3
Turns
Of the three Koh children, DH had the smoothest path toward his profession. He’d had full-ride scholarships to Andover and Yale. When DH learned that his benefactor was Renee Cha, he’d felt uncomfortable, but Peter hadn’t cared at all.
“Mom has a lot of money. More than you and I can imagine,” he’d said. “She’s just like that. Mom likes to do secret stuff to support people. Besides, you got me a job and a band. Now I make more than you, and I didn’t go to law school. You poor thing,” he’d teased.
It was true. Annualized, both Peter and Mido had been earning in the low six figures for the past two years.
Unlike DH, Peter lived rent-free in his house in Turtle Rock, and though Mido helped her father with the mortgage and expenses, since she no longer had to send money to DH, she was able to save more toward her own future.
Ever generous, Renee had offered to pay for law school, saying, You’re like my son, but DH had declined. Once he knew, he couldn’t accept any more money. She asked him never to tell his father or mother, and DH had not. He knew it would upset them.
When DH promised to pay it back, Renee had been stern. “I don’t want the money. When you’re a rich lawyer, please take the best care of your father and mother. If they become rich, then you can give the money to another young person. Okay?” That was classic Renee.
Regardless, DH intended to pay it all back but had no idea how.
He also owed Mido money. For three years, his kid sister had sent him $1,500 every month, which had allowed him to only borrow for tuition, and though he earned money in the summers and tutored when he had time, graduate school in Manhattan had been more than he could afford.
He had over $10,000 in credit card debt because he’d had to cover travel back and forth to California, rent deposits, and the down payment for his used Toyota Corolla.
There were suits and shoes to buy for work and his share of food and liquor when he went out.
He was never not thinking about the cost of things.
When Peter transferred to Pomona, DH realized how often Peter had picked up the tab for pizzas, beer, and even rides to New York.
Of course, when Renee wasn’t around to visit Peter, there were no town car rides to the city or grand meals at restaurants where she made sure to get everything he wanted but was too shy to order for himself.
DH adored his best friend’s mother. When she’d told him that he was like her son, he knew she meant it as a kindness, but in the year and a half that Peter had no longer been living in New Haven, DH had come to understand that day to day, a son lived differently from a scholarship student who was like a son.
As a gracious benefactor, she owed him nothing more, and DH would always be grateful to her nonetheless.
DH was not a wasteful person with poor financial habits.
Even as a boy, living abroad alone, he’d been thrifty about every cent because there was never enough for the three kids.
Helen had sent him extra cash whenever she could, and when he wanted sweets at the commissary or a burger with his teammates at an away game, he had economized.
“Not hungry,” he’d say when his friends ordered pizza and he would’ve had to chip in, then he’d make himself ramyeon with the hot pot in his room.
Whatever food the school offered, he ate.
He accepted free sneakers that the coach gave him and refused invitations to attend concerts or games that would have required him to pitch in, saying he had to study since he wasn’t naturally smart.
Almost never did he spend money on things he did not need.
There wasn’t enough money to go on dates, but there were always cute girls willing to hang out and watch television in his room. Sometimes the well-off ones didn’t understand why he couldn’t afford to go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break or Aspen at Christmas.
When Joanna, a girl he was sleeping with during his senior year at Yale, offered to pay for him to go on her family’s trip to Saint Bart’s, DH had declined, not wanting her father’s charity. He wasn’t poor. His parents had been upper-middle-class, then middle-class.
Over the years, when girls dropped hints about shopping trips, DH heard them loud and clear, but he thought it would be wrong to buy them shoes or bags when he could barely get any gifts for his own family. He stayed away from the girls with too many expectations.
Once he got the firm job, DH had tried to live at home in Orange County to save money, but the round-trip commute ate into his sleep, so he agreed to pay for a small room in a rented house in West Hollywood with three friends from college and law school.
When he was growing up, there had always been stories of fabled achievers who could ace tests or compete in a tournament on four or five hours of sleep, but having been a scholar-athlete most of his life until law school, DH knew he could not do anything well without at least seven and a half hours.
His father, whose sleep schedule could be used to set a watch, had been right.
There was no other way. If it were up to him, he’d sleep nine hours, and his work would be done better and faster.
