Shelter (23 page)

“There.” He slides off the oversized key to Kyung's office and slips it into his bag. “I don't want to see you here for the rest of the summer. There's nothing that can't wait for you until August.”

Kyung has a spare key at home, not that it really matters. He doesn't want to be here either. He eats another pinch of muffin, washing down the stale crumbs with the last of his coffee. He can feel Craig watching him, waiting for a thank-you, perhaps—and on some level, he knows he deserves it. This is his idea of being kind.

“Thank you.”

“It's the least I can do, Kyung. I'm sure it can't be easy for you right now, but trust me. Work can wait. You won't regret the time that you spend with your family, later on.”

Behind him, Kyung hears the metal scrape of a chair against the floor. He turns to find the cafeteria nearly twice as full as it was before. On the other side of the room, Marcy is standing in the cashier's line. He'd prefer to avoid running into anyone else from his department today, and Craig has all but ordered him to leave. Leave and do what, though? He doesn't think the time he's been spending with his family has helped them in any way.

“What would you do if you were me?” he asks.

“If I were in your situation?” Craig stares at his breakfast; he seems terrified to imagine the possibility. “I guess I'd just try to be there for everyone.”

“Yes, but beyond just being there.”

“I don't know. I mean, what your family's been through—the only word that can really describe it is ‘evil.' Just the worst kind of human evil. I'm not sure there's anything you can do about that other than love each other and trust that things will eventually go back to the way they were.” He pauses. “I'm sorry, Kyung. Maybe I misunderstood your question? I don't think I'm answering it the way you want me to.”

“No, no. That's fine.” He pushes his chair back from the table. “I was curious, that's all. I should probably get going now.”

Craig has hardly touched his breakfast, but he moves his tray off to the side. “You'll make decent time if you head to the Cape now. Reverse traffic.” He stands up and shakes Kyung's hand, resting his other on Kyung's shoulder. “You'll get in touch if you need anything? Anything at all? You just have to let me know.”

From another man's mouth, the offer might sound hollow and perfunctory, but Craig isn't the type to say less than what he means.

“Thank you.”

As he feels Craig's grip loosen, he squeezes harder, realizing that the answer was right there in front of him the entire time. The twins turned out well, not because of anything that Craig or his wife did but because of the kind of people they are. Good, decent people who always put the needs of their children ahead of their own. It was never more complicated than love, one generation raising a better version of the next.

“I never really had a chance, did I?”

Craig squints at him. “A chance at what?”

“Nothing,” he says. “I was just thinking out loud.”

*   *   *

He can count the number of times he let his anger get away from him. What he lost track of years ago is how often he had to walk himself back from that cliff. Control is the only thing that separates his anger from his father's; he's known this for years. But as he stares at the red Buick parked in his driveway again, his insides blister with rage, and there's nothing he can do to stop it, nothing he wants to do anymore. Kyung slams his palm against the horn and leaves it there, drawing neighbors out of their homes as the seconds multiply into minutes. They stare at him, confused and startled by the unbroken sound, wondering why he won't make it stop. He throws his head back, hitting it against the headrest until everything around him becomes a blur. In the corner of his eye, there's a flash of pink, and then a loud click as the door flings open and a hand reaches over to grab his.

“What are you
doing
?” a woman shouts.

His eyes slowly focus on Molly, not the reverend as he assumed.

“Why are you here?” he shouts back.

“I, I came to pick up yesterday's containers. And I brought you more food.”

“I don't need it.” He gets out of his car and walks toward the house, ignoring the neighbors still gathered outside. “Everyone's gone.”

“Gone where?”

He hears Molly's voice trailing after him. Don't follow me, he thinks. Don't.

“Well, where did they all go?”

The key to the side door sticks. He shakes it harder than he should, not caring if the thin glass window crashes to the ground.

“Here, here. Let me.” She takes the key from him and unlocks the door.

Kyung brushes past her, through the hall and into the kitchen, which still smells like bacon. The sink is filled with dirty dishes smeared with egg yolks and bluish streaks of jam. Perched on top is an oily frying pan, slick with grease. He doesn't know whether Gillian forgot to clean up her mess or if she was just in a hurry to leave. Both explanations are equally plausible. Neither does anything to improve his mood.

“So where did everyone go?” she repeats.

“Could you please just leave me alone?”

“But there's no one here to help you.”

He can't explain the relief he felt as he watched his family pile into Connie's car and drive away. It was like a gift, especially his mother's last-minute decision to take Marina along with them. The house was quiet for once, quiet until now.

“Help me do what? What exactly do you think I need help with?”

“I don't know. It just doesn't seem like you should be on your own.”

He turns his back to her, staring at his reflection in the window. His face is strangely bloated; the bags under his eyes are more swollen than usual. He looks old all of a sudden, like the bell curve of his life is in permanent decline. To admit this to Molly would only invite her cheerful, biblical brand of consolation, and he's not in the mood to hear it right now.

“I'm worried about you, Kyung. I've never seen you like this.”

“I asked you to leave.”

“But maybe—maybe you need someone to talk to?”

He doesn't know why she thinks this is her responsibility. They've never been anything more than casual acquaintances, distantly positioned on each other's periphery. He hooks his fingers through a handle, opening and closing a drawer because it's there. The inside is stuffed full with windowed envelopes—bills, he assumes, that Gillian wanted somewhere out of sight. The thick, haphazard stack makes him nervous. He wonders how long they've been there and how many of them have actually been paid.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she offers brightly.

“God, you're awful.”

