I feel my mother’s eyes on me. “June.”
The air’s sucked out of the room. I can’t even look at my sister.
“Jayne and June. I love that,” says Celia, taking June’s temperature and then shooting the plastic thermometer cover into the trash. “All right, Ms. Jayne, I’m going to need you to get on the stretcher, so hop on up.” She slides down the sides so my sister can get in.
Celia fixes it so that June can sit up. The look is complete. With the gown, the IV stand, the hospital bracelet, and now this.
When Celia leaves. I brace myself for Mom’s questions. All I’ve told her is that June’s having surgery.
“I worry so much about you girls,” she says, blinking through tears. “Moving so far from home, struggling to make a life. But I’m so proud of you both.” Her voice breaks. “You’re both grown now and you’ll make your own decisions. I might not approve of all of them, but I’m so proud of the way you’re taking care of each other right now.”
Mom starts crying openly and takes June’s hand. “Ji-hyun, you’ve always been so good at taking care of everyone. I wonder if that’s why you’re sick. If my failings are what did this to you.”
“Mom, you didn’t fail us,” chokes June. “It’s no one’s fault. Cancer’s just a motherfucking son-of-a-whore,” she says in Korean. Even in this emotional moment, I’m impressed by my sister’s fluency.
Mom pinches June for cussing and laughs in between a sob. “Why are you like this?” she asks.
That’s when they come in. To take her away.
“Jayjay?” The adrenaline jolts me to my feet. I grab my sister’s hand. They’re doing it; they’re wheeling her. Pure terror is written on her face, as I’m sure it is mine.
“Juju,” she says, eyes locking on me.
“I love you,” I tell her. I’ve never said it to my sister before. Ever.
“Fuck, same,” she says urgently, reaching for my forearms. “I love you. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you,” says Mom in Korean, holding my hand when June can’t anymore. I watch her lie back, and then that’s it. She’s concealed behind people. We walk with her stretcher as far as we’re allowed, and then the doors shut.
There’s a burning sensation in my chest. We’re both standing in the hallway, staring like statues.
When the door swings open again, we startle. Sandy Chee emerges and smiles. “Hi,” she says, looking at my mom expectantly.
“This is my mom.” I fall into the role of my parent’s spokesperson easily.
Mom nods several times and smiles with far more warmth than she would in Korean. “Hi,” she says, and takes a half step back. Mom lives in constant fear of being hugged.
“I’m sure June can tell you more.” Sandy gestures at me. “But Jayne is in very good hands. It’s a relatively straightforward procedure, and I’ll give you updates as I have them.”
She leads us to yet another waiting area, this one identical to the one before, with tasteful furniture and a television, but more private. “I’ll meet you back here as soon as I know more.”
Mom takes a seat positioned optimally for the TV and pulls out a Kleenex, but instead of wiping her eyes, she wipes down the coffee table in front of her.
I sit next to her as she pulls out a lunchbox and sets it down. “I brought kimbap,” she says. “I made it with no kimchi so it won’t smell.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us touches it. Finally, Mom turns to me. “Are you going to tell me why you were calling her Jayne?”
“She had to be me,” I tell her in stilted Korean. “So, when I come here, I have to be her. Her insurance was messed up.” I don’t know if the words for car insurance and health insurance are the same, but she gets it.
Mom sighs and pulls out a tiny Purell from her bag and offers it to me. “One of the boys at church had to do that for his brother. ACL surgery. You know Cho Theresa? The one with the super-pretty face and the unfortunate husband? I think the rehab was thirty thousand dollars. This country is ridiculous. Of course you helped her. What choice did you have?”
She takes a quavering breath. Her cheeks collapse as she starts crying again. “I’m so glad you have each other. It lets me know that however much your father and I make mistakes, you’ll ultimately be okay.” Mom puts her arm around me. “I kept having this dream,” she says, handing me a warm bottle of Poland Spring from her purse. I scooch low into my seat, settling in. “I was eating from this huge platter of fruit, the juiciest, ripest fruit, but it was all gritty like soil and I could only taste metal. My teeth were crumbling out of my mouth.” She shudders. “I sensed something was going on even before you called me.”
She pinches my leg. “You should have called me sooner.”
I can’t believe Mom’s here. I’ve lost all sense of place. It’s almost as if we’re in a hospital in a parallel universe. Not in New York. Not in Texas. Not in America at all.
“Your father knew something was wrong,” she says. “When you girls came home. I told him to stop being so cynical, but he said it was suspicious that you were together. That you were speaking to each other at all.” She turns to me, searching for answers. I say nothing. I can’t tell what she actually wants to hear. “I don’t know what happened between you two, but you have to know that you owe it to your sister to help. She loves you more than anything in the world. You were her baby. She was hysterical when we thought we’d lost you. When you kept playing in that stupid flower bed. She threw Flora—do you remember Flora? The porcelain clown doll? She wouldn’t let anyone touch it, she adored it so much.”
I think of the photograph at home. The one that fell out of June’s album of her as a child, looking up prayerfully at the doll. June sitting on the floor, the toy presiding over her from the chair.
“She tossed it out of the window to show you what would happen. I didn’t know what she was doing, but she took you to see it, and you finally understood. You stopped playing out there. It was her most precious possession, and she sacrificed it for you.”
I realize I do know that. That it’s always been true. That there’s nothing June wouldn’t do for me.
Mom grabs my hand again in her small one. Her palms are rough. Her knuckles thickened by work. Her wedding ring is a plain gold band, lacking in any adornment.
“Mom,” I ask her, drawing up a breath for courage. “Did you wish that I was a boy? When I was born?”
“Yes.” She says it so quickly that a small laugh erupts from my mouth.
“Thanks a lot.”
She looks at me impatiently. “Who wouldn’t have wanted a boy? Everyone wants one of each. We were hoping for a boy with Ji-soo, too.”
My heart stops. I’ve never heard Mom’s dead baby’s name.
“Your other sister,” she says. Again, in a tone that’s shockingly unvarnished. “I would have been happy with three girls, too. That would have been wonderful, to gather all of you in my arms like a bouquet. My sweet daughters with your enormous heads.” She leans back in her chair. “You girls weren’t easy on the way out, let me tell you.”