“Maybe they’re not that upset,” I said. “You know, Ed Kim got kicked out of Cornell and I think it made Mom feel a little better to hear that.”
When I said that, I actually believed it, that instead of fighting and shouting, we’d talk and remain seated in our chairs. But then someone came and opened the gate door and soon people began to emerge. Jin and I got up and moved closer.
“Well, it’s too late now,” he said.
I could see my father spitting a light spray as he talked fiercely to my mother walking down the brightly lit hallway. His eyes looked round and glassy and his face was red as though he’d had a beer or two on the plane. My mother was leaning in toward him, trying to shush him and keep his voice down, her body bent toward him as though weighted. But when she looked up, she smiled happily at us. It passed quickly. My father refused to stop or even look at us when my mother paused to give us a quick hug. He simply walked on ahead toward the escalators and rental cars, so sure we’d follow he never looked back.
My mother sent me to stand in line with my father while she took Jin aside. I heard her tell him how difficult it had been to find someone to watch the laundromats while they were gone. He looked like he might cry. My father was already in line between the ropes, arms folded, staring straight ahead. His presence had always seemed huge—if he was happy or sad,everybody knew it—but now it was a black hole collapsed in on itself. I worried that if I got too close, I might be sucked in.
But then he did something that surprised me. He turned around and said, “It’s my fault.”
I’d never heard him apologize or assume fault before.
Then: “I spoiled him.”
“It’s not so bad,” I said. “He can go back next year. Lots of people take time off—it’s really not so unusual—”
“Not usual for Korean,” he said. “You think we move here and work hard so he can take time off? What he need time off from? Let me ask you, you think he crazy?”
“No! I don’t think he’s crazy,” I said. “Dad, sometimes I think you’re the crazy one—it’s his friends. He doesn’t have very good friends.”
My father nodded.
“Just try to understand Jin,” I said. “And . . . don’t get so mad all the time. It’s hard to talk to you when you get so angry.”
He nodded again but not to what I was saying.
We walked out into the parking lot, my father ten feet ahead of us. It was cold and a little icy. The rest of us stepped carefully behind, my mother still whispering to Jin about responsibility and getting his head together. Jin looked at his feet as he walked, nodding and repeating, “I know, I know.” It was missing his usual note of impatience. Up ahead, my father passed a young couple who were loaded down with heavy shoulder bags.
He stopped at a white Taurus and stood by the trunk until we reached him. Then, in a swift and sudden movement, he hit Jin on the ear with a closed fist. Jin fell down, giving a surprised shout. My mother stepped between them and, grabbing my father’s sleeves, said, “Yobo! Yobo! What’s the matter with you? Have you lost your mind?”
The young couple had passed us by then but not far enoughto miss what had happened. The woman looked back and caught my eye, and in her confusion, she gave me a quick smile. Then she turned back around in a hurry.
My mother was still speaking. “Can’t you see there are people here? What’s the matter with you, anyway? . . . What a dirty temper you have!”
My father stood rigid, not looking away from Jin. “Get in the car,” he said.
Jin stood up, still holding his ear, looking helpless and afraid. I hated my father for that.
I sat behind my father. Jin sat stiffly next to me, a hand over the right side of his face.
“You all right?” I asked. Jin gave me a quick, dirty look and didn’t answer. My parents were staying at a hotel in Waltham, close to Jin, and I felt how long the thirty minutes in the car would be. Like having a warm sweater wrapped over your face.
As we left the parking lot, my mother said, as if to herself, “How can you blame the son of a man like that? A vicious, dirty temper. Beating his kids in public like animals. I’ve never been so humiliated.”
“Yobo,” my father said warningly.
“I can talk if I want to!” my mother said. “You think I’m going to take orders from a brute like you? How low do you think I’m willing to go? Do you think you can kill someone’s spirit?”
No response.
Jin was slouched against his window, his shoulders shaking.
We sat silent as my father drove away from the airport and toward the highway. At the tollbooth, he said “Sank you,” and I thought of the times Jin and I would make fun of him, fun of them both for their bad English. Sank you bery much—no, sank you bery much. That seemed another world.
I stared at the back of my father’s head. It shook a little.
A strange huffing noise began to come from him. I saw my mother look over at him with concern.
“When haven’t they gotten what they’ve wanted? When have I denied them anything? You son-of-a-bitch!” he shouted at Jin.
“Shush,” my mother said. “Let’s talk when we get to the hotel. Don’t bring it up now.”
My father calmed down a little. “Just like my father spoiled me. I used to be the richest boy in school, and now all my friends are senators or big executives. Remember Byung? That skinny boy with the bad teeth? His parents didn’t have rice in their bowls and now he’s a senator. Everybody’s somebody big now. Everybody who stayed in Korea.”
“Be quiet,”
