For my brother Sung An
1976–2003
prologue
SHE WALKS ALONE IN the rain. The faded pink pajama bottoms and oversized T-shirt clinging to her small frame, heavy with the weight of water. Her breath breaks inside her chest in an upward heave that strangles a cry escaping from her throat. Gulps of air. Her shoulders rising and falling. How much time has passed? She presses the heel of her hand against the tears that blur her vision. Though her chest still throbs, demanding air, she begins to run again. Looks down at her feet and urges them to fly faster, skim across the pavement.
The city, a dusty camouflage of grays punctuated with dots of colors from traffic lights and swirling neon signs, stretches awake in the early-morning drizzle. In the distance there is the slam of metal gates being pushed aside, revealing cluttered storefronts and display windows. The heartbeat of the city thickens with the heat of summer rising as steam from the streets, with the noise of cars speeding across the freeway, with the multitude of voices and languages rising up to greet each other. The day begins, yet all Suna can see is the memory of a face framed by night. A face so familiar, so loved, she can name each imperfection, each mark as though they are her own.
Suna runs forward without a glance, without a thought. To the car rounding the curve of the freeway off-ramp. The road slick with oil and rain. She pumps her arms and wills herself into the light.
mina
I FOUND HER SLEEPING on the couch, her body curled to one side, her head lodged against the faded green armrest. I pushed her damp bangs off her forehead and whispered in her good ear. “Suna.”
She stirred in her sleep, an arm flung up over her head. Her stuffed dog peeked out from under her neck.
“Suna.” I dangled her hearing aid in front of her, letting it bump against her forehead. Her eyes remained closed. I gently shook her shoulder. “Suna, wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered and then finally opened. She looked blankly into my face for a moment before a smile skimmed across her lips.
“Hi, Uhn-nee,” she said and rubbed the sleep from her eyes using the back of her hand, fingers curled like a baby. If only she knew how young she looked when she did that, she would have stopped instantly. She was always protesting that she wasn’t a baby anymore, this sister of mine. Certainly a baby couldn’t start middle school. She had been certain that the summer would work magic. Make her grow in all the right places. And here it was the beginning of August and my old training bra was still in the dresser.
Suna sat up and moved to one side so that I could sit down. I kicked out my legs to rest them on the coffee table and dropped the hearing aid into her lap. In a practiced gesture, Suna held her hair back with one hand and dropped her chin as she hooked the larger molded plastic amplifier behind her ear and inserted the smaller piece into the canal. She smoothed her hair back over her ear.
“I’m going to chain you to your bed if you don’t stop sleepwalking,” I joked even as I thought seriously about taking her to the doctor at the clinic. The sleepwalking had been kind of funny at first, but when it didn’t stop, it started to freak me out. Sometimes if I caught her as she was getting out of bed, she seemed completely awake. Eyes open and everything.
“Did Uhmma and Apa leave already?” Suna asked. She glanced behind her to the kitchen as though expecting them to be eating.
“A long time ago,” I said and checked my watch. Seven a.m. “Come on.” I stood up. “It’s late. Uhmma’s gonna be pissed if we don’t hurry up.”
A dry cleaning business set time by the rising sun. And there were never enough hands. With the business so slow the last few years, there wasn’t money to hire employees. Uhmma and Apa relied on us, and mostly me, to help out at every opportunity. Before school, after school, during vacations and summers.
As Suna and I walked toward the car, I could almost see the tiny waves of heat trapped inside, ready to bake us alive. As soon as we opened the doors, the hot air poured out, pooling around our legs. Suna and I furiously rolled down the windows and adjusted the beach towels that kept the backs of our thighs from being scorched by the hot vinyl. I tossed my ponytail over one shoulder and jammed the key into the ignition.
“Wait, Uhn-nee!” Suna shouted.
I sighed and slouched in my seat. Suna closed her eyes and began to mutter, talking to the car she had named Sally. The white Nissan Sentra was older than God, but Suna believed it just needed some coaxing.
“Okay,” Suna said after a minute.
“Sally said she’d work for us today?” I asked and smiled.
“I told her I’d wash her windows if she was good.” Suna quickly patted the burning-hot dashboard, then blew on her hand. She treated the car like a pet, rewarding it when everything ran smoothly, gently chiding when we had to take it in for service. It all started the day she learned that plants responded to music and talking. No matter how much I tried to reason with her, she continued talking to the car.
I turned the ignition and held my breath. These last few days had been so odd. What with the Santa Ana winds starting up so early in the middle of summer instead of the fall, Suna sleepwalking, the washing machines breaking down. Everything felt off balance.
Sally sputtered to life, her guttural engine barely catching. One more day. Already the sweat pooled behind my knees and trickled down my calves. I turned on the radio and eased out of
