Shelter(45)

“What’s wrong with you?” Mae asks.

“Nothing, why?”

“You’re driving so slow.”

He looks at the speedometer. He’s going twelve miles an hour.

“If you don’t want to teach me—”

“No, no,” he says, stepping on the gas. “I just got distracted.”

Kyung drives to the center of an empty lot and turns off the engine. The stadium casts a long shadow over the asphalt, hiding the sun somewhere behind its walls. He switches places with Mae and shows her how to adjust her seat.

“Accelerator and brake,” he says, leaning over and tapping each pedal with his hand.

“Accelerator and brake,” she repeats, moving her seat so close to the steering wheel, only a few inches of space separate her forehead from the windshield.

He wants to tell her to back up; there’s no need to sit that close, but Mae gets easily discouraged. One wrong word from him could cut their lesson short. He tries to channel the instructor who taught him how to drive when he was sixteen, going so far as to emulate the man’s calm, even tone. Seat belts first, hands at ten and two, foot on the brake when shifting out of park, mirror check before pulling out.

Mae drives much like Kyung did when he first learned, accelerating with unnecessary bursts of speed and braking as if to avoid wildlife. After her first few attempts, she begins to smooth out, driving in huge loops around the parking lot at a steady, consistent speed. Kyung rolls down his window to let some air in. When he looks over at Mae, she’s smiling as the wind blows her hair back; her eyes are clear and bright. He should be relieved to see her this way, but instead, it feels like someone has taken a lead pipe to his knees. Such a simple thing they’re doing, and she’s never looked happier, as if she never had reason to be happy before.

Mae reaches over and turns on the radio, which is tuned to an oldies station that Gillian likes. Kyung doesn’t care much for music, but even he recognizes the song that’s playing a few seconds into the chorus.

“… watching the tide roll away…,” Mae sings quietly.

“You’ve heard this before?”

“Just sittin’ on the dock of the bay…”

“I didn’t think you liked this kind of music.”

“I like music.”

“No, I meant—I thought you mostly listened to church music.”

“That’s your father. Not me.” She turns to him, taking her eyes off the road in a way that makes him nervous. “You know I have a record collection now? I’ve been buying a lot of old records—”

“That’s nice,” he says, grabbing hold of the wheel to correct the car’s drifting path. “Hey, maybe”—he pauses, trying to choose his words carefully—“maybe it’d be a good idea if you watched the road instead of me.”

She looks straight ahead and starts singing again. “Two thousand miles I roamed … just to make this dock my home…”

At the edge of the parking lot, Mae loops around a light post, her arms and shoulders more relaxed than when she began, and it all seems like some strange, wishful dream, listening to Otis Redding with his mother while she learns to drive. He should sit back and just let the moment be what it is—he knows that—but he can’t help himself. He has to ask.

“So you and dad—what’s going on with you two?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.… You’re not really talking to each other. Eventually, you’re going to have to, right? When you move back into your house?”

“Why? Do you want us out already?”

“No. That’s not what I said. I just, I just want to know what your plan is, when you’re going to start seeing a therapist, maybe work some things out.”

“I’m not doing that again.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to sit there while some stranger tells me I should change things about my life. That was insulting the last time.”

“I don’t think the doctor was trying to insult you.”

“Why should I pay someone to tell me things I already know? I know. I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”

Kyung never thought of his mother as dumb, not in the way she means it. Her disinterest in books, her lack of a college degree—he doesn’t judge her for these things. What matters is that she wasn’t brave enough to leave, and neither was he. He understands this more clearly now, sees it as the weight and counterweight that he balances across his shoulders. He made a choice to live his life in careful proximity to hers, and not once did she ever acknowledge what he lost, what they both lost because they were afraid to go. Where he would have ended up, what kind of person he’d be right now—he tries not to wonder. All he knows is that his life could have been different; it could have been better in ways that he can’t even imagine anymore.

Mae continues driving, but the expression on her face—he’s ruined it. Gone are the lines on her cheeks, bookending her smile like apostrophes. Everything has smoothed out, the skin perfect and creaseless, but cold. Kyung sits back and counts the light posts as she drives around in silent loops. After half a dozen passes, he tells her to switch directions. Mae looks anxious. She hits the brake too hard and the car lurches to a stop before she takes an agonizingly slow and wide turn in the other direction.