He says these words with none of the anxious planning that usually precedes his attempts to talk to her. And although her face registers a sort of wounded surprise, he recognizes something familiar just below the surface. He looks her up and down, not making any effort to be discreet this time. The flash of pink he saw in the car was her dress, a bright pink sundress with a sweater tied around her shoulders. For modesty, he assumes. The neckline is lower than usual, inches below the pendant that he rarely sees her without. He reaches for the flash of diamonds, brushing her bare skin as he lifts the crucifix to examine it.

“What happened to you?” he asks.

She swats him away and the pendant falls to her chest. “What happened to
me
? What happened to
you
? Why are you acting like this?”

There, he thinks. There's the girl he remembers from so long ago. Insolent, angry. Not afraid to raise her voice. This is the girl who threw a chalkboard eraser at their English teacher for picking on her, the one who always smelled like smoke and patchouli and sex.

“I liked you better in high school,” he says. “You were more honest back then.”

“Honest? What am I not being honest about?”

“About who you really are.”

She shakes her head. “I don't know what that's supposed to mean.”

“It means I think you're a fake. You and everyone else from that church, but you in particular.”

Molly's mouth is open, but she doesn't make a sound. She just backs away and braces herself against the edge of the sink. She looks like she's about to cry, which would disappoint him. The old Molly would never cry.

“Maybe that's your opinion,” she says. “But you haven't spent enough time with us to really know.”

He opens the refrigerator and rummages through its contents until he finds a six-pack of beer, hidden behind the gallon jugs of milk and juice.

“You're having beer now? It's not even ten o'clock yet.”

He stares at her over the rim as he downs half a can. “It's been a long day.”

Molly looks away, embarrassed or uncomfortable—probably both. “So where did everyone go?”

“To the Cape.”

“And they just left you here?”

“Maybe I wanted to be left.”

She nods. “I'll get going too, then. There's food in the cooler if you want it, but it has to be refrigerated soon.”

“You still haven't answered my question.”

She blinks at him. “What are you talking about?”

“What happened to you? What brought on your … conversion?” He makes no effort to soften his ridicule as the word slides from his tongue. He wants to see the old Molly, the real one. He wants the truth that only she can tell.

“You're too closed off to God to hear anything I say.”

“Try me.”

He stares at Molly in profile, at the way her long black hair falls over her shoulders, appearing almost red in the sun. He's tempted to push a strand away from her face, but her expression is too pretty to disturb. She's looking out the window into the backyard, her eyes framed by a thick sweep of lashes. There's a pale brown mole on her cheek—he's never stood close enough to notice it before—and another at the base of her collarbone.

“I wasn't a good person when I was younger. I think everyone in school probably knew that. I had problems, lots of them, and after a certain point, it was hard to forgive myself for some of the things I'd done. But I was lucky—the people I met at college, my friends, they helped me realize that it wasn't my forgiveness I needed to seek.”

“That sounds like your husband talking, not you.”

“It's the truth.”

“But what good is that? It's not like you had a conversation with God. It's not like you said ‘I'm sorry' and heard him accept.”

“No, but I have faith that he heard me.”

“That kind of forgiveness is all up in here.” He taps the side of his head too hard. “It's what my son does with stuffed animals. It's make-believe.”

Molly takes a sponge from the sink and wipes a puddle of juice off the counter. She goes over the area again and again, long after it's dry. “Maybe it'd be better if you talked with my husband about this. I don't think I'm expressing myself very clearly.”

“It's not about being clear or unclear. I just don't buy this devout little wife act. You're either fooling yourself or the rest of us—I can never tell.”

Molly throws the sponge down and squares her shoulders, appearing much taller than she did before. “You don't have the right to talk about me like that, like you actually know me. You never tried to befriend me—not back in school and not as adults either. You have no idea who I am.”

Her tone is barely civil now, and he likes the unguarded spike of hostility, returning like a memory she long ago blocked out. All these years, he had it wrong. Being kind to Molly, being a gentleman—that wasn't what she wanted. Some part of her still responds to being abused.

“I didn't try to befriend you because I felt sorry for you. Everyone knew how easy you were, how you'd go off during lunch with anyone who asked. I didn't want to be one of those guys who just used you in the back of his car and then never gave you the time of day.”

“Ha,”
she shouts, thrusting her face just inches in front of his. “I saw the way you always looked at me. You still do it now. You were just too shy to do anything about it when you had the chance.”

Her expression is angry and defiant, a break in her carefully composed veneer. Kyung sees the victory in this, the dare. One second, his arms are crossed over his chest. The next, he's clutching the back of Molly's head, pushing his tongue into her mouth. The effect is ugly and sloppy, more probing than kissing until a switch goes off somewhere, wired deep in the back channels of her brain. Gone is the woman so prim and eager to please. In her purest state, Molly is all instinct and aggression. She wraps her arms around his neck, snakes her leg around his leg, kissing him so furiously that her teeth knock and scrape against his. They stumble against the sink, and a pitcher falls off the counter and shatters on the floor. He can feel bits of glass crunching under his shoes, but the strangeness of this sensation quickly gives way to another—her hand on his pants, tracing and retracing him through the fabric.

This is what being with a woman is supposed to feel like. Dangerous and unfamiliar, on the edge of something because it's both. By now, he knows every pale curve and freckled hollow of his wife's body. He knows exactly how Gillian will respond if he touches her in one place versus another, if she wants him to be gentle or rough. The sex is never bad so much as predictable—rushed, usually—as if both of them would rather be doing something else. With Molly, it's different. He's not accustomed to her reactions, to the sounds she makes as he lowers a strap of her dress to kiss her bare breast. Her back arches as if it might break; her hips press tightly against his. He wants to take his time, to enjoy her while he can, but nothing about this feels patient. Kyung lifts her onto the countertop, centering himself between her legs. He yanks her underwear to her knees and slips his fingers inside her, higher and higher until she almost loses breath.