“They started it,” Channing said.
Easy for her to say. She and her father could afford to pay for the entire house probably, I thought. Never mind a dumb window. But what could my parents do? If I’d just taken it, accepted their insults and blows, it would not have come to this. Instead, I’d opened the door to my fury and inept throwing arm. My parents came outside and walked to the neighbor’s front door after Channing explained. Harabeoji joined us, but he hung back between the houses and looked up at the windows.
The door to the house opened and a man and a woman came outside, and my parents retreated, stepped backward without turning around, their faces turned eagerly toward the neighbors’. Even from this distance I could tell the boy’s parents were upset. The kid who had talked with Channing about baseball teams stood between his parents and said something to them. Channing walked right up to see. I kept my distance. Channing said something to the boy’s parents, and the boy who had clearly liked her agreed. I saw him nod. The boy’s father pushed him back inside and closed the door in Channing and my parents’ face.
When my parents returned to our house, I saw they were worried. But Harabeoji went into action. He called the police, and minutes later they arrived. “It was an accident,” he told them, and never mentioned my name. He told my parents, “When you have a car accident you call the police, this is the same.” They listened to his report, and then we all walked over to the house next door.
Back then Channing stood next to me, keeping guard. She was convinced there might be more wayward crab apples incoming. With the police inspecting the damage in the house, which was only a single pane in one of three windows that faced the front of the house, the matter was cleared up. After the police left, Channing and I sat outside and roasted marshmallows in a fire pit Harabeoji made for us. Two of the boys, the onewho liked Channing and the other one who had followed the mean one, joined us. We didn’t talk about what happened. Instead, it was all Red Sox and the Yankees. We lived four hours from New York City, but it was still New York, so I guess I was supposed to choose the Yankees. “Or the Mets,” the one who liked Channing said. He’d gone to one of their games. When we were called in to sleep that night, Channing and I stayed up talking about those three boys. “Do they all live in that one house?” she asked. I said no, they lived in various houses. They were a group though, always together. The school bullies.
“That one kid. He was the leader, the other two should have stood up to him,” she said. “It takes just one rotten one. Not in a good way or bad. Just rotten bad like these apples in their yard. Too bad the other two aren’t brave enough to stand up to him.” I wished Channing could stay longer than Thanksgiving break.
Chapter 35
It was hard to get ourselves up in the mornings that followed in East End now. Everything felt dense and opaque. The air around us, our bodies moving through it. Simply breathing. Haraboeji was gone. He’d never give us advice again. He’d never do the exact thing we needed him to do. He wasn’t there as a bulwark against people who wanted to hurt us. Without him, we felt directionless, stuck. How would we get Channing free from Kent now?
When Mrs. Yun needed some items from the Asian market the next morning, Paul came running up the stairs to invite us to join him. I refused at first, but Channing told me to go. “Get outside, Dahee,” she said. “You should pay for some of the groceries Mrs. Yun wants. We’ve eaten so much of their food, and I’ll pay you back when the Ahns pay me. Harabeoji would want us to do that.”
We’d stayed for so long at their house that it felt right that we should contribute. Paul said that money wasn’t necessary. I didn’t know who to listen to. I told him to give me a minute, and I called my mother from the bedroom. Meanwhile, Channing asked Paul questions about Korean messaging apps. I knew she was still hoping to reach Minjae.
My mother answered the phone and said I should buy Mrs. Yun a box of fruit.
“We’ve been in her house and now her apartment for so many days, Eomma. You sure fruit is enough?” I asked.
“You’re young, trying to make money. I gave her an envelope of cash before we left.”
“How much?”
“Don’t worry.”
If Harabeoji was here, he’d explain this way of giving money to me. I pictured him with Mr. Yun out in the yard to calm my heart. I thanked my mother and hung up.
What did my gut tell me to do? I took a deep breath and brushed my hair. Since I couldn’t find my hair tie, I left it loose. “You’ll get outside, too?” I asked Channing when I joined her and Paul in the living room.
“I’ll go for a walk,” she said. “Don’t worry. You look nice with your hair down like that.”
Paul said it looked good either way. I rolled my eyes at them both and then promised to bring back more ginseng tea for Channing.
I remembered how Channing had described the clouds in the sky that day she’d gone with Minjae to the Asian market. It made me sad to be on the same road now. Paul pointed to landmarks along the way to Little Brookton: a hill he used to sled down with his brother in the winter, an orchard with the best apples. I told him Channing used to have an orchard at her old house and the crab apples in our neighborhood.
The grocery store ended up being a large two-story house with a parking lot that had been converted into a business. A sign across the front announced: EASTENDASIANMART. I could see where the two-car garage used to be that was now a glass storefront.
“Why’s it named East End, we’re in Little Brookton, aren’t we?” I asked as Paul opened the door for me.
The smell of coffee mixed with the odor of garlic bulbs, ginger, ginseng, dried pollack, and seaweed hit me in the face.
“It’s always been called that, so maybe she kept the name?” He shrugged.
A short Asian woman wearing a red apron was wiping down the counter and gave us a broad, welcoming smile.
“Come in! Come into my store, welcome,” she called.
She pointed to herself. “Call me Mai.” Then she poured hot water into cardboard coffee cups and stirred in thin packets of instant coffee. “Asians make the best instant coffee, already with creamer. I drink it all day,” she said, offering us each a portion. I took a sip and knew she was right.
Paul said, “Thanks, Mrs. Sato-Shaw.”
When she scowled at him, he quickly added, “I’ve known you since I was a kid. You’re always Mrs. Sato-Shaw to me.”
“Thank you, Mai,” I said, which changed her expression into a smile. “I met your nephew at Jack Wire’s office.”
