Page 19 of The Way Back Home

“He’s eight,” my dad says, gathering up the cards to deal again.

The gate suddenly bangs open so hard it rattles on its hinge, and all three of us turn at once. Ryowoon comes stumbling through, one shoe untied, the laces dragging loose behind him on the ground, his hair stuck up on one side. I can see instantly how pale he is, how his eyes are too wide, too wet.

My mom’s up in a second, crossing the yard in a few quick steps, dropping down to her knees in front of him so she’s at his height, her hands coming up to hold his face, to check him over.

“Ryowoon-ah, what happened, are you hurt?”

He shakes his head, but his chin’s trembling, and his voice sounds so small when he speaks.

“Can I stay here for a little bit?” he says. “Please. My dad’s … he’s mad.”

My mom’s eyes flick up over his head to my dad’s, a silent conversation passing between them, but I recognize the look adults give each other when they already know the answer and are only checking to see if the other one agrees. My dad’s face is grim, but he nods once. My mom smooths Ryowoon’s hair down, tucking it back off his forehead.

“Of course you can,” she says gently. “Come here.”

I get up too, crossing the yard to grab Ryowoon’s hand. His fingers are so cold even though it’s warm out, even though we’ve been sweating through our shirts all week. I pull him toward the house, toward my room, I just need to get that look off his face.

I dig through the stack of comic books under my bed, the ones I’ve read so many times the corners have turned soft, and lay them all out in front of him.

“Pick whichever one you want,” I say. “I don’t care which.”

His hands are still shaking when he reaches for one, but he picks it out anyway, and we sit down on the floor together, backs against my bed, shoulders pressed close. Neither of us talks much. I let him read at his own pace, turning the pages when he’s ready, and slowly I feel the shaking in his hands still.

It gets dark before we know it, the room lit only by the lamp on my desk, moths bumping softly against the screen of my window.

A voice comes from outside abruptly to break up the silence, carrying over the fence. I already recognize the slurred way it’s speaking, even though I don’t know exactly why it makes my stomach drop.

I hear my mom’s firm voice, then my dad’s, talking low, the two of them trying to talk to Ryowoon’s dad at the gate. I can’t make out the words, only the tone. Ryowoon stiffens beside me, the comic book sliding off his lap onto the floor.

We both jump when we hear the sound of a crash, the gate banging open again, footsteps pounding across the yard, and before either of us can move Ryowoon’s dad is standing in the doorway of my room, swaying, his eyes bloodshot and wild.

“There you are,” he snarls, crossing the room in three long steps and grabbing Ryowoon by the arm, hauling him up off the floor so fast Ryowoon doesn’t have time to scramble back.

Ryowoon screams. I’ve never heard him scream like that before, not even when he split his knee open on the rocks by the creek last summer, and it’s that sound more than anything that gets me moving, gets me lunging forward and grabbing at the man’s arm.

“Stop, you’re hurting him!” I yell, my fingers digging into fabric that smells like cigarettes and slightly sour.

Everything happens too fast after that. My mom’s hands close around my shoulders, dragging me back even as I fight against her, my dad shouting, trying to squeeze himself between Ryowoon and his father. The man shoves my dad hard and he stumbles back into the wall, knocking one of my drawings loose from where it’s taped up.

“Get out of my way,” Ryowoon’s dad growls, dragging Ryowoon by the arm, out of my room, through the yard, Ryowoon’s slipper-clad feet skidding against the dirt as he tries to plant them, tries to twist free.

“Let go! Let go of me!” Ryowoon’s screaming, his face twisted up. “Seyeon!”

“Ryowoon! Stop! Let him go!” I scream too, thrashing so hard against my mom’s grip that she has to wrap both arms around my chest to hold me still.

“Calm down, Seyeon, you can’t, you’ll get hurt,” she says into my ear, her voice shaking. I don’t understand why nobody’s doing anything, why the grown-ups are all just standing there letting this happen.

Ryowoon looks back at me right before his dad drags him through the gate, his eyes pleading, wide and terrified.

Then he’s gone. The gate swings shut behind them. I sob so hard I can barely breathe, fighting my mom’s arms until she loosens them enough for me to twist free.

I run at my dad instead, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, my voice cracking as I beg him.

“Please, Appa, please go get him, please, please help him.”

My dad looks down at me, I can see him wrestling with whether to do something, his jaw working, his eyes going toward the gate and back to me. It’s not his house. Not his son. Not his place to put his hands on another man in his own home, and I know even then, that this is what’s holding him back.

But I keep begging, my hands twisted in his shirt, my voice breaking with every word, and finally he gives in.