My Seoul Man

Chapter 2

I ran a finger down the fugly striped tie AJ was wearing in the old, yellowing class photo—fourth grade, we were in then.

I definitely remembered that face. But what had his mother been thinking, sending him to school with that terrible tie around his neck? Lord...

I was one kid down from him, too, just like he'd said. My eyes all startled like the photographer had barked "Boo" instead of "Say cheese" or whatever little stupid little thing he'd yelled out trying to get smiles that would convince our parents to pay for those mug shots.

I was kind of chuckling to myself, thinking how different our lives had turned out—and that his stylist would have a stroke if he went out in public in a tie like that now—when my Aunt Jennie yanked open the closet door all the way and bellowed, "Girl, what on Earth are you doin' in here?! We got a house fulla people come to pay their respects and you--"

I struggled up off the stack of quilts and blankets I'd been sitting on and sputtered, "I was just...I wanted to...find some old pictures of Mama Sadie to...to maybe put out somewhere..."

Which was partly true.

But the whole truth was...well, right after AJ and I ran into each other at the Target, I drove over to my mother's house. Okay, technically, she was actually the aunt who raised me after my real mother died.

Mama Sadie, we all called her. Tiny, feisty little woman she was.

Or had been—God, I still haven't gotten over finding her out in the garden that day. I mean, I thought it was a pile of old clothes or something laying there. Like she was going to make a scarecrow or something, between the rows of collards and tomatoes and whatnot.

Paramedics said she'd been down a good while probably—I was so hysterical I'm not sure what all they said, to be honest.

Cause she'd raised me like I was her own, that woman. Maybe because she'd miscarried a bunch of times, I don't know. But she treated me like she'd carried me in that wonky womb of hers full term. And I loved the hell out of her for it.

So, on the day of the family "celebration" she'd asked for—I'll explain in a minute—I went to her bedroom closet looking for pictures of her to put out on a little altar thing I'd made on a table in Aunt Jennie's big backyard across the street.

Like a lot of our elders, Mama Sadie'd kept huge boxes full of pictures. So many that after a while she quit even trying to put them into albums. So many I gave up on digitizing them, too.

One of the photo albums she had updated regularly was a big red one with "SCHOOL" written on the front in the big, block letters I'd learned to make in kindergarten. I'd been so proud to have a picture book all to myself.

When I found it that day, I flipped it open and there he was. Little Ahn Ji-Yeong. Even cuter than I remembered, actually. Big old eyes and Cupid's bow lips—those lips were the girlish part I told you about earlier. More than made up for that damned tie...

And something about those pictures of us and the smell of the Chanel perfume Mama used to dab on her neck before Sunday service kind of comforted me, you know? So, I sank down against all the clothes and blankets and quilts and things she'd squirreled away in that closet with all those picture boxes and just kept flipping and smiling...flipping and smiling...

I just wanted to feel her presence again in some kind of way, you know? I just couldn't get used to her not being there with us anymore.

She'd been so spry for eighty-seven. But apparently she'd hidden—and neglected—her high blood pressure and some other medical issues while I was gone.