I’d woken early, maybe by the commotion of Channing and her dad walking past our door on their way down to the car to drive to the town park for day camp. My parents didn’t stir.
I remembered sitting in a window seat at the top of the stairs, watching my cousin’s small figure with a blue backpack over her shoulder, just one strap, walking down the long driveway.
Below me, our gray minivan was in the driveway along with a small orange hatchback. My mother had told me it belonged to the nurse who looked after my aunt.
I settled into the window seat to readRivers in Koreawith a dictionary. It was a nonfiction book with words I had to look up. I liked to read there because the cushion was thick, and it made me feel like I was in a treehouse. It was also a good perch to watch the goings-on around the house along with birds and the weather. It was June so the birds were really going at each other. They collided in the air and twisted together. They streaked across the yard in and out of the young trees. Even through the panes of glass, I could hear them calling to each other. The sun was out and shining bright. East End was never gloomy like the towns we lived in. I saw a delivery truck make its way up the driveway by and by, and a woman left a cardboard box by the front door. She looked up before she got back into the brown paneled truck and must have seen me, because she raised a hand in greeting. I waved back, feeling shy but glad. She was Asian.
During the afternoon, my mother came out to the hallway and calledto my father to phone his brother. My father ran downstairs, and in a few minutes, my uncle’s black car careened into the driveway and he jumped out with a black bag. I could see him through the large window. A few seconds later, he and my father bounded up the stairs. His hands were free because he had one hand covering his eyes as if he didn’t want to see, and the other was over his mouth. I was surprised he could find his way to my aunt’s door, but when he passed me, I noticed my father guided him by the elbow.
The wail that seeped out into the hallway didn’t sound human to me. It frightened me so much I threw my books on the window seat and hurtled down the stairs.
I felt better as soon as I got outside. The front yard didn’t have as many trees as the rear yard, so I was trying to decide which one I wanted to climb when a car came up the curving driveway. I hid so I wouldn’t have to talk to an adult.
This vehicle was a silver Jeep, and it stopped well before the entrance to the house. A young man sauntered out. He was Korean, tall like an adult, but he had the face of a kid. Even the way he walked, he appeared to be a hesitant child. He held his head tilted toward the ground as if he was afraid of obstacles in his path, the way I’d often entered a classroom. I remembered thinking my mother would tell him to stand up straight, the way she told me, and how my aunt slouched, too, though not in the same way this man did. You wouldn’t really call it slouching because he wasn’t bent; only his neck hinged his chin downward.
He made his way to the front door and then leaned down. Above my head, I heard a loud flap—as if someone had shaken a blanket in the air. A large black bird shot out of the branches above my head, cawing as it soared. I ducked, clutching the trunk of the tree. The wings of the bird created a current of cold air that dissipated as it flew farther and farther away. When I looked toward the house, the young man was running backthe way he had come, down the curving driveway. This time he took a shortcut across the lawn and swerved to avoid running into the tree I was hiding behind.
To his midsection, he clutched a black bag as if he had a stomachache. His mouth hung open, taking big heaving gulps of air as he ran. I could hear his ragged breath. Looking down as he did, he stumbled and dropped the bag. When he lifted it to his white shirt and started running again, I saw the black bag had a wide yellow stripe across it.
He gained speed as he progressed, glanced back once. Did he spy me peeking out at him from the other side of the tree trunk? I hoped not. The grimace on his face scared me. The crow wheeled in the air above him before flying away. He looked up at it and then got into his car. Instead of driving forward on the curving driveway to exit and passing the entrance on the way, he reversed his car, backing up to the street. Someone driving in could have hit him. I knew this because my parents always drove forward when we left Channing’s house for that reason. I remembered to spit three times into the grass,teh-teh-teh, the way my mom always told me whenever a crow called out. The only way to chase off any bad luck that fell on me.
I returned to my perch on the second floor outside my aunt’s bedroom. The awful keening had stopped. There were murmurings now. Groups of people arrived after that. They milled around the kitchen and the stairs. They chattered and spoke in hushed tones. There seemed to be an invisible rope cordoning off the upstairs, for which I was glad. Harabeoji had not arrived yet in the States.
My mother brought me a plate of food and a glass of water. “You have your books?” she asked, and I told her I did. “You’re fine then,” she said. I nodded. She told me she was going to get Channing from summer camp.
A few minutes later, my mother returned with her arm around my cousin. They stopped at my aunt’s room. I remember Channing refused togo in. She stood in the open doorway a second before turning and dashing down the hall. It was a day I wanted to forget.
I sat straight up and called to Channing now in Paul’s room. “I have to ask you something,” I said. My heart was racing. Had I witnessed the thief stealing my uncle’s bag full of the Korean community’s money? If Mai had given me the bag that Kent had left behind in the apartment when he lived there, did that mean he knew the person who had stolen the money? Or had Kent taken the cash himself? He had worked for my uncle. He could have seen the bag and taken it.
Channing was scrolling through her laptop, propped up on her raised knees. “About what? You know, I keep having dreams of Harabeoji,” she said. “He keeps telling me to keep searching. But what does he mean?”
“Was your dad’s duffel bag—the one with the cash in it—was it black?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she replied, and sighed. “But why are you still talking about that? We’re not going over the past, remember?”
“Plain, without any other logos or markings on it?” I continued.
“We bought it that way—I know because I used it sometimes for overnight gymnastics meets. It could fit my laptop. They used to be really big, remember? My dad asked to borrow it that week for work.”
My stomach dropped. Kent could have bought one like Channing had. “Then anyone could have bought a bag just like it,” I said.
“Yeah, it was from a store in town. Everyone had it.”
I remembered the yellow band of dried paint across the side. “Was there anything special about it, anything at all?”
She shook her head. “Pocket inside. He did get mad at me because he brought it home and I was painting everything with my new acrylic set and painted the bag, too.”
My heart stopped. “What color?”
She thought a moment. “He was always leaving things everywhere and it was my bag to begin with so I could paint it what I wanted, but he took it from me and didn’t let me finish.”
“What color, Channing?” I persisted.
“I was in my yellow phase. I painted everything yellow.”
I rubbed my hands on the top of my skirt. “Channing, I know where that bag is.” I told her about Mai giving us the duffel at the market. “She said Kent had left it in his apartment.”
She closed her laptop, slid off the bed, and followed me out to the living room. “It was in the car with us?”