From childhood, DH had accepted that he was fine without being brilliant.
At Yale especially, he had met some out-there thinkers and artistic types.
DH was ordinary, just intelligent enough, and hardworking.
His superpower was that he was able to work steadily and finish what he started. He was always on time.
He had been an excellent soccer player in Australia and in college, but there was no way in the world he’d go pro, and that had become clear his freshman year, when he was just playing at the college level.
What did he want, now that he was a first-year lawyer?
DH wanted to be rich. He didn’t need to have as much money as Peter’s mother’s family, sums that seemed incalculable to him; however, this middle child wanted enough money to take care of his family.
If one day his son wanted to go on a trip for spring break, he could say okay.
If his wife wanted a necklace from some fancy store, fine.
If his brother wanted to go to graduate school, no problem.
Mido needed help. It was time to clean up the house.
She asked her brothers to come home on Sunday afternoon after church to clear out Helen’s things and go through the unpacked boxes.
“I can’t do it by myself,” she said, and DH and Bo quickly agreed.
Their father had Elder Council, then a Finance Committee meeting, which would take the rest of the afternoon.
Bo cooked fried rice with Spam and kimchi, and after lunch, the three of them faced Helen’s clothing and shoes, which were in boxes in the garage. After Bo loaded up the car, Mido announced there was more to do.
“Oh, c’mon, Mido. I get no time off ever,” DH said. “Can’t I just pass out?”
Bo tapped DH on the shoulder. “No whining.”
“That’s not very sympathetic coming from a psychologist,” DH said.
“I’m not a psychologist yet, and I’m probably going into research. I’m not built to listen to people’s problems.”
“That’s so true,” DH said, turning to Mido, thinking she’d agree.
Mido put her hands on her hips. To Bo, she said, “In the guest room, there’s all your CDs, cassettes, books, and the clothes you’ve outgrown,” and to DH, “The stuff you’ve shipped from New York.
I left both of you alone because you were busy taking a bar exam and working at the lab, but no more nice guy. I want it all cleared out, gentlemen.”
“Who are you?” DH asked. “And what have you done to my nice sister?”
Bo laughed. “Let’s go, clown. Follow the leader.”
Mido smiled.
In the guest room, DH rifled through Bo’s boxes. He pulled out Bo’s Korean CDs and cassettes, setting aside the ones he wanted to borrow. Bo put on a cassette of trot music, and DH smiled.
“Seriously? You are such an old man,” DH said.
“I am,” Bo agreed cheerfully. “I’m going to grow a beard like Freud soon.”
After two years at Fullerton College, then two more at UCLA as a transfer student, Bo had done something miraculous.
In his senior year, he had performed some complicated data tabulation and run models for Dr. Harry Kim, a psychology professor at UCLA, relating to anxiety and depression in aging immigrant communities in LA’s Koreatown, and Dr. Kim had listed him as one of three coauthors.
A major coup for an undergraduate, it ensured his admission to UCLA’s highly competitive doctoral program in developmental psychology.
DH asked, “Brother, how long will it take you to graduate?”
“It’s a six-year program, but I might need more time if I want to get my hours for licensing. There are so many steps: coursework, training, and the dissertation. I had no idea it would take this long.”
“When do you make money?” DH asked.
“I will never make the kind of money you make. Never.”
Mido looked up from her sorting.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re going to do important work. You’re going to be a doctor.”
“What Mido said.” Bo smiled and patted her shoulder.
“Did you find an apartment on campus?” she asked.
“I was thinking of staying here. The drive isn’t too bad.”
“No. You have to get a place. You have to be on campus to teach and do research.”
“Rents are way too high—”
“You have to be on campus,” Mido said firmly. “That’s final.”
DH shook his head. “Wow. An alien has snatched your body.”
“And you are not going to tutor anymore when you’re in school. Just like DH. I’m going to put you through grad school,” Mido said. “Your sister is rich now.”
“I’m not going to let my baby sister put me through school,” Bo protested. “I can work. I made $40,000 last year during my senior year, and that’s when I was doing new work for Dr. Kim. If I live on campus, getting to Irvine will be a nightmare. It’s better for me to live at home.”