Jung Yun - Shelter

“Our sister, Mae, is no longer with us…,” the reverend says. “I know that her loss may seem like too much to bear, and you’re tempted to ask yourselves, Why? Why did the Lord have to take her?”

In the corner of his eye, Kyung sees several people nodding, but it’s not the right question, he thinks. God didn’t take her. She took herself. And the guilt he feels is multiplied by the fact that he prayed for this as a child, back when he thought his prayers might still be answered. He wanted his mother to run. He wanted her to be brave. But he knows it wasn’t bravery that made her get in that car. It was him.

“Some of you may even find yourselves blaming the Lord for her absence.” The reverend lowers his head, shuffling through pages and pages of notes that everyone can hear through the microphone. When he looks up again, he pauses much longer than he should, flustered in a way that Kyung has never seen before.

“We’ll now have a reading from Sister Han.”

A small Korean woman stands up across the aisle. She watches the reverend for a signal, confused perhaps by the brevity of his remarks. When he doesn’t give one, she approaches the altar, nervously folding and unfolding a slip of paper. Kyung thinks he recognizes her. She and her husband used to run a copy shop somewhere. Her round face is more withered now, and her hair has turned gray, but her footsteps sound the same, the way they clunk in thick black orthopedic shoes that correct the uneven lengths of her legs. Despite the shoes, Mrs. Han’s face barely clears the podium.

“From Thessalonians…” She adjusts the microphone, cranking it down near her mouth with a screech that rings through the sanctuary. “‘For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.…’”

Kyung turns to look down the pew at his family. Everyone is listening intently to Mrs. Han as she struggles through the reading, her accent too thick to fully enunciate the words. No one is crying except for Vivi, who dabs at her face with a handkerchief, consumed by a fit of grief that seems out of place beside the others. Gillian squeezes his leg — not affectionately, but forcefully, as if to snap him back to attention. He scans through his program, a long list of readings and remembrances by people he barely knows. When he looks through the names more closely, he notices that Jin isn’t scheduled to speak on Mae’s behalf, and of course, no one trusted Kyung enough to ask. He’s never attended a funeral in which a family member didn’t say at least a few words about the deceased, but their omission seems entirely appropriate. He and his father lost their rights to Mae long before the Perrys entered their lives. It’s better that people who treated her kindly have a chance to say their good-byes.

“‘… And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.’”

The reverend thanks Mrs. Han for her reading and assumes his place behind the podium again. Kyung expects him to begin his eulogy in earnest, but he introduces the chorus and retreats to a corner as an army of people take to the stage. They arrange themselves in two long rows, dressed in royal blue robes with their hands clasped in front of their chests, the same way Kyung was taught to sing in public as a child. Behind them, a man begins to play the pipe organ, which lights up the sanctuary with noise — too much noise, almost. It drowns out the solo of the woman in the center, whose reedlike voice drifts aimlessly toward the ceiling. The rest of the choir eventually joins in, singing something about Jesus being a redeemer, but what the actual lyrics are, Kyung can’t hazard a guess. There’s a muddy quality to their performance. The song feels unpracticed or unplanned. He looks at his program again, confirming that what they meant to sing was “Amazing Grace,” which this certainly isn’t.

After the music concludes, an older woman approaches the podium with a stack of index cards. She raises the mike, filling the sanctuary with the same unfortunate screech as Mrs. Han. The woman’s face glows white and oily under the spotlights as she introduces herself as Elinor Hamel, Mae’s decorator. Kyung has never seen her before. For years, Elinor was nothing more than a voice on the phone or a name in a story. She was the person Mae spent the most time with, and probably spent the most money on as well. At first, Elinor doesn’t seem like much of a speaker. She clears her throat too much and fumbles through her prepared remarks until she eventually puts her note cards down.

“I wasn’t sure if I should bring this up today, but it’s difficult to talk about Mae’s life without at least referencing the things that happened to her recently.”

All the ambient noise in the room — the coughing, the fanning, the shifting in pews — suddenly stops and the sanctuary is quiet. Kyung sits up straight, wondering if he’ll finally hear something uncomfortable and true.

“I’m sure there are people out there, people who didn’t know Mae like we did, who thought of her as nothing more than a victim. But Mae was just the opposite. She was strong and smart. She survived something terrible, something that would have broken an ordinary soul. And I have to believe that God had his reasons for testing her as he did and then taking her away so soon afterwards. Maybe he had a special place for her.…”

Several people raise their Bibles. A ripple of amens makes its way to the back of the room. Kyung feels like he’s sitting on the bottom of a swimming pool, looking up at a distorted view of a world in which no one understands what really happened. And his father and Gillian, people who should understand, refuse to believe.

Elinor concludes with a passage from John 14. “‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.’” She pauses and puts her note cards down again. “Mae is with our Father now, making his home more beautiful for him and for us, which was always her way. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to be her friend in this lifetime, and I know we’ll meet again in the next.”

There are other remembrances and readings after Elinor’s, brief ones that are hard to listen to nonetheless. Everyone talks about Mae in generalities, confirming his fear that she never let anyone truly see her, not once in fifty-six years. Kyung tips his head back and stares at the huge stained-glass panels in the ceiling — bright red, blue, and gold crosses surrounded by bursts of color as if he’s viewing them through a kaleidoscope.

“Pay attention,” Gillian whispers.

Kyung looks at her, not certain if she’s speaking to him or to Ethan. Then he feels the sharp point of her elbow in his ribs.

Ethan leans forward in his seat as an elderly woman climbs the steps to the altar. She’s dressed in a traditional Korean gown, floor length and white, with a long-sleeved jacket that ties in the front with a bow.

“Is she a bride?” he asks Gillian, who responds with a gentle “shhh.”

Kyung studies Ethan’s profile, quiet and focused as he tries to make sense of what the woman is wearing. It’s embarrassing to see his four-year-old behaving better than he is, so he defaults to an old trick, counting everything in his line of sight. There are 73 gardenias in the planter in front of him, 214 words in the program, 48 fake bulbs in the candelabra on the altar. As a child, he often counted to pass the time, distracting himself until the beatings ended and the house was quiet again. Whatever comfort he took from this activity — it fails to soothe him anymore.