A Step from Heaven: List 3

Joon rolls his eyes, but the way his nostrils flare and stay flared, the way they get after a lecture and a few cuffs on the head or a kick in the stomach from Apa, I know he is listening.

Along the side of the house, Mr. Owner keeps two garbage cans, a black one for us and a brown one for him, just so we don’t mix up our garbage and end up filling more than our allotted space.

He is a very prideful man, Uhmma says.

For some reason Uhmma had enough money that year to get a small individual photo, unlike the other years when all we brought home was the complimentary class picture.

Joon faces me fully, giving me an incredulous look. “You’re going to tell Apa?”

The light from his desk lamp makes the black bristles of his hair look even more sparse, like a landscape of trees in winter.

The light from his desk lamp makes the black bristles of his hair look even more sparse, like a landscape of trees in winter.

Joon’s hand quivers for a second and the pen veers off the pencil sketch course.

The picture of the little rotten-toothed boy hangs above him. I stare at the picture and then look at Joon’s hulking back. He is tall for his age. The tallest one in the family.

Where were you just now? Apa asks with a squinty eye.
I slowly put down my backpack. The way he asks that question as though he already knows the answer makes me cringe inside.

After the police handcuff Apa and take him away, Uhmma drives down to the police station with her face so badly bruised and misshapen an officer forces her to go to a hospital.

I add the water to the pot of rice and push the heel of my hand against the rough grains. Push, swirl. Push, swirl. Almost instantly a white cloud of starch rises up and turns the water opaque. Murky. The grains disappear.

“What,” I answer gruffly, still refusing to meet her eyes.

My toes clutch the tiny blades, revel in the softness and the damp earth beneath my feet.

I pick up several boxes near the front door with Korean words scribbled on the sides and take them to Uhmma for deciphering.

I take the picture from Uhmma. You? I ask and stare hard at the face. Same serious expression, a slight gathering of the eyebrows, lips held tightly closed, cheekbones high and prominent.

Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, in a sunspot bright as the open sea, Uhmma unfurled her fingers.

Joon and I both possess Uhmma’s lean fingers, but without the hard, yellowed calluses formed by years of abuse from physical labor. Our hands turn pages of books, press fingertips to keyboard buttons, hold pencils and pens. They are lithe and tender. The hands of dreams come true.

As I walk with Uhmma now, her hand grasped firmly in mine, I can feel the strength that was there in our childhood ebbing away.

Tiny flecks of skin, parched from dry-cleaning clothes, ironing shirts, “heavy on the starch,” stand up searching for the moisture that was robbed day after day for eleven years.