So again, she lied. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m too busy with work.”
Her mother stood to clear their empty bowls and plates. Not a grain of rice remained.
“I wish you would live near me,” she said softly, before turning away toward the kitchen sink where she blasted the hot water to soak the empty pots and pans.
Margot experienced a sense of lightness, relief that topic of conversation had been extinguished for now, yet she could feel the burn of regret for her lies, her ingratitude toward a mother who had sacrificed so much for their survival, her lack of commitment toward learning Korean, even if only to speak to her mother—rising, rising toward her tongue and eyes. They were tears, ones she had hidden from her mother.
That was almost a year ago. In the end, her relationship with Jonathan was only two months long, culminating in the most predictable and uneventful heartbreak. And now her mother was dead.
She had always counted on one more hour, one more day, one more year to explain herself to her mother, to tell her that she loved her more than anyone in the world but could never live around her, never live under the same roof with her again.
Now Margot would never have the chance to help her understand. To help them both understand.
“Margot?” Someone was calling her name. In the waiting room, she looked up at Officer Choi who had been at the apartment two days ago when Margot had found her mother’s body. He was young, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties at most. His hair glistened like black enamel as if he had recently showered or left the gym for work. But the heavy gun and uniform made her nervous, uptight. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. A white mug steamed in his hand. “Would you like some coffee or water?”
“No,” she said, standing to follow him.
They passed closed doors down a bright long corridor that smelled of floor wax to reach a shared office, which had a tall bookshelf filled with legal books and manuals. An open file rested on the desk with muted multicolored sheets of paper and a lined notepad.
Margot seated herself across from him. Behind his head, the vertical blinds were half-closed and tilted in a way so that she could still see his face—diamond-shaped with heavy eyebrows and high cheekbones. She realized then that he was handsome, which made her even more anxious, her thoughts pacing like an animal in a cage.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Officer Choi asked.
“Not that I know of,” Margot said. “I haven’t lived in LA for years.”
“Where’d you go to high school?”
“Fairfax.”
“Ah, that’s it.”
“Really?” He wasn’t familiar at all. Actually, she hardly remembered any Korean kids there except herself. Most of her friends had been Mexican, Salvadoran, Filipino.
“Yeah. I think you were a few years before me.” He smiled. “Small world.”
Was she that out of it in high school? She had been too busy experimenting with drugs, a half tab of acid on her tongue, spending her free time charcoaling still lifes of fruit or hiding in the muted red glow of a darkroom. She was artistic and antisocial. He had probably been popular, a jock.
Officer Choi cleared his throat and leaned forward, bracing his arms on the desk. “I’m sorry about your mom. I know this . . . must be a lot right now . . .”
Tiny drops of sweat formed on her face. She rubbed between her brows, pressing the pain that throbbed inside her head. She spotted the death certificate on his desk and remembered the black box ticked beside the word Accidental.
Margot closed her eyes, inhaling through her mouth as if to protect herself from the memory of the scent of her mother’s body. The putrid smell of the rotten fruit—sweet, foul, and gaseous. Acid soured her mouth. She could feel his gaze lingering on her face. When she glanced up at him, his eyes dropped, scanning his notes.
“Died last Saturday or Sunday. Hematoma,” he said, scrunching his brow. “Found on Wednesday. All her possessions seemed to be intact, her keys, her Corolla. Cash in her purse. No forced entry. Shoes, slippers by the door.”
The outstretched arm. The feet in the nude socks. How tiny she appeared to be on the ground.
A trip. A fall. A horrible way to die. To have survived all those traumas, those hardships—a war, an orphanage, immigration, being a single mother in a foreign country—only to die by something as mundane as a slipper or a shoe. It was terrible. It was all so very terrible.
“Are you sure you don’t want any water?” he asked, sitting up in his chair.
“No. No, that’s okay.”
“I know that this is a lot. It’s a lot to process.” His eyes softened. “It never makes sense to lose people—especially like this.”
There would be no goodbye, no farewell. Her mother’s body was in a mortuary, awaiting cremation. There were no plans for a funeral. There was no will. They never discussed her mother’s wishes after death. They rarely discussed her mother’s desires at all. Margot only knew that her mother wanted Margot to be closer to her. I wish you would live near me.
There would only be ash—silent and heavy in a box. What would she do with her mother now?
“Even though this is a closed case . . . I wanted to make sure that you don’t suspect anything? That nothing suspicious was going on, or that there isn’t something you want to tell me about.”
Finding her mother’s body was one nightmare, but sitting in this room with a police officer was another. What good could the police do for her and her mother now? What good had they ever done? There were so many instances growing up when she and her mother needed help—when they had been robbed at gunpoint once, or when a thief had broken into their apartment—but no one ever thought of calling the police. No one ever knew what they would do or whose side they were on, if they could get her mother deported somehow. What did he care? Who cared if he was Korean, too, or went to her high school?
“She went to work. She had a simple life. She worked hard. She was . . . boring.”
Margot believed all these statements to be true. But could she convince herself that she knew her mother? Because she didn’t. Her world was designed to erase her mother. Her mother was just another nobody, another casualty of this city, of this country that lured you with a scintillating lie.
She had been an inconvenience. A casualty of more important things. Of more important people.
“When had you spoken to her last?”
“A few weeks ago? Something like that.” Business was slow again today. Even all the Korean businesses downtown are closing. “She . . . she mentioned that she was struggling at work. She was struggling financially, but none of that is new.” Had she been asking for help? Had she needed money?
“And you said her business was in a swap meet down south. Near Bell.”
“Huntington Park.”
She imagined her mother coming home that night, exhausted, taking off her leather ankle boots. But why was the light switched off? Was it earlier in the day? Was there still light outside streaming in through the window? In Margot’s mind, her mother removed her shoes and tripped on the slippers she always kept by the door. There were always two pairs. One for Margot. Or maybe her mother was going somewhere. Maybe she was heading out the door and realizing that she forgot something, turned around and tripped in the dark. How terrible. How infuriating. She wanted to scream, Why didn’t you take better care of yourself? But there was no one to hear her now.