It’s been half an hour. Late Friday afternoon. No one’s home. The adults are at work; the children have gone out to play. This must be the high time for robbery. Where are those Asian gangs? They raid their own people, Detective Lester said. But no gang in sight, hardly anyone on the block. It is not such a terrible neighborhood. Not a bad corner on which to spend your final night.
The sky is turning charcoal gray now. The threat of an imminent shower. She has no umbrella, and it is really not appropriate to get soaked on a stranger’s stoop. Her wait is numbered. It is good to have a limit. Otherwise, she might never walk away.
Across the street is a row of identical brownstones. She wonders if her parents knew any of the people there. Neighbors who saw them, who sat across the street while they ate, slept, worked. She wonders if any of them exchanged words on their final morning. Maybe someone’s car was parked in their driveway as her father was pulling out. Maybe a jogger waved at her mother walking out the front door. Maybe a newspaper delivery boy on a bicycle saw the light on in her parents’ bedroom and wondered who was getting up as early as he.
But no such evidence; it’s been five years. When they finally closed on the house, Suzy was long gone. Their first house in America. Their first home. The only evidence of home, although she’s never even seen it until now. From the outside, it appears no different from the countless apartments and brownstones in her childhood. A bit nicer, perhaps. A slightly better neighborhood. Woodside, not as bad as Jersey City or Jamaica. Never as bleak as the South Bronx, where her parents worked every day. Except the curtains are wrong. Mom would never have put up such pink frills across the window. Too happy. Too American. Maria Sutpen must be an all-American girl, one of the only whites on the block. A strange neighborhood for such a girl. A strange thing, to choose to be a minority. But, then again, a rent-free house does not come by every day. What does it mean that Grace just let her live here? What was their arrangement exactly? Has Grace always been so generous?
Grace never even let Suzy borrow her clothes when they were growing up. After all, they were only one year apart; it should have been natural for the sisters to share clothes. But Grace would not have it. She said that it creeped her out to see the same jacket, the same skirt on Suzy. Mom did not make it easier. She would often buy the same clothes for both girls. The same V-neck sweater in different colors, the same Jordache jeans in different sizes. Everything seemed to have been found on a two-for-one sale rack. It never occurred to Suzy to make a fuss. In fact, she could not understand why Grace was so bothered. Sure, they resembled each other, in that general way siblings do, but Grace was the one everyone remembered. On Grace, even the drabbest Woolworth’s finds turned into one-of-a-kind. It was like watching Cinderella at a touch of the wand, and Suzy would not have dared to try on her glass slippers. Yet it was Grace who marked her territory with vicious insistence. It was Grace who could not seem to bear the thought of being Suzy’s other half. It was always Grace who pushed her away first. So Suzy was completely taken aback when Grace left her most of her wardrobe upon leaving for Smith. When Suzy asked why, she shrugged and said, “Doesn’t matter anymore.” Not an act of generosity, Suzy thought. The exact opposite. A silent declaration of the end of sisterhood. What Grace wanted was to leave everything behind, including her own clothes, including Suzy in those same clothes. Suzy is still not sure what made her retort so sharply, “’Cause you’re never coming back.” Grace was in the middle of packing, the suitcase wide open on the floor. She stopped trying to fit the huge volume of the American Heritage Dictionary in between the set of writing pads and looked across at her with what Suzy thought was almost concern. The coldness was gone too. Finally, she said, as if in apology, “Not if I can help it.”
Grace had not spoken to the family for a few months by then. Not since the incident. No, not that Keller boy with whom she had once been found naked in the back of his father’s car. No, that had happened much earlier and was quickly forgotten once they moved away, soon after. Grace had come up with some story about having been forced by the boy, which Suzy suspected was a lie. The possibility that Grace might have been violated drew the matter to a taboo. It might even have secured Dad’s trust, for he no longer seemed to suspect Grace. No, the real thing happened when they were living in Jackson Heights. Suzy never learned what actually triggered such an outburst of violence, but one night, Dad dragged Grace in through the front door, gripping her by the hair. Grace’s hair reached down to her waist then; she often wore it in two long braids, like a mean version of Pocahontas, as some girls at school said. But that day, she must have worn it loose, because Suzy can still remember the black silk fluttering through the air as Dad took out the scissors and slashed through it. It had all happened so quickly that neither Suzy nor Mom could stop him. They simply backed against the wall and watched in horror. Grace did not even flinch. When she finally spoke, her voice carried such rage that Suzy felt suddenly afraid. Dad had begun shouting how she was ruining her life, to which Grace shot back, “But you’ve already made sure of that.” Strangely enough, Dad said nothing in return; Mom looked away. Grace turned to leave when she caught her own reflection in the mirror. Her face was all red from Dad’s burning hands. Her hair was cropped so close to her head, like a boy’s. For a second, Suzy thought she glimpsed a glint of smile on her sister’s face. It was a fleeting gesture. A flash of something akin to resignation. But a smile nonetheless.
It had to have been only one thing. Boys. Dad must have found Grace with one of her leather-clad boys. He must finally have stumbled upon the truth. He must have dragged her out of wherever with the fury of a father betrayed. On the surface, Grace had the markings of the perfect daughter. She had just been named the valedictorian. She was off to college on full scholarship. Even Dad was left with not many grounds on which to vent his anger. So he did one thing that defied all words. He took away her hair. Her iridescently black, luscious, seventeen-year-old hair.
Grace never sneaked out afterward. A point had been made, it seemed. What that point was, Suzy never knew. Suzy never asked what really happened that night. It is hard to fathom now why she didn’t. Ironically, Grace looked even more radiant with her newly cropped hair. A girl monk. An odd transformation. She would sometimes brush her fingers across her bare neck while reading. She seemed freer somehow. She seemed ready now to go out into the world. Dad had done her a favor. For whatever it was worth, she managed to fool him until the end.
Later, when Suzy heard about Grace taking on the job as an ESL teacher, she recalled the rage in Grace’s voice on that night many years ago. English as a second language. Fort Lee High School, whose student body was over 30 percent Korean. Exactly what Dad would have despised. The pursuit of English. The job of rescuing kids whose Korean language got them nowhere. The mission of spreading English into all those newly arrived Korean minds. Grace was still trekking their parents’ wishes, but in the opposite way, in the only way that would hurt them. Only Suzy knew this, of course. Only Suzy could tell that Grace was not okay. Only Suzy suspected that whatever Grace sought in Jesus had nothing to do with God.
No one would have guessed that Grace would go off to a New England college only to get hooked on the Bible. The whole thing seemed strange, almost spiteful. Yet church was what Grace chose, with shockingly fervent enthusiasm. Jesus Christ—the impostor whom Dad had always rejected as the antithesis of everything Korean, the source of what threatened to destroy Korea’s five-thousand-year-old history, the Western conspiracy to colonize Asia and its Buddha and Confucius. Grace picked Jesus, while Suzy threw herself at Damian, the white man, the older married man, the one she was not supposed to love. But Suzy had assumed that Grace would be smarter. She had always believed that Grace would be freer of their parents.