Page 4 of The Accidental Text

We’re currently sitting at the oak dining room table at Hannah’s family home, a modern light fixture hanging above us, giving the room a warm yellow hue.

It’s the first time I’ve seen Hannah in person since the ill-fated ash spreading incident yesterday. She’s been extra busy at work and came home late last night after I was asleep and was gone this morning by the time I woke up.

We’re only two doors down from the house I grew up in, the house where my dad still lives. Even though we have our own apartment in downtown Scottsdale, you can regularly find us around here, in one of our childhood homes. We mostly hit up Hannah’s because her grandma likes to make us dinner and it’s a thousand times better than anything we could make on our own. Hannah and I both lack in the cooking department.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hannah asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Sorry?”

She shrugs one shoulder. “You’ve gone weird on me. The Maggie I know would’ve jumped out of that plane.”

I look down at the table, the soup Hannah’s grandma prepared in front of me.

I let out a breath. “I just … don’t feel like myself right now.”

“Why?”

“Well, I mean … my mom just died.”

“Of course.” She nods her head, her eyes crestfallen. “And we all miss Katherine Cooper very much.”

Hannah loves calling my mom by her first and last name. I’d once thought it was a Korean thing, but it turns out it’s because she enjoys the alliteration so much.

We’ve lived down the street from each other since I was six and Hannah was five. We bonded our first day of first grade, and the fact that we lived so close only sealed the deal. We were instant besties, always together, only separated during the summers when Hannah would go with her grandma to South Korea to visit family, and also during college, when Hannah went to Stanford and I stayed here and went to ASU.

After college and a year back at our parents’ houses, we finally got an apartment together, where we’ve been for the past four years. Hannah has a real job now, working at her mom’s law firm, and can no longer do a full summer trek to Korea, much to her grandma’s chagrin.

“What I mean is,” Hannah says, “the Maggie I know would have honored Katherine Cooper’s wishes, no matter what.”

“I know. That’s what I mean about not feeling like myself,” I say. It’s hard for me to get people to understand how I’m feeling when I don’t even understand it.

“How did Chelsea take it?” Hannah asks. She takes a sip of broth from the dumpling soup her grandma made us fromleftovermandushe’d made for the Lunar New Year celebration last weekend.

“She was … annoyed.” I look away from Hannah and over toward the contemporary decor of the living room. The space has changed a lot since we were kids. Some pieces are still here from when we were younger, like the modern-looking grandfather clock in the corner and the painting that hangs over the fireplace. Hannah’s mom is very particular about keeping things nice. Hannah didn’t get that gene, since her room in our apartment usually looks like a tornado hit it. In her defense, sixty-hour workweeks don’t leave a lot of time for cleaning.

Hannah snort laughs. “I’m sure she was.” She adds an eye roll for emphasis. “What about Devon? And what about your dad?”

“Devon was irritated, of course, but was fine after my dad offered to buy dinner. And my dad was … supportive.”

“Good ole Nick,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say, resting my spoon by my dish, having just eaten the last bit of the soup.

It’s at this moment that Hannah’s grandma comes over and sees that I’m done. She nods her head as if to ask if I want more, and when I tell her no thank you she eyes me, a scowl on her face. She says something to Hannah in Korean and Hannah just stares at her. She says something again and Hannah says something back. Hannah turns to me with a frustrated expression.

She lets out a breath. “Halmoni wants me to tell you that you’ve gotten too skinny.”

I look down at myself and then back up at Hannah and her grandma. Sure, I’ve lost a few pounds since my mom died. But it’s not like I’m sickly skinny or anything. I’ve always been onthe thin side, never having had to work too much on my physique. But to say that I’m overly thin seems like a stretch, even with my recent unintentional weight loss.

Still, Halmoni, as we call Hannah’s grandma, keeps up the scowl and has now added verbal tsking, along with one pointer finger rubbing atop the other, the universal sign for “shame on you.”

Halmoni doesn’t speak much English, and both Hannah and her mom are fluent in Korean, so she’s never really had to learn. Although this doesn’t stop her from lecturing me via Hannah.

“Well, I guess I need moremanduguk, then,” I say, most likely butchering the word.

Halmoni walks over to me, her graying permed curls bouncing around her face, her countenance now one of approval. She pats me on the head and grabs my bowl to get me more.

“So what now? Are you going to find another place to leave her ashes?” Hannah asks after her grandma walks away.

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