I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and waited. We could handle it all. Channing was innocent. She just had to get out of that jail and never return to it.
I tried not to think about Harabeoji. Mr. Yun passed along a question from the coroner, who wanted to know if the family wanted an autopsy. I told him to wait until my parents arrived to decide. I didn’t think my grandfather would want that, to be cut open. Still, maybe it was important to know how he had died. Why didn’t I have answers? Everything felt surreal. My parents were on their way. I held on to that.
As I paced, I focused on the birds in the trees, the sounds of people chatting to each other as they walked along and cars zipping by along the street. The pastel-colored umbrellas of the cafés on the other side. When I approached the walkway to the courthouse, the door opened, and Kent emerged through it yet again. He walked straight at me. I had to step on the grass to avoid being run over by him.
Long hours passed. And then there she was, escorted by a woman in apolice uniform and our attorney. Channing was out. She was barefoot with grime on her chin, spots of ash on her cheeks. Her feet were filthy. I hugged her anyway.
Wire said bail had been posted by my parents. He’d reached them when they’d landed in Boston. He said they were renting a car and on their way. He needed to talk to us, but for now Channing should get some rest. The hearing was set for next month. He repeated that Channing was not allowed to leave town before then.
We thanked him and left as quickly as we could, before Kent showed up again, that was for sure.
“Hold it together,” I said as we approached my car. I could see that she was angry. Every bit of her. Her fists were clenched by her side.
“Where’s Minjae?” She scanned the street. “I have to see him.”
In contrast, my hands were shaking and my legs felt like they were going to collapse beneath me. I ordered them to be still, unlocked the car, and got in. The passenger door opened, and Channing was beside me in seconds. Before she closed the door she said, “Dahee, what’s wrong?”
“Seatbelt,” I said.
“Tell me, I need to hear it. Is Minjae hurt? I can handle whatever it is. It’s okay.”
“Nothing’s okay,” I told her.
Chapter 33
When I say there was sleet the day of my grandfather’s funeral, it’s because there was exactly that kind of ice in the rain that clung to the leaves hanging off the low branches of the young maple tree I stood beneath. The temperature of the air should have been too warm for freeze to occur on a day like August 31 in East End. But there it was for certain. An anomaly, like his death. I was glad for it. Nothing should be normal. Nothing should remain the same. Everything had changed. I wanted his beloved landscape to mourn, too.
I didn’t know what to do but stand outside in the Yuns’ yard where he had spent his most recent days. The closest I could be to him now. I’d been afraid and avoided rain whenever possible, but today I had to be in it. He’d always said, “We’re part of the land.” Which I never understood. Today I wanted to try.
From my place under the shelter of this small tree, I could see the window of the second-story bedroom where he might have looked out at this very terrain where I stood now. What had he seen the afternoon before he died? What had he heard through the open window? No matter the weather, he always opened the window—even a crack in winter for what he called refreshing air.
Tiny crystals fell on my hair and face, my arms and legs. I tried to stay still. If I touched them, they vanished. They clumped on my eyelashes,blurring my vision. I was wrapped in the smell of the dense underground hammered by rain, churned and carried upward by the winds, mixed with tart grass, sweet white abelia belled buds, salty ocean water. Birds made themselves known to each other through sharp-pitched declarations. How did they have the nerve to call to each other in this strange climate? I wouldn’t call them songs.
Come back, come back, come back.
I couldn’t stop the tears from destroying those prisms of frost.
The ceremony for my grandfather was simple, the way he would have wanted it. He was cremated and buried in a plot near my aunt in East End. Would he have preferred to be buried in South Korea? I didn’t know. We’d never talked about it. Why hadn’t I asked? His death seemed like an impossibility before now. Channing, similarly, had no idea. She did as directed and stayed by my side. My parents handled all the details. Some Korean families in East End attended the short service. A couple of newer friends in Boston came down for the day.
My father drove up to the rehab facility to pick up my uncle. My parents flanked him for the duration of the service, shielding him from curious stares. He was frail and shrunken, with white hair and a bent frame. Channing spoke to him briefly. I saw her embrace him, and then he was whisked back to Boston by my father. During these few days, my parents stayed at a motel outside of town, in Little Brookton near the Asian market. The beach club was more convenient and had vacancies, but my parents preferred paying less for the motel. Most of the time, they’d be at the funeral home anyway, they said.
The Yuns insisted Channing and I stay with them. When we hesitated, Paul offered his apartment. He would move temporarily into the house with his grandparents. It was a generosity I made sure to tell him I appreciated, and followed it up with a hug. I remembered Channing’s words in her journal about how rarely I embraced people. I hadn’t realized this tendency.
Early the next morning, I drove out to my parents’ motel to see them before they left. I knew they were eager to get on the road and on their flight back to Canada.
“Are you okay?” my mother asked. We were sitting in their room. It was cleaner than I thought it would be, with a marine theme: anchors and thick rope motifs. I sat on a bed facing my parents, who were packing the things they’d brought into their bags.
“What about your job?” my father said, folding a shirt.
“How can I leave Channing here by herself?” I reminded them. “It’s a serious charge. Kent’s framed her and has a hold on this town, so she might be sent to prison for years.”
I could tell they didn’t understand how Channing could be accused of stealing a watch. My mother unplugged her phone from the outlet by the bed and then returned to my side to say, “This is why we didn’t join the Korean church. They’re always gossiping.”
“This isn’t gossip, Eomma.” I tried to explain again about how Kent was obsessed with Channing and repeated how he’d assaulted her.
“In a bigger city, this wouldn’t happen. Too many Koreans here,” she replied.
“That’s not the point either,” I said.
