A Step from Heaven (14 page)

You. Lying. Bitch, Apa says in a low, slow voice. Going behind my back. I cannot even trust you to obey my orders.

I hold my hand over my face and stay lying on the couch. Apa grabs my hair again and pulls me up to a sitting position.

Give me that girl's number, Apa snarls. I will tell her she is not allowed to come near you again. I will tell her parents what kind of girl they have raised.

I find my spot and do not answer.

Give me her number
.

No.

The rain of blows on my face, shoulders, and head forces my body to the ground. My hands slide into the shag carpet. I pretend I am drowning, letting the sea take me under. I close my eyes and the world cannot touch me.

You are going to kill her! Uhmma shouts.

Get away from me, woman, Apa growls. This is all your fault. Look at what kind of daughter you have raised, always lying and sneaking around. She is just like you. Apa kicks me in the stomach. I barely feel the blow. I am already floating away.

Yah, Uhmma screams. You worthless dog! You are no better than a common hoodlum. Why do you think our children hide from you all the time?

Liar,
Apa roars.

When the blows stop and the sound of Uhmma's voice moves away from me, I slowly raise myself up on my elbows and squint at the blurred figures in my vision. I rub my eyes, trying to clear them of tears. Uhmma backs away toward the kitchen. Apa follows.

You and your sneaky ways. This is all your fault, Apa growls. Your fault.

Worthless dog! Uhmma screams. Hoodlum! Drunk bastard!

From the kitchen, the screams and shouts continue. The clanking of a pot hitting the floor jolts my body finally awake. I sit up and press my hands over my ears, close my eyes. The breaking comes inside, hitting, hitting my heart.

Stop, I whisper, rocking back and forth. Please, God, make it stop. Please. Please. God, make it stop. God. God?

A dull thud and Uhmma's scream halts my prayers. I open my eyes, and from somewhere inside my body, an answering scream finds its way out of my throat.

I don't think, just move. I lunge for the phone by the armchair. The three numbers are pressed so quickly I barely have time to hold the phone to my ear before a voice comes on, “Nine one one.”

I'm shaking so badly I have to hold the receiver with both hands. The sound of the lady's voice on the other end asking “How may I help you?” almost makes me hang up. What am I doing? Do I really believe the police can help? That they care about me? They would not help people like us. I start to breathe too quickly and my vision blurs. For second I forget I am still holding the phone against my ear.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end asks.

Do it, I tell myself. Speak. Save her. I can't. I start to cry.

“Hello? Hello?”

What am I doing? I look at the phone in my hand and let it drop to the ground. I hug my knees and rock, back and forth, back and forth. Halmoni's voice returns, Only God can. Only God can.

The sound of breaking and Uhmma's deep wail haunt the room. I pound my fist into my thigh and bite my lower lip. But I am not a child anymore. I do not have time to wait for God. There is only me. Stop it. Stop it. This is enough.

I pick up the phone and raise it to my ear. “Please,” I whisper and take a gulp of air. “Send help.”

“Tell me what is going on, miss.”

“My father is killing my mother.”

“Are you at one eight seven two La Madera Boulevard?”

I don't know how she knows this, but I'm thankful that I do not have to say more than “Yes.” I clutch the phone tightly to my ear as another crash explodes the air. “Please, please,” I whisper. “Hurry.”

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. Even after ten stitches on the cut above her eyebrow, two stitches on the corner of her lip, and taped ribs, Uhmma will not press charges. “My huh-su-bun,” she tells them. I stand by her side translating, my voice breaking only once, when they ask if he beats me also. We are told to come back tomorrow. They must hold him for the night.

The next morning Uhmma and I wait in the car in front of the police station. Uhmma honks the horn when she sees Apa step outside. Apa barely glances in our direction. His eyes pass over us and stop at a point behind the car. A blue sedan that was parked not more than ten feet behind us starts its engine and drives by quickly, but not so fast that we cannot make out the figure of an Asian woman in the driver's seat. She stops the car at the curb. Apa walks quickly to the passenger's side. He steps in. They drive away.

