Jung Yun - Shelter

Not once have they talked about the way she used to treat him. Avoidance was always the price of their détente. But now he worries that he dismissed Gillian’s concerns too quickly, and whatever faith or confidence he had in Mae, she’s just lost.

“If you ever put a hand on Ethan, if you ever scare him or hurt him in any way, I can’t — I won’t let you do that.”

She rocks herself harder.

They drive through several lights without speaking, although Kyung keeps thinking that they should. If there was ever a time to have this conversation, to revisit the source of their resentments, now seems right. Now seems like their last best chance. He can’t, however, bring himself to start. He knows why she stopped hitting him so many years ago, even though the subject has never been discussed. When he entered his teens, he was big enough to hit back. The thought of this makes his chest tighten, hardening the air in his lungs. He would never. But he allowed her to think so because the threat of violence was the only thing that protected him from harm.

As he turns onto his street, he swerves to avoid a car parked too close to the corner. Mae sits up, startled by the screech of his tires. Dozens of cars are parked along the curb, end to end down the length of the block. Kyung’s neighborhood is full of families, young ones not much bigger than his own. Aside from the occasional garage sale or birthday party, crowds like this are rare. He wonders if a neighbor is hosting a barbecue that he and Gillian weren’t invited to, but the slower he drives, the more he notices the bumper stickers with the telltale logo, and then there’s the familiar red Buick in front of his house.

“No,” Mae says, tapping her window. “No, no.” She grabs her door handle as if she wants to jump out. “I knew they’d do something like this.”

“Why are they all here?”

“I think they came to see me.”

He doesn’t need to ask who she means by “they.” It’s Sunday, a day they own. When he woke up that morning, he assumed his father would ask for a ride to church, but the hours kept ticking away, and Jin never mentioned it.

“Should I keep going?”

“No,” she sighs. “Just park.”

Kyung pulls in behind the Buick, which has a shiny Jesus fish attached to its bumper. Beside it, there’s a sticker that reads PEACE, scrawled in childlike cursive letters. He turns to Mae, who’s examining herself in the mirror, pinching her cheeks to bring out their color. Her face is smooth but tense — the upper jaw locked tightly against the lower.

“Do you even want to see these people right now?”

“What does it matter? I’ll have to see them eventually.”

“But if you’re not ready—”

Mae snaps the visor back into place. “Please,” she says quietly. “Please don’t make this any worse.”

Reverend Sung is the first to greet them when they open the front door. A kiss on both cheeks for Mae and a stiff handshake for Kyung, followed by something he can’t hear above the crowd.

“What did you say?” Kyung asks.

“Your parents couldn’t join us at church today,” he repeats. “So we brought church here.”

The reverend makes it sound like he’s doing them a favor, and Mae responds with a grateful nod of her head, but Kyung can’t stand the sight of so many strangers milling through his house. It feels like they’ve been invaded.

“Where’s my wife?”

The reverend cups his hand to his ear. “What?”

“My wife?”

“In the kitchen, I think.”

He leaves Mae with the reverend and squeezes through the hallway, occasionally throwing his elbows to separate the bodies pressing in around him. He finds Gillian in the dining room, standing in a corner with her arms crossed over her chest. The room is overrun by women, all jabbering away at each other as they organize the meal. The table is covered with huge trays of Korean food, surrounded by neat little containers of paper plates and plastic utensils, bottles of soda, and stacks of napkins embossed with the church’s logo. The women take no notice of Gillian as they go about their work, setting up a buffet line that would rival any restaurant’s.

Kyung leans down to whisper in her ear. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did. I’ve been calling for over an hour.”

Kyung pats down his empty pockets. The last time he saw his phone, his mother was using it. “How long have they been here?”

“Since four, I guess. Did you know this was happening?”

“No, of course not.” He looks around and lowers his voice. “I would have told them not to come.”

“Actually, they’ve all been very nice. Did you see how much food they brought?”

“Who cares about the food? The point is, that man ”—he’s too frustrated to say the reverend’s name out loud—“that man didn’t even tell me they were planning this. He should have asked first.”

Gillian just shrugs. She doesn’t understand the way these people are — all smiles and politeness one minute, then vicious and judgmental the next. He’s known this about them ever since they entered his parents’ lives, felt it in their stares and questions and awkward attempts at conversation. They think he’s a lesser person because he refuses to believe as they do. And Gillian — lapsed Catholic that she is — she matters even less, but she can’t see through their act.

“Where’s Ethan?”

“He’s with your father in the living room.”

“Doing what?”

“I think he’s just playing—”

He leaves her midsentence, sidestepping past the women to rescue Ethan, certain that he’s trapped by a gaggle of old ladies who keep asking if he accepts Christ as his savior. Kyung’s first memory of them is exactly this. A crowd of pinched faces and perfumed hands, all pestering him about things he didn’t understand, words he didn’t even know. He’s not about to let a stranger click her tongue at Ethan and tell him that hell is for bad children who don’t believe.

The living room has been repurposed into a makeshift receiving area, with a long line that extends deep into the hallway. Jin is sitting in an armchair with Ethan on his knee, while Mae is sitting in the chair beside him. The small sofa and love seat are occupied by the very elderly, so the rest have taken to the floor, sitting compactly on their heels or with their legs tucked off to the side. His parents look like a king and queen, surrounded by their court, while a line of visitors slowly moves past to pay their respects. Jin greets them all with the same handshake and hello, but Mae does her best to make conversation, accepting their hugs and kisses with gratitude. Kyung wishes he could hear what people are saying to her and what she’s saying so pleasantly in response, but it’s too hard to make out anything above the din. Occasionally, someone passes through the line and pats Ethan on the head, but no one seems the least bit interested in him, and he only seems interested in his puzzle.

The reverend wades into the middle of the room and claps his hands in the air. “Attention, please. The ladies tell me they’re almost ready, so it’s time to give thanks.”

Everyone reaches for the two people sitting nearest them. Ethan looks around; he seems confused by the sight of so many strangers holding hands. Kyung doesn’t want him subjected to this, but one step forward, and he sees something that forces him to stop. At first, his parents take each other’s hands like everyone else, but as soon as the congregation lowers their heads in prayer, Mae lets go with a violent flick of her wrist. She blames him, he thinks. That’s why they’ve barely spoken ten words to each other since she came home, why she won’t let him sleep in the same room with her. Kyung almost feels sorry for his father. Nat and Dell Perry were twice his size and half his age. There was nothing Jin could have done to prevent what happened to her. He assumes Mae will understand this eventually, but he doesn’t want to rush her to that conclusion. She needs to get there on her own.