My Trunk Series: Morning Song

"You crazy, Oni," Petal shouts  from behind bugged eyes in that way of hers when she loses her patience with me.

She has  found me squatting near an overgrowth just beyond the pond.  I shush her to lower her voice.

"Coming here everyday to spy," Petal waves her finger at me.  "I could set my clock by you. You shame your family, you know that?"

"I know," I admit and rise.  Debris from the tree that shades us drops from my stiff apron. "But for a child like Jarang, you would do the same.  I know you would."

We watch across 7th Street, our thin bodies perfectly hidden by the massive palm that is our shield. The early morning air feels cool against my sleeveless arms.  Petal glances again at her watch.  Despairing still, her face softens.  I am grateful for such small kindnesses.

Its top closed, Kyung's green convertible speeds past us and then circles into the school's driveway.  The engine quietens and Kyung eases out.  Petals shakes a disapproving head at him and then at me.  I can tell that she wants to lash me with the words I know she holds inside. But she does not express them.  She is more American than I am, I decide. It is always like this. 

We stoop so that Kyung does not spot us when he turns unexpectedly and looks toward the pond.

Yes alway.  Nancy Wong behind the wheel. Sweet Jarang fighting. She must sense me watching over her. And Kyung, always fretful.  That stare he gets when he is uncertain what to do with our daughter.  Nancy Wong--some mother-to-be!

The nursery lady parts the school's  double doors and rushes into the yard.  She takes Jarang into her arms and rocks my daughter until the breathless whimpers slow down. Kyung leans forward to kiss the child good-bye and she wails even louder than before.

The street light stops the rush-hour traffic, and I hear the nursery lady as she insists that he and Nancy Wong leave. 

"Go, please," the woman says. She waves her free arm.  "Jarang will calm down as soon as you drive away."

Nancy Wong busies herself by lowering the top of the convertible. Kyung puts dark glasses over his face and looks up to a cloudless sky. He slips back into his pretty car's white leather seat.  I recognize the depth of his frustration as I am sure  Petal sees my own. Her hand on my shoulder tells me that it is time to go.

We rise as Nancy Wong speeds past our tree as though a tiger chases them. Petal and I once tailed them from the nursery.

Nancy led us to her cousin's Kia dealership on Beverly Boulevard.  A place so grand that Petal  refused to turn the corner in her old wreck. Nancy Wong bent over and kissed Kyung before walking onto the car lot. 

My heart bleeds at all that this person has stolen from me.

Yet, I wish in that moment that I could  be so American for him.  I watch Kyung throw his head back in laughter before he moves into the traffic again.

In those days, he managed his father's video shop.

Happy with his Nancy's attention and late for work as usual, Kyung drives down Vermont Avenue to Olympic Boulevard. From three cars back, Petal's fractured-everywhere-jalopy follows his new sports car all the way south.  She, silent and annoyed, and me,trying hard not to cry but failing.

That video store was the first of many commerces my father-in-law purchased in this so called city of the angels--Los Angeles.   Oh, yes.  Kyung Lau,  Sr. was the one who got us in this mess. I blew my nose with the tissue from Petal's glove compartment and pressed down the urge to ask a  biker who hung out at her brother's donut shop to be beat my so-called husband senseless.

This morning, I feel imprisoned by the same rage.

Petal slips an arm around my waist and steers me toward her brother's store where we will spend the rest of our day making donuts--and me trying not to think about Nancy Wong.