Chapter Thirteen #2
I sit down at the kitchen table. The cord stretches across the room. I press the receiver hard against my ear.
"Umma."
"Yes."
"I love you."
She's quiet for a long moment.
"Jenny."
"Tell Appa I love him too."
"Jenny. What's happening?"
"Nothing." I'm crying again. I'm trying not to cry in a way she can hear and I'm not succeeding. "Nothing's happening. I just wanted to call. I just wanted to say. I love you, Umma. I love Appa. I'm sorry I've been the way I've been. I'm sorry for the last two years."
"?? ?." Her voice has cracked open in a way I haven't heard in a long time. "We're sorry. We're sorry too. We've been sorry every day."
"I know."
I can hear her on the other end. The kitchen noises behind her — a cabinet closing, the soft tap of a cup being set on a counter. Sunday morning sounds in the Tudor house in Dundee. She's in the kitchen where Farkas sat across from her two nights ago.
She doesn't remember him.
She doesn't know what came into her house. She's blessing me without knowing what she's blessing.
I close my eyes. The phone is hot against my ear. The cord is twisted around my hand.
"Are you coming on Sunday?"
I think for a moment. I think about lying. I don't lie.
"I can't come on Sunday, Umma. I'm going somewhere. I'll write to you. I'll call you when I can. I'm sorry. I love you."
"Jenny."
"It's good, Umma. It's good. I'm going somewhere good. I'm happy. I'm happier than I've been in a long time. You won't be able to find me but I'll find you. I promise. I'll write."
She's crying. I can hear her crying on the other end. I've made my mother cry many times in my life. This is the first time I've made her cry without it being a thing that broke between us.
"Are you safe?" she asks.
The same question. The third time in three days I've been asked it.
"Yes."
"Then go."
"What?"
"Go. Whatever it is. Go." She's still crying but her voice has steadied.
"I've been telling your father for two years that we did this.
We did this to you. We've been waiting for you to find your way back to yourself.
I don't care how you find it. I don't care where you go.
I don't care if it's a thing I'd understand. Go."
"Umma."
"Go, my daughter. Find what makes you happy. I'll be here when you can come back. Even if it takes a long time. I'll be here."
I'm crying so hard I can't speak for a long moment.
"I love you, Umma."
"I love you, ?? ?."
I hang up the receiver.
I sit at the kitchen table. The cord is still in my hand. The afternoon is getting on. The light through the kitchen window is fading toward gray.
I get up.
I go to my room.
I pack.
I don't pack much. The violin case. The sheet music.
A canvas bag I haven't used since I dropped out of college, which I take down from the top shelf of the closet.
Into it I put: two pairs of jeans, three sweaters, the wool coat I've been saving for the worst of February, a pair of warm socks, my toothbrush, the zippered pouch with my passport in it.
I haven't used my passport since I was eighteen, when my mother took me to Seoul to see her sister.
I'm surprised it's still where I left it.
I put the river stone in the pouch with the passport. The first gift he ever gave me. The thing that's sat on my nightstand for two and a half weeks.
I look around the room.
I leave almost everything. The textbooks on the desk — I leave them. The clothes in the closet — I leave them. The makeup and the hair products and the accumulated things of two years of my life in this room — I leave them. I don't need them. I'm going to a new life. The old life can stay here.
I write two notes.
I write one for Lisa.
Lisa — I'm leaving. I've decided to go follow my music.
I won't be back. I'm sorry to leave you with the rent.
There's two hundred dollars in the desk drawer for you and Dee.
I've left my furniture and my kitchen things.
Please give the violin teacher recital photo on my desk to my mother if you can find a way.
Thank you for the chamomile tea. — Jenny.
I write one for Dee.
Dee — I'm leaving and I won't be back. I'm sorry for the trouble. There's money in the drawer for the rent. Please take care of Lisa. Thank you for the stew. — Jenny.
I leave the notes on the kitchen counter beside the coffee maker where both of them will see them when they come in.
I shower one more time and dress in warm clothes — the wool coat, the boots, a scarf.
I look at myself in the bathroom mirror.
The dark circles are gone. My skin isn't sallow anymore.
I don't know if it's the last week of sleep or the last day with him or both, but I look like a person who's been brought back from something.
I'm ready.
I pick up the violin case and the canvas bag.
I look at the apartment one more time.
The kitchen with Lisa's mug in the sink. The note on the counter. The phone on the wall.
I let myself out.
I lock the door behind me. I leave the key on the ledge above the doorframe where Lisa always leaves the spare in case Dee forgets hers.
I go down the stairs.
The stairs are cold. The hallway is cold. The front door of the building sticks in the cold and I have to yank it twice before it gives, the way it's stuck every winter since I moved in.
I step outside.
The afternoon is gone. The sky is the deep gray of just before dusk. The wind has picked up. The first lights in the windows of the building across the street are coming on.
I cross the parking lot.
I cross the street.
I see him.
He's across the road in the shadow of the bare elm, the way he was on the first night. He's standing perfectly still. He's wearing the long dark coat. The cold pale of his face is the only thing visible in the deeper dark beneath the branches.
He moves out of the shadow.
He crosses the short distance between us.
He stops in front of me.
He looks down at me — he's taller than I remembered from yesterday, somehow, even though I saw him in full daylight — and the black of his eyes catches what's left of the light from the streetlamp at the end of the block.
"Are you ready," he says.
His voice is rough and quiet. It's the voice from yesterday and the voice from the dark of my bedroom and the voice that said Farkas. Your Farkas against my mouth.
"Yes."
He takes the canvas bag from my hand. He doesn't take the violin case. He knows I want to carry that one.
He leans down. He kisses me on the forehead. His lips, cool, against my skin. He's done this before. He'll do it again.
"This way."
The van is parked two blocks away. We walk to it through the empty residential streets with the wind in our faces. He doesn't speak and I don't speak. I slide my gloved hand into his cold one as we walk, and his fingers close around mine carefully, the way they do everything.
He opens the passenger door for me. I get in. He puts the canvas bag in the back and closes my door.
The inside of the van is colder than I expected. He gets in the driver's side and starts the engine. The heat begins almost immediately — better heat than I have had in the Granada in two years. He pulls out of Millfield and turns east on the state highway.
The fields on either side of the road are dark. The sky is overcast. The road unspools through the flat country toward something I can't see.
"Where are we going."
"To a small airfield. About forty miles east of here. There's a jet waiting."