Jung Yun - Shelter

He imagines Gillian’s reaction as she drove up the same road earlier that day. Mouth open, fingertips pressed against the window, looking like the girl from the Flats that she really is. He knows what she’s probably thinking now; he knows the inconsistency of her mind. Pride is her Achilles, but she wouldn’t hesitate to accept Jin’s help if he offered. With a few keystrokes or a checkbook and pen, his parents could erase all their debts and give them a fresh start. But their help would come with a price far worse than what they live with now. Every invitation his parents extended, every request for help or company or time — they wouldn’t be able to refuse if they took their money. Kyung isn’t about to indenture himself to them now, not after so many years of trying to avoid it. The minute he moved out for college, he juggled part-time jobs, shared apartments with too many people, took out loans to pay tuition, and took out more loans when he was short on cash — all because he didn’t want to owe his parents anything. Still, he feels a flare of resentment as he surveys the enormous property. He never asked for their help, but not once did they offer.

The long, unpaved road curves toward the water, rattling the car and everything inside it. In the passenger seat, eight empty beer cans clank against each other, accompanied by the noisy ping of loose gravel churning in the tire wells. Kyung switches off his headlights, trying to make his approach less noticeable. He wasn’t entirely committed to coming to Orleans when he started driving, and despite all the beer he drank along the way, he can’t resummon the courage he felt back at the house. By now, he assumes that Molly has confessed everything to her husband, begging for his forgiveness, and God’s too. It’s only a matter of time before he’ll have to tell Gillian, a conversation so daunting, it feels like a wall of stone — something so tall, he has to crane his neck up to see where it might end. His only choice is to climb over it or wait to be crushed if it falls. There’s no other way around this time, and maybe this is what he wanted all along, to force his own hand.

Kyung pulls into a parking space, hidden from view by the shadow of Connie’s huge Suburban. He gets out and closes his door, pushing it into place with a click instead of a slam. As he walks up the front steps, he considers turning back. No one saw or heard him arrive. No one is expecting him until tomorrow. But his desire to flee gives way to the blurriness of his eyesight, the spinning sensation in his head. To attempt driving back now would land him in jail or a ditch or the ocean, so he knocks and holds his breath, waiting for the door to open. When it doesn’t, he tries the knob, which should be locked but isn’t. He steps into the entryway, relieved to find it empty. To his left, there’s a living room with a long wall of windows that overlook the bay. To his right is a study filled with books and a soft, pillowlike couch that screams his name. Nearly everything in the house is white. White walls, white ceilings, white furniture. Like the house in Marlboro, Mae clearly spared no expense on the renovations. The place looks exactly the way a beach house should. Open and airy, like something out of a magazine where no children or pets or people actually live.

He takes a few more steps inside, following the muffled sound of voices toward the back of the house. The farther he tiptoes, the more the air begins to smell like butter and brine. At the end of a long hallway, Kyung stops before an open door and presses his back against the wall, listening to the conversation in the adjoining room. Jin tells Connie that the fishing is terrible in Nauset Bay, but offers the use of his boat to visit Salt Pond Bay instead. A woman whose voice he doesn’t recognize exclaims that she loves boats; she has ever since she was a child. Gillian encourages Ethan to climb into his chair by himself. You’re big enough now, she says. You can do it. The conversation is much easier and lighter than he imagined, moving amiably from one topic to the next without so much as a pause. He doesn’t know where his mother and Marina are — in the kitchen, probably — but so far, everything seems to be going well, better than he would have expected.

He smooths out his shirt and hair and walks into the dining room. “Hi,” he says casually, stopping to kiss Ethan on the forehead.

“Well, look who’s here,” Connie says. “I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”

“I finished early.”

Jin seems disappointed to see him. He nods in Kyung’s direction, but the gesture conveys nothing. It’s barely a greeting. It’s certainly not a welcome.

Gillian gets up to give him a hug. She sniffs his breath suspiciously and then forces herself to smile. “What happened to your face?”

Kyung touches the bandage he slapped on his cheek before he left home. He wonders if she can make out the fingernail marks through the thin layer of gauze. “Books,” he says, glancing at the wall of books behind her shoulder.

“Books?”

“I was reaching for something — at the office. They fell off the shelf and hit me in the face.”

“Oh.”

Everyone is seated around a long planked table that looks like it was salvaged from an expensive Italian farm. Kyung takes the empty chair next to Gillian. Across from him is a middle-aged blonde.

“Hi, I’m Vivian.” She reaches over the flower arrangement to shake his hand, clinking all the shiny bracelets on her wrist. “But you can call me Vivi.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Connie’s new girlfriend is prettier and more cheerful than Kyung would have expected. Such a difference from his first wife, who never appeared happy in any of their pictures. Until now, he always assumed that Connie liked his women short and thick, but Vivi is exceptionally fit for her age, which he’d put at mid- to late fifties. She’s tan too, in a carrotlike way that suggests fake sun out of a bottle, not vacations at the beach.

“We’ve been having such a wonderful time here,” Vivi says. “Thank you so much for inviting us. I was just telling Connie how I was hoping to get to the Cape this summer, and not two days later, you called.”

She has a pretty laugh. Feminine and natural, with a flash of straight white teeth. Connie is clearly enamored of her, which is strange. He looks like he’s on his best behavior, dressed in a shirt that actually has buttons. The fact that he’s here with his in-laws suggests that he’s serious about making this woman happy. Serious, or simply too cheap to take Vivi on a getaway of their own.

“Grandpa and I found shells today,” Ethan says from the other end of the table. He lifts a hermit crab shell in the air so that Kyung can see.

“Did you have fun?”

Ethan looks at Jin, giggling in a way that seems almost secretive. Such an innocent gesture, but it confirms what he’s suspected for weeks. There’s a transfer of affection happening, a slow siphoning off from Kyung to Jin. He doesn’t know how to make it stop, much less reverse it. If he tells Ethan to stay away from his grandfather, he’ll demand to know why. Kyung would never be able to answer his son’s questions truthfully, not without changing him.

“I’m glad you had a good time.” He takes a bottle of wine from the table and fills his glass just shy of the rim.

His excess apparently amuses Connie, whose laugh sounds like a donkey’s bray. “That must have been one heck of a drive.”

“Save some for the rest of us,” Gillian suggests gently.

“But you were the one who said we’re on vacation.” Kyung takes a long drink, surprised by the pleasant, unfamiliar taste in his mouth. He picks up the bottle and examines the label. It’s a 1989 white Burgundy. There are two more bottles just like it on the table.