June blots her lips and checks her teeth. “Nobody loves this shit.”
“Then why do you do it?”
June rolls her eyes and caps her lipstick.
“Because being in a family is about doing shit you don’t want to for the benefit of other people,” she says. “Mom and Dad sacrificed everything for us, and they want the stupidest, basic shit in return.”
“What? Like lying to them about still having a job?”
June side-eyes me. “Do you listen to the words other people say to you, or is just a high-pitched droning?” She tosses her lipstick in her purse. “Mom and Dad want to know that we’re safe. They want proof that they did a good job. Why the fuck would I tell them I got fired? Mom calling me three thousand times a day and losing sleep won’t get me a new job. I’m protecting her. And whatever. I’m already talking to headhunters. I’ll have a new job as soon as all this shit is under control. People don’t really want to know how you’re doing. They want to wait until you’re done telling them so they can tell you how they’re doing.”
June shrugs. “Mom’s the same way. I don’t think it bothers me as much as it used to.”
My sister smiles at me with deranged brightness. “People like capable, positive people. It has nothing to do with reality.” June flashes her teeth even wider. “See? Boom. Different person.”
She pops open the door. “Just make us look good, okay? For me.” June gets out before I can answer.
Mom’s church is called, aptly, Church of the Korean Martyrs. Dead serious. At least that’s how it’s referred to once a week on Saturday nights. The Korean Catholic community in the greater San Antonio area leases the church at 6:00 p.m. every Saturday from a Catholic high school. A different, richer Catholic church gets the prime time slot of Sunday mornings. After mass, we eat in the gym. I snap a picture of the plastic banner that we sling on top of the regular Sacred Heart sign. I want to send it to Patrick even though I still haven’t listened to his three-minute sermon on my phone.
“You think one day we’ll get to have church on an actual Sunday?” asks June as she opens the door.
“But then we wouldn’t be martyrs,” I tell her.
“Yeah, right,” she says, nudging me. “As if these fools only martyr on weekends.”
It’s our bit. We’d said some variation of this every Saturday. I stopped coming when Mom left. I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of pretending we were still a family. To her credit, Mom didn’t make me. I took it as an acknowledgment of her guilt.
A sour man in the back glares at us for talking. I smile serenely without teeth, then pretend to dip my finger in the holy water to dab the sign of the cross on my forehead and over my heart. I don’t care how blessed it is, this shit could cure smallpox and still have pink eye floating around in it.
“Jesus,” mutters June, taking it all in. She leads us to our usual spot, the row immediately after the pews reserved for the choir. Right behind the organ. It’s all so much smaller than I remember. The wood-paneled, maroon-carpeted box looks like the waiting room of an old folks’ home. My eyes search the room, landing on the brownish water stain that resembles Italy’s boot on the back wall. I used to zone out on that stain, staring until it melted and I could feel myself melting along with it.
June gets up to say a few hellos. Hugging choir members spiffily done up in their freshly steamed purple robes, bowing deep as she greets each one. I hang back. Even fortified by my sister’s suit, I can’t stomach it. There’s Kim Theresa. Im Theresa. Park Helena. The other Kim Theresa, the one that lives out by Fort Sam Houston. I watch June shrewdly navigate the flock. She has a mind like a steel trap for differentiating Theresas.
“You look fantastic, Jayne,” one of them calls out to me from two pews over, wriggling her fingers in greeting. She has a dewy, open face and frizzy bangs. “You’d never know how fat you used to be,” she stage-whispers. “You’re a stick. A stick! And you must be at least a hundred and seventy centimeters tall. You could model.”
Park Helena, who I’ve always liked, waves. She doesn’t do the Korean compliment roundhouse, where the nicety detonates into an insult a half second later. These mom proxies remind me of those fishes that bloom around you and eat the dead skin cells on your feet. Patrick’s Mom was never among the nudgier women. She didn’t sing or play golf. In fact, I can’t remember talking to either of his parents beyond a perfunctory hello.
June punches my leg in solidarity when she sits next to me. The familiar chirp of KakaoTalk rings through the hubbub. The organist plays the first few notes of the opening hymn.
Mom enters to take her place, followed by Dad. As choir leader, she wears a gold-and-white sash on her robe. The priest is the only other member of the congregation with a sash. His features a slightly thicker gold border, which probably hasn’t escaped Mom’s notice.
Mom turns around to thrust a worn pleather-bound hymnal into June’s hand. We hear another KakaoTalk chirp. There’s another. And another. People check their phones self-consciously. It’s always old people who fail to keep their phones on silent while upbraiding us for our attention spans.
The first hymn begins.
I stare at the water stain and wonder what games Patrick played in his head while he was trapped in here with me.
As if sensing that I’m not contemplating spiritual redemption, Mom spins around and conducts directly at me and June. We can actually feel the whoosh of air from Mom’s enrobed arms flapping. June’s better at fake-singing than I am. She gives great, big spirit face. Boisterous on the first syllable, then letting the phrasing peter out. I barely move my lips. June elbows me again, harder. Her eyes light up as she pops her chin on the chorus. She’s so close to cracking up.
Our mother smiles and mouths with the exaggeration of a stage mom. She frowns, then smiles brightly, pointing at her mouth, instructing me to smile.
The song ends just as I find the right verse.
I can’t bring myself to take Communion even as my face burns when I have to get up to let people pass.
Afterward, we make our way over to the gym. June and I walk behind Mom. The sky is purple.
Before we burst through the double doors of the gym, Mom turns around and loops my hair around my ear. I wait for the barb. How the pants are a little tight across my thighs or that I need to brush my hair, but it doesn’t come. Instead she smiles and squeezes my arm affectionately.
I pocket this moment for myself. This memory alone makes the trip just about worth it.
chapter 33
We hear another Kakao chirp.
The gym already smells like the dankest Korean food, all garlic and fermented fish guts. Mom rushes ahead into the kitchen behind the row of folding tables arranged with large aluminum trays and Sternos burning beneath them.
I watch as she slings a navy apron around her neck and pulls on disposable plastic gloves. She flips her hair coquettishly to show off her necklace. The ladies admire it while Mom tilts her head this way and that, making them laugh. Then they return to serving banchan, scooping the fiery red vegetables and marinated meat with their hands, keeping the portions modest so everyone will be fed. Everything smells incredible.