Shelter(29)

“Look at you. You’re a mess.”

Bits of cheese and paté and crackers fall to the floor, snowing against the redbrick tile. He brings his fist to his mouth, trying to hold back a burp, but it’s too late. The air smells like meat and milk, laced with something bitter.

“Damn it, Kyung.” She covers her nose.

“Sorry…” He’s about to continue so she understands the apology wasn’t for the burp alone, but then he burps again.

She moves to the other side of the room, arms crossed, eyes hooded over with a frown. There are times when sorry alone won’t save him, when his behavior has to be dissected and discussed before anything resembling forgiveness can occur. It’s always the wait that he finds unsettling, that moment right before she opens her mouth when he can see it all building up inside. Gillian doesn’t hide anything from him; she says she shouldn’t have to.

“There are so many things I want to say to you right now—”

He raises his hand in the air to stop her. “Can I make a request?”

It was a bad impulse—they both know he’s lost the right to ask for anything.

“What?”

“Can you please not yell? I don’t want my father to wake up and hear us fighting.” He doesn’t bother to explain that his head feels like it’s being crushed, trapped between the metal plates of a vise. This is probably the least of her concerns.

Gillian crosses her arms tighter, holding herself in. “You know what? I’m not going to say anything right now. I’m just going to let you do the talking.”

He hates it when she does this. It’s the same as asking, What do you have to say for yourself? but without the motherly tone. He thinks for a second, making a careful list of everything she might be upset about.

“I’m sorry for leaving without an explanation and not answering my phone.… I’m sorry for going out for a drink … and I’m sorry for getting pulled over by that cop and asking him to call your dad.”

Her expression doesn’t change after his string of apologies. It probably sounded too much like a recitation. Gillian believes that people can say sorry but not sound sorry. The difference matters to her.

“And?”

“And…” He realizes that Tim must have mentioned the topless bars. His brother-in-law is truly a shit. “And I swear I didn’t go to a strip club tonight. I was at the pub across the street. I even told Tim to go over there and talk to the bartender if he didn’t believe me.”

Gillian looks confused. She didn’t know about this part, and she clearly doesn’t want to. “Listen, if this arrangement with your parents is going to work, you can’t just leave me here anytime you feel like it. You can’t make all of this my responsibility.”

“Did my dad do something to upset you while I was gone?”

“No. All he did was watch TV with Ethan. That’s not the point. The point is that you have to be here—I mean really be here. Your mother’s coming home on Thursday and now we have to take in Marina too, and you can’t just disappear like you did tonight. You’re not the only one having a hard time dealing with all of this.”

Her volume keeps rising, but Kyung doesn’t try to stop her. He’s still a few sentences behind. “What do you mean, take in Marina? Who said we have to do that?”

“Me.”

He waits for something else, something more to follow, but this is all she’s willing to give. “I don’t understand—we barely have room for my parents. How do you suppose we’re going to take in their maid?”

“We’ll have to figure it out. And stop saying ‘maid’ like that. She’s a person; she deserves our help as much as anyone.”

Kyung burps again. His stomach feels worse now with all of the rich food floating inside. “I’m not suggesting that she doesn’t need help or deserve it. I feel bad for her too, but there’s no room here.… I bet if she asked my parents, they’d pay to send her back home to her family.”

Suddenly, Gillian is almost on top of him, jabbing her finger at his face. “Do you hear yourself? Pay to send her back home? To Bosnia? Do you even understand why she left that country in the first place?”

He doesn’t, not really. He’s vaguely aware that the Bosnians and Serbians fought a war, but he can’t remember who the aggressors were, which side won or lost. Either way, none of this makes Marina his responsibility. He has enough of his own without taking a refugee under his roof. He wraps up the rest of the paté and puts it back in the fridge, trying to figure out how to say no without actually saying it.

“I’m sure there’s another option we haven’t—”

“Do you know what they operated on her for?”

“No. Why? Did my dad actually tell you?”

She flinches, as if the word she’s about to say is a blade sitting on her tongue. “A perforated rectum. That’s why she was bleeding internally. Can you imagine what kind of hell those men put her through? And now you want to send her back on the first flight to Bosnia with a colostomy bag and God knows what kind of nightmares for the rest of her life?” Her voice is getting louder again. She takes a breath, her pale skin flushed red. “This happened to Marina because she worked for your parents, because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, just like they were, so now we have to help her. Do you understand that, Kyung? Do you understand why a good, decent person would want to step up like that?”