Shelter(38)

Mae disappears into the kitchen again, leaving the three of them looking at each other awkwardly. Kyung has no idea what to say. His parents and the Steiners have lived next door to each other for years, but he’s never spoken to them before. What little he’s seen or heard about them seems quaint and old-fashioned, as if they’re stuck in a different era. Unlike his neighbors, who wave in passing and quickly move on, the Steiners drop by with flowers and vegetables from their garden. They stop to have long, extended conversations over the fence.

“So you and your family live down the hill?” Mort asks.

Kyung nods.

“There’s some nice real estate down there these days.”

He nods again. Normally, Mort’s comment would bother him. People in the Heights never hesitate to point out the difference between living on the hill and below it. But he’s too distracted by Carol to reply. She’s wringing a pot holder, twisting the fabric tighter and tighter until her knuckles begin to turn white. She strikes him as a fragile sort of woman—rail thin and small, as pale as the double strand of pearls around her neck. He can’t imagine what kind of bubble she lived in next door, or how it feels now that she’s out.

“Here you go.” Mae returns with an oversized silver fork. She hands it to Carol, who stares at it wide eyed, running her thin fingers over the elaborately forged handle.

“Where in the world did you find this?”

“I called about twenty different antique stores. I got this from a dealer in Springfield. It’s the right pattern, isn’t it? The Durgin Regent?”

“It is, it is. You remember this, Mortie? This is part of the serving set we got from your mother for our wedding. It’s the fork we lost when we moved.”

Mort puts on his glasses and studies the handle, which has an oval crest surrounded by an ornate floral trim. “That’s it, best as I can tell.” He seems vaguely interested, but uncomfortable focusing so much attention on a piece of silverware. “Thank you for finding it for us, Mae. That was very thoughtful of you.” He rests his hand on his wife’s shoulder, aware that she’s starting to cry. “It’s okay, Carol. Jesus, what are you doing that for? It’s just a fork.”

Carol hangs her head. Her shoulders begin to shake, small tremors that quickly turn into seismic ones. There’s nothing worse than seeing a woman her age cry, Kyung thinks. He puts down the lasagna so he can get her a tissue, but she starts blotting her face with a pot holder instead.

“I’m sorry. You’re just so nice. I can’t stop thinking about what happened to you. Those men, they were monsters.… We keep hearing about them on TV.”

She’s crying too hard to notice Kyung clearing his throat, desperate to send her a signal to stop. The news never referred to his parents by name, but anyone who recognized the house filmed in the background knew what happened to the people who lived inside. Every time Kyung turns on the news or opens the paper, it’s the same story, the same onslaught of reminders that he doesn’t want his parents to hear or see. How mortified they’d be to realize their shame was so public.

“Our sons are always telling us not to keep so much cash in the house, but we just assumed we were safe here. Shows you what we know.” Carol continues to weep. “Nobody’s safe anywhere these days.”

Mort flinches. “Okay, sweetheart. Time to go. We’ve bothered these folks long enough.” He steers his wife toward the door. “I’m sorry about this,” he says to Mae. “I’m so sorry about everything.”

She smiles at him but says nothing as the Steiners walk down the steps and cut across the lawn toward their house. When they slip out of view, she shuts the door and sighs.

“Are you all right?” Kyung asks.

“I really thought Carol would be happier about that serving piece. It took me such a long time to find it.”

“That’s what you’re upset about? A fork?”

She looks at him curiously. “I worked really hard to get that for her.”

“But it’s just a fork.”

The expression on Mae’s face could be the beginning of anything—anger, sadness, frustration. It has no shape yet, no hard edges or creased lines, as if she’s still trying to decide what to be.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it that way. But you don’t need to keep pretending like everything’s the same as it was before. We all know it’s going to be difficult for a while.”

She continues staring at him, almost the same way she stared at Jin in the kitchen. Kyung understands now why his father was the first to blink. It’s her eyes—the emptiness of them, like no light will ever break their surface again. As he turns away, Kyung feels the pain before he sees the source of it—Mae’s hand, slapping him hard and fast across the cheek. The shock sends him back decades to his childhood home, to a room much like this one, with this miserable woman who was supposed to love him but barely even seemed to like him. He takes a step backward, supporting himself on the banister, waiting for the next hit to come. But Mae just stands there, her expression dissolving into something he doesn’t understand.

“What do you know?” she shouts. “When have you ever wanted to know anything?”

She picks up the lasagna and walks away, kicking the kitchen door open. As soon as it swings shut, he hears a crash against the wall—not the accidental kind that would send him running to help—but something more intentional, something thrust or thrown with force. He imagines the lasagna pooling on the floor, covered with shards of broken glass, but he doesn’t dare take a step in Mae’s direction. His hands, he realizes, are balled into fists.