Uhmma watches the sedan until it turns a corner and then disappears. After a few minutes of staring at the empty street, Uhmma finally turns on the ignition. The station wagon grumbles awake. But before she steps on the gas, Uhmma holds the steering wheel tightly with both chapped hands. She says to me with her eyes fixed on the road, This is all your fault.

The next few weeks, months, is a snowy blur. Uhmma hardly comes home. She works three jobs back to back, sleeping only during the dew-damp hours before dawn. Her body begins to
waste away. Although every night I leave a bowl heaped with rice on the counter for her, every morning I find it sitting untouched. I empty the bowl back into the pot and replace the lid.

There is no more time for church. When school is out for the summer, Uncle Tim lies and says he needs Joon's and my help at his small ice cream shop on the beach. Joon complains all morning about missing stuff with his friends, but he's ready when Uncle Tim comes by to pick us up for work.

There isn't enough room for all three of us in the shop, so Joon stays outside sweeping the sidewalk of its endless sand while I stay inside pouring waffle mixture into a mold and burning my fingertips shaping the cones. Uncle Tim handles the customers. At the end of the day Uncle Tim gives us each thirty dollars and says we do good work. We thank him and pocket the money. At home, Joon gives me twenty of his. I use our money for the weekly groceries.

During these months, the only act that gives me comfort is rinsing the evening rice, my daily chore. 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. For a moment, it seems like all that stands in the pot is a confusion of dirty water. But if I reach underneath the cloud, feel around, there they are. Tiny seeds waiting to be rinsed and exposed like nuggets of pearls.

One evening as I am washing the rice, my hand disappearing and reappearing in the murky cloud of starchy water, I hear the front door open and close, and then Uhmma is standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

Uhmma, I say loudly, startled to see her home early. Home at all. What are you doing home from the restaurant? I ask.

I am on my break, Uhmma says and comes over to stand beside me. She watches me clean the rice. My hands shake a little from having her observe me so closely.

When did you learn how to make the rice? she asks.

I shrug and pour out the milky water. I have watched you enough times, I say.

I suppose that was how I learned, she says. Watching my uhmma.

I finish rinsing the rice until the tiny grains are sitting in a pool of cold clear water. Uhmma takes the pot from my hands, wipes the wet bottom, and puts it into the rice cooker.

You have done a good job making the rice, Young Ju, Uhmma says.

I turn my face away from her. Blink rapidly at the far wall to keep my tears from spilling over. It has been a long time since she has spoken to me.

Young Ju, Uhmma says.

I refuse to look at her. Her hand touches my shoulder.

Young Ju, Uhmma says again.

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

Gomo came by the restaurant today, Uhmma says quietly. She came to give me a message. Apa is going back to Han Gook.

I look at Uhmma to see what that means to her. Now it is she who avoids my gaze.

Uhmma pats her cheek nervously and says, Gomo will borrow the money if we would like to go back with him.

I swallow hard.

Uhmma glances at me. I shake my head and begin cleaning the counter with a wet rag. I will not go, I say to myself. I will live with Amanda or something. Anything. Tears fall on the counter as quickly as I can wipe them away.

Uhmma takes the rag out of my hand. She reaches for my face and gently turns it away from the wall. I meet her eyes. Uhmma's face mirrors my own.

Please try to understand, Young Ju. These last few months have been difficult. I did not have the right words for you until today. I said things that are not true. I blamed you for my mistake. Uhmma shakes her head. I blamed you for trying to save me.

I want to reach out to Uhmma. Rest my head on her shoulder. But I stand in my place, arms crossed over my chest.

Uhmma says, Now it is my turn to do the right thing for you. For us. I told Gomo that we could take care of ourselves. My strong children and I will be fine without Apa.

I press my lips together, try to hold my breath, but the tears come anyway. I lower my chin and let them fall to the floor.

