“I’m… I’m fine,” I manage. But my stomach’schurning, threatening to revolt. “I just… um, I think I need the bathroom. Excuse me.”
I slide out of the booth before either of them can respond, making a beeline for the small restroom at the back of the restaurant.
The door’s barely closed before I’m in one of the stalls, hunched over the toilet, spewing everything I just ate.
The nausea comes in waves, each one more intense than the last, ’til I’m left clammy and trembling, my forehead slick with sweat.
I sit back on my heels when it finally passes, pressing my back against the stall door and trying to catch my breath.
What the hell was that? Do I have food poisoning? Was it something I ate earlier?
It takes me another few minutes to properly clean myself up—flushing the toilet, splashing water on my face, washing my hands with plenty of soap, and even popping a piece of gum into my mouth to get rid of the awful vomit taste.
By the time I return to the booth, both Jin and Mom seem concerned by the absence. I gift them a reassuring smile as I slide back into my seat and tell them it was nothing.
They believe me—or at least act as if they do—but I’m more preoccupied by what brought on my little puking spell.
Appetite gone, I pick at the rest of my food while the other two finish theirs.
Mom’s townhouse is a time capsule of the past. It’s been years since I moved out for college and Dad passed, yet she hasn’t changed a thing.
The living room is cluttered with knickknacks everywhere you look. Lavender candles sit on the mantel alongside ceramic doll figurines. Paperbacks with cracked spines and oldphoto albums crowd the bookshelves. Lively, leafy plants dangle from the ceiling while others are stationed in corners of the room, decorated by huge, colorfully painted pots.
A crocheted blanket drapes over the back of the cognac leather sofa, and in front of that is the coffee table and the stack of magazines she’ll probably never read.
But it’s the framed photos adorning the walls that always get me.
They’re practically a timeline of our family and my childhood. A shrine dedicated to us.
Photos of Dad in his old Air Force uniform, standing tall and proud. My parents on their wedding day, young and beautiful and so in love with each other it radiates off them even in pictures. Me as a toddler with my hair in puffy pigtails and an embarrassingly neon windbreaker tracksuit only fashionable in the ’90s. Cousins and aunts and uncles at family reunions, gathered around picnic tables loaded with food.
More Dad. Dad iseverywhere.
His face smiles out at me from a dozen different frames, frozen in moments I remember and others I was too young to recall.
The ache of loss throbs from within, never really gone. Always secretly present when you lose someone. Just more present at certain times than others.
I release a calming breath and remind myself he won’t be coming back but he’ll never truly be gone. He really will live on in these photos.
In our memories and our hearts.
Jin seems to sense what’s on my mind as he puts an arm around me and presses a kiss to my brow.
“How’re you feeling, Tokki-ya?”
“Better. I’m fine. Really.”
Mom calls out to us from the kitchen, already digging around in the fridge. “I know you two are stuffedfrom Big Tony’s, but I made my famous peach cobbler last night. You have to at least try it. Jin, honey, you like peaches?”
He glances at me, half taken aback by how hospitable yet lowkey bossy Mom can be, then seems to realize he’s too polite to turn her down.
“Peaches are a favorite,” he says.
“Then come sit down! I’ll cut you and Moni a slice each. You want some vanilla ice cream?”
I laugh quietly to myself as I shake my head and then escape down the hall.
It’s only for a moment, and only ’til I put to rest the questions that have started forming in my head. After we left Tony’s, I asked if we could stop by the drugstore.
