Chapter 35
It was hard to get ourselves up in the mornings that followed in East End now.
Everything felt dense and opaque. The air around us, our bodies moving through it.
Simply breathing. Haraboeji was gone. He’d never give us advice again.
He’d never do the exact thing we needed him to do.
He wasn’t there as a bulwark against people who wanted to hurt us.
Without him, we felt directionless, stuck.
How would we get Channing free from Kent now?
When Mrs. Yun needed some items from the Asian market the next morning, Paul came running up the stairs to invite us to join him.
I refused at first, but Channing told me to go.
“Get outside, Dahee,” she said. “You should pay for some of the groceries Mrs. Yun wants. We’ve eaten so much of their food, and I’ll pay you back when the Ahns pay me. Harabeoji would want us to do that.”
We’d stayed for so long at their house that it felt right that we should contribute.
Paul said that money wasn’t necessary. I didn’t know who to listen to.
I told him to give me a minute, and I called my mother from the bedroom.
Meanwhile, Channing asked Paul questions about Korean messaging apps.
I knew she was still hoping to reach Minjae.
My mother answered the phone and said I should buy Mrs. Yun a box of fruit.
“We’ve been in her house and now her apartment for so many days, Eomma. You sure fruit is enough?” I asked.
“You’re young, trying to make money. I gave her an envelope of cash before we left.”
“How much?”
“Don’t worry.”
If Harabeoji was here, he’d explain this way of giving money to me. I pictured him with Mr. Yun out in the yard to calm my heart. I thanked my mother and hung up.
What did my gut tell me to do? I took a deep breath and brushed my hair. Since I couldn’t find my hair tie, I left it loose. “You’ll get outside, too?” I asked Channing when I joined her and Paul in the living room.
“I’ll go for a walk,” she said. “Don’t worry. You look nice with your hair down like that.”
Paul said it looked good either way. I rolled my eyes at them both and then promised to bring back more ginseng tea for Channing.
I remembered how Channing had described the clouds in the sky that day she’d gone with Minjae to the Asian market.
It made me sad to be on the same road now.
Paul pointed to landmarks along the way to Little Brookton: a hill he used to sled down with his brother in the winter, an orchard with the best apples.
I told him Channing used to have an orchard at her old house and the crab apples in our neighborhood.
The grocery store ended up being a large two-story house with a parking lot that had been converted into a business. A sign across the front announced: EAST END ASIAN MART. I could see where the two-car garage used to be that was now a glass storefront.
“Why’s it named East End, we’re in Little Brookton, aren’t we?” I asked as Paul opened the door for me.
The smell of coffee mixed with the odor of garlic bulbs, ginger, ginseng, dried pollack, and seaweed hit me in the face.
“It’s always been called that, so maybe she kept the name?” He shrugged.
A short Asian woman wearing a red apron was wiping down the counter and gave us a broad, welcoming smile.
“Come in! Come into my store, welcome,” she called.
She pointed to herself. “Call me Mai.” Then she poured hot water into cardboard coffee cups and stirred in thin packets of instant coffee. “Asians make the best instant coffee, already with creamer. I drink it all day,” she said, offering us each a portion. I took a sip and knew she was right.
Paul said, “Thanks, Mrs. Sato-Shaw.”
When she scowled at him, he quickly added, “I’ve known you since I was a kid. You’re always Mrs. Sato-Shaw to me.”
“Thank you, Mai,” I said, which changed her expression into a smile. “I met your nephew at Jack Wire’s office.”
She patted my shoulder and said she was proud of him.
While Paul wandered the shelves with a basket, adding items on a list his grandmother had given him, I told Mai I was Korean and selected individually packaged baked goods on a shelf by the counter.
They might tempt Channing and me to eat.
She nodded approvingly at my choices and slipped free samples of coconut candy and black sesame cookies into my basket.
“My cousin came here a couple of weeks ago to buy ginseng tea,” I said.
“Usually, I recommend this one,” she replied, and handed me a gold-colored box. “Drinking because she likes the taste or for a problem?”
“She had cramps, from her period,” I explained.
“Then yes, this one, and who am I kidding, no one likes the taste.” She laughed.
“My cousin does. She said your store used to be in town.”
Mai smiled even broader. “So many years ago, right in town. A small, small shop that was next door to the lawyer’s office,” she said.
“Which lawyer?” I asked.
“Next to the newspaper,” she said. On the shelf next to the register, there were four stacks of newspapers: the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Providence Journal, and the East End Courier. She tapped the last one.
Paul nodded, “Right, that’s where the Bike and Basket is now.” He turned to me. “Where we had that supreme croissant and scones.”
“I was downstairs and the lawyer was upstairs,” she said. “She owned the building; very good landlady.”
“That used to be Mrs. Shin’s office,” Paul said. “Channing’s mother. That’s Dahee’s aunt.” He pointed to me. I knew my aunt had been a lawyer, but I had never visited her office.
Mai gave me a long hug and then said as she released me, “Your aunt? Why didn’t you say so when you came in?
” She beamed. “Maggie was a big help to me.” She reached into the pocket of a shirt she was wearing and put a piece of mango candy in my hand and one in Paul’s.
She took a tissue from a box on the shelf and wiped her nose.
“If only she hadn’t gotten sick. I’m so sorry.
So much would have been different for so many people, including me.
