Shelter (15 page)

By the time he gets out of the car, Mae is talking to the landscaping company, asking someone to send a crew over to cut the grass and tend to the flower beds, which are lightly scattered with dead petals and leaves. There's also an issue with the trees, she says. One of the Japanese maples needs its branches trimmed.
Tomorrow?
he assumes the person on the phone asks, because Mae fires back: “No, it has to be done today.” Then she adds,
“¿Rápido, comprende?”
and he's not sure what surprises him more—the fact that she knows some Spanish, or the sharpness of her replies. Not once during the conversation does Mae say the words “please” or “would you” or “could you.” She just sounds curt and entitled, oblivious to the fact that it's a Sunday, a day when most people—even her gardeners—have other plans. Kyung doesn't see the problem as clearly as she does. The landscaping appears slightly less perfect than usual, but the Japanese maple that supposedly needs trimming looks no different from its twin on the left, and the grass is still short and even from the last time it was mowed. When Mae gets off the phone, she surveys the rest of the house, shading her eyes from the sun.

“Do you think it's necessary to have that work done now?” he asks.

“That's what I pay them for.”

“But is it really necessary for them to come today—of all days?”

“This house is my business,” she snaps. “You just mind your own.”

Their arguments always begin like this. He gets angry with her for getting angry with him, and suddenly both of them are being equally awful to each other. This time, he resolves not to take the bait. The only way his brain can cope with what happened to Mae is to find a more peaceful way of being with her, to manufacture a silver lining even if he runs the risk of suffocating in it. He follows her up the lawn silently, trying not to notice the same things he saw the week before. Instead of the bank of drawn curtains, he stares at the pattern of the flagstone path. Instead of the flowerpot filled with marigolds, he studies the wrought-iron hummingbird feeder hanging from its post. When he unlocks the door and pushes it open, he braces himself for her reaction, but Mae doesn't even stop, much less react. She just speeds past the damage as if she doesn't notice it, stepping awkwardly over the broken furniture and toppled plants. There's something not quite right about this, something almost frightening about the way she disappears into the kitchen and returns with a fistful of garbage bags.

“Take these,” she says. “You can start in here.”

“Doing what?”

She waves her hand at the floor without looking at it. “Sweep up. But put any valuables you find on the dining table so I can go through them.”

Kyung catches her wrist, holding the birdlike bones in his fingers. “You're sure about this? You don't want to—talk or something?”

Mae shakes herself free. “No, I just want to know what I lost.”

She leaves him in the entryway, uncertain if he should follow or simply do as he was told. He's tempted to remind her that what she lost amounts to more than just things, but the longer he stands there, the more it makes sense. Her greatest source of pride, her greatest source of security in life was this house and all of its contents
.
Caring for them was the only thing she did that his father ever praised. Maybe putting it all back in order will help her feel normal again, whatever normal means now.

Kyung finds a broom in the hall closet and starts on the floor, sweeping potting soil and bits of broken glass into piles that look like glittering anthills. He takes several slow passes over the entryway, but despite emptying his dustpan twice, everything still seems dirty. Even the air feels thick with dust that makes it hard for him to breathe. He distracts himself by studying the debris collecting under the yellow bristles of his broom. In the entryway, it's mostly dirt and glass. In the living room, it's mostly paper—loose pages from
Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, The Call of the Wild,
all ripped from their spines
.
It bothers him to see so many books he loved as a child, plucked off the shelves and destroyed for no good reason. He always imagined giving them to Ethan one day. The books, the furniture, the valuables. Everything, actually.

At thirty-six, Kyung is beginning to accept the possibility that his fortunes will never change. It bewilders him, though, how he followed his father's example, but produced such different results. From an early age, he was led to believe that if he studied hard and worked even harder, he'd eventually be rewarded for his efforts. If an immigrant could come to this country and make something of himself, his son would surely continue that line of progress, multiplying the gains of one generation for the next. Kyung, however, hasn't moved the line forward so much as back. Other than his debts, he wonders what, if anything, he'll have in his own name to leave behind. The best he might be able to do for Ethan is pass on what he inherits from his parents, a thought that makes him feel oddly proprietary, as if the damage in the room were somehow done to him. It's only now that he realizes what good work Mae did, curating the house in such a way that nothing ever seemed out of place until it all suddenly was.

When he finishes sweeping the living room, he moves on to the hallway, which is littered with broken picture frames and glass, hundreds of splinters and shards scattered everywhere. In between, he finds knickknacks of the half-broken or lost variety. A porcelain bird's head, but no body. Jagged pieces of a china plate that appear to have no match. Torn photos too damaged to piece together again. He picks up a handful of scraps and examines them, but can't figure out who the disembodied eyes and ears and mouths belong to. The photos seem like junk now, things to be swept away with his broom, but he wonders if Mae would disagree. He imagines her spreading out the pieces, using tweezers and glue to reassemble them like some elaborate jigsaw puzzle. Such a waste of time, but what else does she have? He walks into the dining room and finds her sitting at the enormous twelve-person table, most of which is covered with collectibles and figurines. She's been making a list of everything on a legal pad, writing out what each item is, what it looks like, and who made it. He looks over her shoulder and follows her delicate, curlicued script down the left side of the page—
Limoges, Tiffany, Baccarat, Steuben.