Uhmma smooths my forehead, my cheeks. Tucks my hair behind my ears like she used to do when I was young. I put my arms around her and rest my head on her shoulders.

She murmurs, You are my strong girl.

The patch of grass is so small you can walk across in four long strides. But I don't care. It is ours. I walk barefoot back and forth across the vibrant green lawn, take in deep breaths of air. My toes clutch the tiny blades, revel in the softness and the damp earth beneath my feet. All ours.

Young Ju, Uhmma calls from the bedroom window, come inside now. You can go out later. Uhmma smiles at me and shakes her head. Though we have boxes to unpack and a whole house to marvel at and clean, I can't get enough of this grass.

I shield my eyes from the bright sun and turn to look at the house we can finally call home. It's strange how much this home resembles the one in Korea. Same squat, square shape and low roof, like a sitting hen ready to lay. I suppose that was why Uhmma and I knew this would be the one from the moment we saw it. That and the tiny sliver of lawn in the backyard that I could see from the driveway. This house isn't in the best of neighborhoods or on top of a hill, and it needs new paint and some work on the windows and roof, but it's better than what we had all those years. All that time. With Apa.

It almost doesn't seem fair that I will have to leave for college in a few weeks. Before I have had the chance to memorize how long it takes for the hot water to come on or what sounds the house makes on rainy nights, or cut the grass when it becomes long and shaggy. Before I truly know this place, I will be gone. But Uhmma and Joon will love this house, grow into it until they can walk
in their sleep to the bathroom. I bend down and run my fingers through the grass. And I will enjoy this lawn when I come home for the holidays.

The inside of the house is cool after the heat of the sun. Loud guitar music and the sound of hammering come from Joon's room. He is nailing up his drawings. Uhmma and I had a few framed one year for his birthday. Joon has promised I can take one to school with me. The kitchen floor is littered with boxes containing our dishes and pots, but the tile counters and cabinets smell of Windex and bleach. Uhmma has been here already.

Although Uhmma and I will have to share a bedroom when I'm at home, this house is bigger than the apartment. There is a living room separate from the dining room, something Uhmma did not know could exist. Even Gomo and Uncle Tim have only one big room, a dining table at one end and the couch at the other. There are no boxes in our dining room. Only hard wooden floors and an intricate, diamond-shaped design in the middle of the ceiling. When we first looked at the house, Uhmma kept staring up at it, wondering what it was for. The agent told us that these old bungalows sometimes have nice detailing like that. He pointed to the middle of the diamond design and said, “That's where you would hang the chandelier.” Now Uhmma dreams about getting a dining room table and a chandelier just like in the old movies with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.

We still have the old couch, but there is a new blue sheet covering the cigarette burns. When Uhmma has enough money saved, she will look for a new couch. For now, this house has taken all our savings and more. All the money that Uhmma makes working at Gomo's
new dry-cleaning business, the money from Joon's afterschool job at Kinko's, and my money from tutoring. Plus a loan that Uhmma could hardly make herself take from Uncle Tim and Gomo except that Gomo insisted because she said Uhmma was family.

But it was worth it. All of it. Luckily, I got a scholarship so Uhmma doesn't have to worry about paying for college. I twirl around the empty dining room and think about flying again. Going up, up, up. I spin around and around trying to make myself dizzy. Empty the fears that spring inside my head every time I think about leaving home. Uhmma and Joon. What if I don't like it at college? What if I stand out like an alien? What if I am disappointed?

I stop spinning. Get to work, I tell myself. Get busy. I pick up several boxes near the front door with Korean words scribbled on the sides and take them to Uhmma for deciphering. A few of the characters look familiar, but I never learned to read or write Korean.

Uhmma, I ask, turning the boxes around so she can read the writing, where do you want these?

Uhmma is sitting on the bed and arranging my clothes into neat piles for the dresser we will share. She looks up and squints at the words. Bring them in here, she says.

I drop them in front of her and have a seat on the bed. Uhmma pulls off the packing tape on the smaller box and opens it up. I lean forward to see what's inside.