I place the ID facedown on the kitchen counter next to us. My head swims.
“But I thought companies have to offer health insurance for a few months.”
“Well, not this one. It’s complicated.”
“What about Obamacare?” I blink rapidly. I’m still smiling, still trying to be helpful, still angling to give my sister an out.
She snorts. “The first bill went to Mom and Dad’s for some fucked-up reason, and they never open their mail so they dropped me for nonpayment.”
Our parents aren’t the type to be overly concerned with fat envelopes from New York State of Health. Mom and Dad’s genius strategy is to wait to age into Medicare and fly to Korea for the big shit.
“It’s so fucking typical. Other people fuck up and I’m left holding the bag.”
“Wait a minute.” I raise my hand. “That’s your read on this? That you got fucked over? You stole my identity. You took my health insurance without asking me, you made a mistake with your permanent address, how are you left holding the bag?” I pick up the paperwork from the kitchen counter and shove it at her.
“You could have fucking asked me.” Finally, my voice rises. She glances at me, warily. “You don’t just take something like that from someone, June.”
“I did it to protect you,” she says. “Why would I implicate you?”
“Wow.” My sister is incredible. “Well, thanks for looking out for me.” I cover my hot eyes with my cool palms as another thought clicks into place. I pull my hands away. “That’s why you didn’t want me to come to the doctor with you, isn’t it? You were hiding this from me.”
I can’t help it. This time, I really do laugh. “God, I can’t believe I was worried about you.” I shake my head. My sister’s mercenary.
June’s mirror neurons fire because she’s smiling too but her eyes are watchful.
“You were being so weird. I thought you were depressed or…” I feel my fingers rake through my hair. “You just didn’t want to get fucking busted.”
“You didn’t want to be there anyway,” she shoots back, pointing at me. “I could see it on your face. You hate when people need anything from you. It terrifies you. I know it does. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not with your bullshit Florence Nightingale act. No one has any expectations of you, Jayne. Ever. You’re always going to run away with your loser friends that treat you like shit and get fucked up. That’s what you do. That’s who you are.”
All the air in my lungs escape. I have never doubted that my sister, as alienated as we were, had my best interests at heart. I knew I annoyed her. I knew she judged the way I dressed, who I hung out with, the way I studied, but even when we were at each other’s throats in high school, I knew that somewhere deep down she loved me. She might not have liked me, but she loved me.
“You know what? You’re right. You’re so right. Everything you’ve ever thought or said about me is right. Thank you.”
I grab my bag off the floor.
My sister watches.
“See?” she says, shaking her head with another bitter smile.
I open the door.
“God, you’re predictable,” she adds.
I glare at her. My sister is not a good person. And she is not my friend. And the pathetic truth is, I’m devastated. I was better prepared to hate her before she came back into my life. A kaleidoscope of images troop through my mind. Of us at different ages.
Making each other laugh at church.
Speed-washing glasses at the restaurant.
How she’d look up from her homework late at night waiting on Mom and Dad to get home.
“Are you still coming to Texas?” She says it quietly. In a tone I don’t know how to parse. I let the door close behind me.
I can’t deal. I can’t feel my face. As I frantically hit the elevator button, heart speed-bagging the back of my throat, I realize that she never once said she was sorry.
And that, despite it all, I left my ID for her on purpose. Just in case she needs it.
chapter 19
“You could be twins,” says everyone when they find out that June’s name is Ji-hyun and that mine’s Ji-young. “Both your names are Ji!” As if anyone would ever name twins the same thing. Nobody would do that. Not even sadists.
Mom and Dad thought June would be easy for an American name. It’s basically a portmanteau and it’s a breeze to pronounce in Korean and easy to say in English. For June, Ji means “meaning,” or rather, “purpose.” And the Hyun means “self-evident.” It’s a strong name. No wonder she’s had Columbia banners on her wall from infancy. She’s known what she wants since in utero.
My Ji means something else. That’s a thing with certain Korean families, that siblings’ names have the same first syllable. Homonyms. My Ji’s not as good. It means “seed.” It’s diminutive. I’m a fleck, a crumb, a mote of something but not my own thing. It sort of reminds me of the way people are named in The Handmaid’s Tale. I’m Ofmyparents. Ofjune.
I’m not wild about the “Young” in my name, either. It means “petal.” Teeny and pretty and entirely inconsequential. I wish I’d been named after a war general or some kind of poison. When June and I got our green cards renewed, before we got our US passports, people couldn’t get over how close our names and social security numbers were. Someone even remarked, “Oh, you’re Ji-young and you’re younger. That’s how you remember.” As if June and I need a mnemonic device.
I march downtown from my sister’s, hugging myself, tears streaming down my face, mayhem in my heart. It’s freezing. My breath puffs out in little Miyazaki clouds with each step. With so many crews of people in matching costumes, I’ve never felt lonelier. I hadn’t known it was possible.
There’s no need for a mnemonic device to distinguish you from your sister when the difference is so apparent. With sisters, like twins, there’s always a better one. Around our house and certainly at church, June’s and my assets were public knowledge to be debated right in front of us. June’s grades. My hair. The paleness of my skin. June’s coding camps. My lissome limbs. Her accelerated math courses. With us, there was a smart one and a pretty one.
Except then I got ugly.
Or “healthy,” according to Mom’s church group, who’d gamely pat my love handles and pinch my cheeks. “It’s not the meals she eats at home that are the problem,” Mom would say in a stage whisper. “Texas sized means Texas thighs.” Once, one of the Theresas at church suggested that it could have to do with an unstable home and Mom looked as though she’d been slapped.
Sisters never stand a chance to be friends. We’re pitted against each other from the moment we’re born. A daughter is a treasure. Two is a tax. God, how they must have wanted a boy when they tried a do-over after a dead baby girl.
A thought teases and then expands, collapsing my rib cage and wrecking my heart. June wasn’t worried when she came to the restaurant to find me. She saw me cutting class on her phone and needs me as a full-time student because of my health insurance.