“What's all this for?”

“Insurance claim,” she says, not looking up from her work.

He picks up a small crystal bowl that's much heavier than it appears and carefully sets it back down. “But don't they just need a list of everything that has to be replaced?”

“I can't tell them what's missing until I figure out what I still have.”

“Oh.”

Mae's tastes are expensive; they always have been. Perhaps the only good thing about being married to Jin all these years was that he could afford her. Their settlement is sure to be considerable. Between the art and everything else, Kyung would venture to guess a hundred, a hundred and fifty thousand at least. It's strange to think that the money his parents will recoup from their losses alone would change his life for the better—not fix it entirely, but enough.

“What about the photos and broken stuff? What should I do with all of it?”

“Put the valuables somewhere out of the way so I can look at them,” she says. “The photos I don't need anymore.”

He didn't expect her to dismiss the pictures so quickly. Many of them are sixty or seventy years old—vintage sepia-toned originals of relatives who passed away long before he was born. It's sensible of her to let them go. Sensible, but still surprising.

“I'm done with the living room now. Do you want me to start on the second floor?”

“No.” She pauses. “That can wait until later.”

He's grateful for this response. He isn't ready to see the master bedroom yet; he'd prefer never to set foot in that room again. He waits for Mae to give him another task. When she doesn't, he makes up his own, sweeping some broken glass beside the china cabinet.

“Can you not do that here?” she asks.

“What would you like me to do instead?”

“I don't care. Just do it somewhere else.”

Kyung clenches the broom handle and walks away, digging his fingernails into his palm. When he returns to the living room, he stops in front of the window, startled by the sound of footsteps and a man's hushed whisper outside. He pushes back a corner of the curtain and sees two shadows cast long and diagonal against the porch. He runs to the entryway and lifts the broom like a bat, lowering his voice to a menacing baritone.

“Who is it?” he shouts. “What do you want?”

The person on the other side of the door knocks timidly—three quick raps followed by a meek “Hello?” He puts the broom down, embarrassed to realize that the landscapers have arrived, but when he opens the door to greet them, he finds his parents' elderly neighbors standing on the porch instead. Mrs. Steiner is holding a large glass tray covered with tinfoil.

“Lasagna,” she says abruptly, thrusting the tray at Kyung's chest. “It needs an hour at 425.”

“Oh … well, thank you.” He doesn't know what to do next—leave it at that and send them away, or invite them in.

“How are your parents?” Mr. Steiner asks, peering inside.

Kyung remembers them from the news, shaking their heads and mumbling about what a good neighborhood they lived in, how people were supposed to be safe in the Heights. He wishes they hadn't spoken to a reporter, but he can't blame them for what they said. It was exactly what everyone else in town was already thinking. The Steiners own the biggest house on the street, a massive Victorian painted in various shades of purple, which would be hideous if not for the fact that it was done very well. He's not sure if Mr. Steiner is retired now or still runs his chain of sporting goods stores, but judging from the giant canary-colored diamond on his wife's finger, it hardly matters.

“My parents are doing better, thank you. They're staying with me for a while. My mother and I just dropped by to do a little cleaning.…”

The Steiners are no longer listening to him. Their attention has drifted over his shoulder to Mae, who's fixing her hair as she joins them in the entryway.

“Carol, Mort, hello. Why don't you come in?”

She sounds remarkably, unnaturally cheerful again, the same way she did with Lentz. He doesn't know why she feels the need to do this now. She can't possibly think anyone expects it of her.

The Steiners take a few steps inside, but both of them are tentative, as if the air just beyond the threshold is toxic. Carol's milky blue eyes wander over the broken pieces of furniture and trash bags propped up in the corner. She looks frightened. Kyung thinks it's lucky she didn't arrive a few hours earlier.

“We noticed a car in the driveway, so we thought we'd stop by,” Mort says.

“And I made you a lasagna.”

Mae takes Carol by the arm and leads her into the living room. “Thank you so much. Do you want to sit down and have some coffee? It's—it's messy in here. I'm sorry about that.”

The difference in her tone is noticeable, so much kinder than the way she spoke to Kyung only minutes before.

“Here.” She flips over a badly stained sofa cushion. “Why don't you sit down?”

“No, no. Don't go to any trouble, Mae. Carol and I just wanted to drop off some food. We'll let you get back to your work now.”

“Oh, wait. Don't go just yet. I actually have something for you.”

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.