soil and bits of broken glass into piles that look like glittering anthills. He takes several slow passes over the entryway, but despite emptying his dustpan twice, everything still seems dirty. Even the air feels thick with dust that makes it hard for him to breathe. He distracts himself by studying the debris collecting under the yellow bristles of his broom. In the entryway, it’s mostly dirt and glass. In the living room, it’s mostly paper—loose pages from Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, The Call of the Wild, all ripped from their spines. It bothers him to see so many books he loved as a child, plucked off the shelves and destroyed for no good reason. He always imagined giving them to Ethan one day. The books, the furniture, the valuables. Everything, actually.

  At thirty-six, Kyung is beginning to accept the possibility that his fortunes will never change. It bewilders him, though, how he followed his father’s example, but produced such differen
t results. From an early age, he was led to believe that if he studied hard and worked even harder, he’d eventually be rewarded for his efforts. If an immigrant could come to this country and make something of himself, his son would surely continue that line of progress, multiplying the gains of one generation for the next. Kyung, however, hasn’t moved the line forward so much as back. Other than his debts, he wonders what, if anything, he’ll have in his own name to leave behind. The best he might be able to do for Ethan is pass on what he inherits from his parents, a thought that makes him feel oddly proprietary, as if the damage in the room were somehow done to him. It’s only now that he realizes what good work Mae did, curating the house in such a way that nothing ever seemed out of place until it all suddenly was.

  When he finishes sweeping the living room, he moves on to the hallway, which is littered with broken picture frames and glass, hundreds of splinters and shards scattered everywhere. In between, he finds knickknacks of the half-broken or lost variety. A porcelain bird’s head, but no body. Jagged pieces of a china plate that appear to have no match. Torn photos too damaged to piece together again. He picks up a handful of scraps and examines them, but can’t figure out who the disembodied eyes and ears and mouths belong to. The photos seem like junk now, things to be swept away with his broom, but he wonders if Mae would disagree. He imagines her spreading out the pieces, using tweezers and glue to reassemble them like some elaborate jigsaw puzzle. Such a waste of time, but what else does she have? He walks into the dining room and finds her sitting at the enormous twelve-person table, most of which is covered with collectibles and figurines. She’s been making a list of everything on a legal pad, writing out what each item is, what it looks like, and who made it. He looks over her shoulder and follows her delicate, curlicued script down the left side of the page—Limoges, Tiffany, Baccarat, Steuben.

  “What’s all this for?”

  “Insurance claim,” she says, not looking up from her work.