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t is too cold inside the car. I blow on my chapped hands and place them under my thighs, where they sit like icicles, absorbing the heat from my leggings. I can see my breath in puffs of milky white. Dad shuts the car door and starts it with a growl. Umma straps Soojin in and folds herself into the passenger seat, bringing a blast of icy air with her. I shiver. She taps her phone and winces; the screen is bright in the dark car. I tap her on the shoulder and she wordlessly passes me her earbuds, which I connect to my iPod. It’s really Umma’s iPod, but she stopped using it when she got a phone. It’s one of the old
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ones. It has a square little screen and a scrolling button you press with your thumb. Dad hints that if I treat it well and don’t lose it, there may be a phone on the way for me when I turn fourteen. When Umma and Dad remember, they sometimes give me an allowance and occasionally encourage me to put it all in the hideously green piggy bank I’ve named Mr. Lump; he contains maybe five dollars and a few coins. I’ve spent all that money on music. I love piano songs, especially ones that go on for so long you lose yourself in the gentle sound of the keys. When I play I always close my eyes. If Umma is feeling good she promis-
es to take me to my recitals, but it’s always Samcheon who picks me up, a battered rose waiting on his car’s passenger seat. “Umma, chuweo,” Soojin complains, her indignant voice piercing through my music. She holds up her tiny red hands as evidence. She is too little to have figured out the thigh trick, and Umma straps her into her seat so tight I have to fish for her toys if she loses them. Right now she loves Ddalgi, her pink-and-green stuffed tiger, so named for his strawberry color. He sits in her lap everywhere she goes, even to church. He’s tucked in between her
