A year and a half went by with no sign of Marlow.
And then someone else left us.
Dad found her in the morning. She lay on the floor halfway between her bed and the bathroom. She must have tried to get up in the middle of the night and something gave. We suspected maybe another heart attack, but it didn’t matter whether we ever knew. She was gone. And with her any of the last threads of decency our family had been holding on to—for her sake—had dissipated.
Young-Mi Baek. Omma. Halmoni.
Moni.
I wondered if she could hear my thoughts. If she was already somewhere trying to comfort me. Did she regret the life she had carried out in a place she never fully called home? One foot in soil that had made her but the other sunk in where she had grown her family? Did she regret giving her whole body, heart, and mind to her child? And to the children of that child? What remained was hardened skin and bones, tough from all the sacrifice. To her, living was sacrifice. But that right there held more worth—contained more significance in every part of her because of the way she lived—than anything else that could ever be created.
Did she know that? Should I have told her?
There are a million words and regrets after a loved one is gone. That is what makes them so dear. Lost to the ones who are left behind.
I liked to romanticize it all, pretend she already knew what I should have said to her. That every meal, dish, and bite I took from her hand was all that had to be said. But I didn’t know if that really was the case. If that really was enough.
I placed my hands on her hard shell of a hand and kissed her cheek that had become a wall. I said goodbye and did what everyone is supposed to at a funeral. But it wasn’t her. This was only an ornament in place of her.
I turned to look over my shoulder, hoping she was actually in one of the pews in the back, quietly sitting with her hands clasped, waiting for me to come sit next to her. A red ribbon marking her favorite hymnal, she would open it and point to the verse I should begin with.
Her friends from the Korean church moaned and cried lowly, a constant drone of angst. A few of them approached me and softly patted my hands. I put my head down and felt myself having a hard time breathing. Sawyer placed his arm around me; my head knocked into his shoulder.
After the burial there was a reception at our house. The kitchen smelled of weak coffee, and people milled around with plates of white cream cake. I found it so odd, as if it were a celebration. The waves of pain had started to die down inside me; my body could only take so much. At some point I had to feel nothing.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and looked over it to see a woman with red hair. She looked to be in her forties, the tops of her crisp, white collared shirt poking out of a black sweater. She looked so familiar. Was she a former teacher? Maybe a buyer at one of the gallery shows? I followed her as she went around the corner to the living room. She went up to Dad and whispered something in his ear and he nodded, his face solemn.
She glanced up and caught me staring and looked away.
I had seen that look before. When she came out of his office. That same failure to see me. The embarrassment to look deeper into a little girl’s eyes.
How dare you.
My fingers went tight on the white handle of my cup. Not because of the woman. But for him allowing her in our house. The place that really was only home when Moni was here. Such disrespect it reeked of toward Moni.
We had just buried her.
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to him. He didn’t notice me standing there, my chest filling with sand. A fence had been implanted around my face and I couldn’t see past it. The anger funneled down and away, spilling to someplace where it might not return to me. I didn’t tell him how much he disgusted me.
Instead, I was short with everyone around me the week after. Sawyer got the brunt of it; nothing he did seemed to satisfy me. The kitchen was left too dirty, the laundry still wasn’t folded. Domestic duties had swept our marriage out of the honeymoon phase. As I came home from work one evening, I snapped at him for not putting the dishes away like I had mentioned in the morning.
He said nothing. He put his hands on my shoulders as he walked past me and popped the dishwasher open. His patience only irritated me further. I didn’t move as I heard the sounds of plates clattering and silverware being dropped into the drawer.
I should have apologized. But I didn’t.
We lay next to each other in bed that night, reading, and he reached over and turned his light off, the sheet pulling with him. It was almost two years of being married, but the fairy tale was slightly fading. We were happy most days, but I could tell the fire we had carried together glowed less. The sex was still good but less frequent. He would come home from a long day at the office, wanting a good shower and bed. And I wouldn’t contest it, needing the same thing.
I turned my light off and leaned on him, rubbing his chest. “I’m sorry. This has been a tough week for me.”
He kept his eyes closed. “Isla, you don’t have to be sorry. I know you. We just said goodbye to her. I don’t expect you to be yourself.”
I felt the need to bury myself even closer to him right then.
“Hey, hey, you’re really squishing my chest.” He chuckled.
I kissed him and settled back in.
Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up. A sensation of pressure in my throat had stirred me. I swallowed and then felt the tears go down my face into the pillow. My hair felt wet, and I lay there motionless, hands joined across my chest. I hadn’t cried for her until then. That would make it all too real.
But it had happened. She was gone. And I cried.
I got up extra early and made Sawyer his favorite breakfast, a few over-easy eggs and some toast he could dip in the yolk. I sliced a few bites of cantaloupe and arranged them in a design on a plate. I loved watching him eat. His satisfied bites were everything that morning and it made me think of Moni. Was this how she thrived? Was I carrying on a part of her?
As swiftly as Marlow had come back home for the funeral and left, she was back again later that week. She had spent the previous year in rehab and had declared herself a new person. She had changed her look, cutting her hair into a clean, shoulder-length bob, dyed light, and wore natural-toned makeup. Part of her new persona included a budding music career. She had a show at a lounge downtown and had invited all of us to attend. The tickets were limited, and people in the Twin Cities were scrambling to get one—to see Marlow Fin sing live and in person. Mom and Dad declined their invitation . . . or was it just Mom?
Mom had said very little to her at the funeral. Acknowledging her but treating her like a distant family member she was required to be polite to. Marlow had no reaction to this, making me think rehab had perhaps been a good thing for her, that maybe she really had changed.
Sawyer and I arrived a little late; my meeting with the gallery’s latest clients had run long. We ducked into a few chairs in the back of the lounge and ordered beers. She walked up onto the blue-lit stage. Her long, white jumper dress made her look like a Grecian column. She nodded to the acoustic guitarist and drummer behind her. The drummer tapped the hi-hat a few times and bobbed his head with the beat, cueing them. Simple chords came in and she braced herself to join, closing her eyes.
Her voice was weightless and clear. Like bells in a high tower.
It seemed unnatural that someone that beautiful could also produce something equally beautiful out of sound.
The room expanded with her singing, a slow and moody melody. The lounge seemed to become the size of an open amphitheater, and her presence pushed us all away. She was a tiny figurine that twirled on a pedestal and sang for us.
I leaned over to Sawyer to ask what he thought but stopped myself.
He was entranced, wearing a thrilled smile I hadn’t seen cross his lips in some time. His hand went up to his chin and he fell forward, as if that would allow him to listen even better.
