“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, she 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.