And then he said Channing would always remember her, she wouldn’t forget, like how she used her left hand for her chopsticks so she could keep her spoon in her right hand. “Most people use their right hand for both, one at a time, but not your mother. Also, you know you’re never to stab your chopsticks into your rice and give it to someone you love, or else they would be hurt. Those chopsticks should be laid gently crossways.”
“My mom makes me do that,” Channing said.
“Chopsticks make my hand cramp,” I said.
“They used to do that to me, too, but I’ll show you the right way,” she said. “My mom can show you.”
We’d slipped into talking about her mother in the present tense as if she were still alive, and up until a week ago, she had been. I didn’t notice at first because my aunt’s death wasn’t real to me. It probably wasn’t real to Channing either. We were only nine years old. But then we were brought back to reality when my cousin asked, “Why are you both here? Were you looking for me?”
I couldn’t tell her that my mom had asked me to get her to come inside. Saying I had a mom seemed hurtful when she no longer did.
“There’s a frog hiding under there. Right there,” Harabeoji said, pointing to Channing’s feet.
Channing lifted a leaf gently. “That’s a toad, Harabeoji.”
It stayed very still before hopping away.
“It’s time for breakfast,” I said, remembering my mission. That was all I needed, just a moment to think of something that was the truth but didn’t include mentioning my mother.
Channing nodded, got to her feet, and followed us into the house. I was grateful to Harabeoji for his help. Any other adult would not have known what to say. Channing had seemed so alone and at the mercy of something dangerous out there in the woods. I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was just a yard. But it was a big yard. We had to walk far to get back to the house. Anything could have happened to us out there, and no one in the house would have heard our call for help.
Chapter 32
I sat and ate a sandwich for lunch and stared at my phone. My calls went immediately to voicemail. Again and again. My parents had grown up in an age without cell phones and thought of them like emergency SOS gadgets.Well, here is an emergency. Call me, I begged my mother and father silently.
Across the street, several people in uniform walked in and out of the station. I never knew East End had so many cops. Also, men in suits and women in dresses with blazers. Kent’s familiar figure was among them with a group attentive to every word as he walked the sidewalk and then went up the walkway to the entrance.
An hour later, he came back out and went next door into another building. A group of preschool-age children were led out of a storefront to my right, tied together with some sort of clothesline with colorful banners spread out between them. A young Black man and a young white woman led them. They made their way down the street. It made me think of my job, but I didn’t dare check the school app. There would be many messages to answer. After Channing was out, I’d know exactly when I could return to my job. Only after she was freed could life resume.
My phone rang just then. It was Harabeoji’s phone number. I expected an update on Channing’s release. The lawyer might have called. Instead, I heard Mr. Yun’s voice. I felt myself tense. Was he going to give me another lecture about how nice I had to be to Kent? Instead, he said, “You need tocome back to the house right now. Your grandfather, he—there was nothing we could do.”
According to Mr. Yun, he and my grandfather had returned to the Yuns’ house, and Harabeoji had gone directly upstairs. Mr. Yun had followed sometime later to get a phone charger and saw that my grandfather’s door was open. He’d gone in thinking my grandfather was awake and found him lying in bed. Mr. Yun would have closed the door and left except that the position of my grandfather’s body on the bed had seemed odd to him. He was low on the mattress, eyes closed, face up, his head below the pillow, his arms to his side. His socked feet hung off the end of the bed frame. Mr. Yun had woken up with a stiff neck when lying improperly, so he attempted to wake my grandfather, to get him to move up toward the headboard. That’s when Mr. Yun realized that his friend was too still. He had departed this life.
“His body was there, but his spirit is now with God,” Mr. Yun said. He had called me first from Harabeoji’s phone, which had no security, and my phone number was in my grandfather’s favorites list.
After I arrived, Mr. Yun called 9-1-1. He thought I should have time with my grandfather before emergency services came. A kind of mercy, I guess. I held my grandfather’s hand, which was still warm, and avoided looking at his face, which already seemed like a stranger’s.
I heard a medic say to another as they carried Harabeoji out to their rig, “Is this the same family with the lost kid out at J-Rock a few days ago?”
Mr. and Mrs. Yun offered to stay back and call the funeral home, so Paul and I went to the hospital. He drove, for which I was grateful since I was shaking. We encountered heavy traffic en route, with cars weaving in between us and my grandfather’s body in the medical vehicle. I opened the window and let the wind blow on my face to keep from screaming at them to get out of the way.
Eventually, Paul said we were almost at the hospital. That was when myphone rang. I thought it was funny because who else would call but my grandfather, and he was gone? Could he have called earlier and it had been delayed in coming through to my phone? Voicemail worked that way; sometimes I didn’t get his voice messages until hours after he’d called. I knew it wasn’t likely, but this was definitely the ringtone of a phone call. I answered with a sob rising in my throat.
“Dahee, what’s wrong? Why’d you call us so many times?” my mother’s strained voice pierced the air.
I cried into the phone and shouted at her with such fury she hung up. The shock of the call’s abrupt end snapped me out of my tirade. Instead of shame, I felt soothed by Paul’s presence. He said, “Give yourself a break. Your mom understands.”
He was right. When she called back a minute later, I was ready to explain what happened.
My parents promised to get on a flight right away. Meanwhile, the judge returned to hear matters before the court on Wednesday. Channing had spent four nights in that cold jail cell by then. The lawyer was able to get Channing’s case on the judge’s schedule that afternoon. Wire said, “I heard he went to a charity golf tournament in the Berkshires. We’re lucky he didn’t make it past the second round.”
The courthouse was next door to the police station. I paced outside on the sidewalk because Wire didn’t tell me where he would be and I had walked in and was afraid I would get lost in the large marble hallways. The building housed several town offices. Wire had said it should be quick, in and out. The judge would read the charges against Channing, Channing would plead not guilty, and a date for a hearing would be set. Wire said the terms for a felony like this would mean Channing would not be able to leave town until the grand jury failed to indict her. We’d have to wait until at least that time.
“There’s no evidence,” I said. “It can’t go beyond this havoc Kent has created unless he bribes everyone.”
Our lawyer didn’t reply on the phone, and I sensed he thought I was paranoid. “That’s highly unlikely,” he finally replied in a weary voice. I apologized for my pessimism, and I gave him my parents’ contact information so there wouldn’t be any delays with processing the bail. Since Wire said the arraignment would be fast, I was afraid I’d miss Channing and she’d think no one had come to meet her.
As the minutes passed, I kept seeing Kent on Middle Street. He entered and exited several times, both the police station and the courthouse. He didn’t look at me. I texted Paul, who had an interview with a local school that needed an assistant coach for their volleyball team. Not his ideal job, but while he applied to grad schools, it would be helpful to see if he actually liked working with children. I told him it would help with his applications, also. It would show the admissions office he was serious.