I would still have my store there. Maybe even have expanded. ”
I agreed that everything would have been different and that I was sorry she didn’t have her store in East End. “So many more Asian families in East End now,” I said. And then something she said struck me as curious.
“What did my aunt’s death have to do with your ability to stay?” I asked.
“You see, my mother was Vietnamese and my father Japanese. I wanted to open a food hall, for all kinds of Asian food. I’d invite other people to join me: Filipino and Thai, South Asian, Taiwanese and others. Big variety. Maggie and I had plans. Can you imagine?”
I’d never heard of such a place near East End. It would have drawn people from all over the area. “What happened? Why did you have to leave?” I asked, leaning in.
“A company from Boston was going to build a big hotel on the water, and people were very excited about it. It was good for the whole town, and a group of Korean families—like your aunt’s—were going to invest with them.
If it went through, there would be more business in town, and East End would be a big tourist destination.
Maggie told me she was going to buy the building on the other side.
Together, both buildings would have been enough space.
” She paused and sniffed. Her voice wavered.
Even now, after all these years, the disappointment seeped through her voice.
“That’s a restaurant and a pub now,” Paul explained.
Mai shook her head and looked up with sadness in her eyes as if she were reliving it. I squeezed her arm.
“And then it was over. No more news of expansion, no nothing. Maggie got sick and then she died; it was over. I didn’t understand why the building had to be sold, why no one explained.
It was a sad time. People said Maggie’s husband had to sell the building because he stole money from the investors, but then why didn’t he have money to keep the building? Where did the money go?”
Over the years my parents had spoken in hushed tones of my uncle’s financial problems. I knew he had worked as a banker of some sort.
“My uncle wouldn’t steal money. He was destroyed when my aunt died.
He couldn’t function, I’m sure he just wasn’t able to follow through on the project, I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said.
“It was in the news, about the stolen money. I knew if Maggie was alive, she would have been so disappointed at the way people gossiped.” She raised her palms open to the ceiling.
“When the building was sold, I moved out here.” She motioned to the store we were in.
“It’s far from town. Hardly anyone comes. Some days I have no customers.”
I put a few more items into my basket. Paul threw in some, too. Mai tsked and made sounds as if she was scolding us. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she said.
I told her I wasn’t. “There are a lot of people to feed at the Yuns’ house,” I said. Paul agreed. “The people of East End lost out. A food hall in town would be so great. They’d love it.”
“I know, I would love it, too.” She took a breath and started to ring up our purchases.
“We have to keep going. Never give up. Sometimes out of sadness comes happiness.” She clucked her tongue as she punched in the register.
Her prices were lower than I expected. “I hired someone to help me paint and do the work here, and then he had a friend who’s an electrician and now we’re married, me and the electrician,” she continued.
“I would have never met him if I hadn’t lost my store in town. ”
She laughed and wiped her cheeks. “Okay—I want a big grocery and food court and Roger, too. I got only part of it but if I had to choose, I would choose him.” I squeezed her arm again, and she smiled through her tears at me.
“Remember, keep going.” She looked straight into my eyes.
She reminded me of my aunt just then, though they hardly resembled each other.
“I will,” I found myself promising her.
She nodded, then ducked below the counter and pulled out a crumpled issue of the East End Courier. “Now, they’re growing the business district and allowing development on the water. Did you hear about it?” She showed us the article. I saw Ames’s byline.
It read almost like a political ad. I was surprised that Ames had written it.
“You can take it if you want,” Mai said, holding it out to me.
“The only local paper around. No one buys it anymore though. Look, my pile.” She pointed again to the stack on the shelf.
It was higher than the others. Clearly, the others were more in demand.
“I’ll buy one for myself,” I said, and took an issue from the pile.
“Paul, you want one?” I called. We should support his cousin.
He said he had a subscription, as every member of his family did.
“Too bad this didn’t happen all those years ago,” Mai said, and sniffed again and finished tallying the items in our baskets.
Paul and I argued about who would pay until Mai, looking distressed, offered to give us a discount, which we refused.
Then we realized we hadn’t brought bags to carry the items we’d purchased.
Mai went into a back room and emerged with a couple of cardboard boxes and a large bag stuffed with other bags.
Some had disintegrated from age, but there was a sturdy black canvas bag large enough for the bulky items, so we accepted it from her.
It had a working zipper. I ran my finger across a streak of bright yellow hardened paint on one side of the canvas.
She smiled as she filled the bag with our purchases.
“These were left upstairs after Kent moved. I never throw anything out. I told him not to worry, I’d take care of those few things.
Not many. He’s Korean, too. Very polite, respectful, clean, careful man, not like the one who lives there now.
” Mai paused. “Why do you look like that?”
There must be a million men named Kent, I told myself, but I recoiled from the bag. Paul spoke for me.
“I heard Kent Cho lived out here while his house was being built. Do you mean that Kent?”
Her jaw dropped. “Of course you know him. Everyone knows Kent Cho.”
I began to take items out of the black duffel.
“I think the boxes will be fine,” I said.
“It’s just a bag, Dahee,” Paul said.
“Keep it, yes, Kent Cho. He’s very rich now. Maybe the bag will bring you good luck,” Mai said, and added a bag of mango candy from below the register and zipped the bag closed. My reaction didn’t faze her one bit.
I thanked her and carried a box of our groceries as quickly as I could out the door.