Page 51 of Joy to Noel
There’s panic in Madison’s eyes when she looks back to me. The panic dissipates just long enough for her expression to fill with sarcasm. “Yes, but we havebasementsin Nebraska and Kansas, genius. Where do you go during a tornado in Arkansas?!” Panic has refilled her tone, and I step forward to place two firm hands on her shoulders.
“We’re going to be just fine. It’s probably just a precaution. We’ll find the most fortified room that’s not on an exterior wall, like one of the bathrooms,” I say, voice calm.
“But your bathroom has that giant frosted window and mine is also on the exterior,” she says, voice shrill.
Taking her elbow, I steer her to the laundry room. It has one door leading to the primary closet and one opening up right next to the garage. “We’re going to sit here in the laundry room until the sirens stop. I’m sure this isn’t going to be anything serious, okay? Do you want to grab your phone?”
Madison shakes her head. “It was down to two percent. I just plugged it in, so it won’t have much battery yet anyway.” She follows me to the laundry room, and I call out for Hamlet to join us.
The sirens are still blaring as we step into the laundry room, and I close both doors once Hamlet is inside. Madison paces tiny circles around the space, which only makes Hamlet meow with more alarm.Sitting down on the floor with my back leaning against the wall, I tent my knees and tug Madison’s hand to pull her down next to me.
She pulls her knees up to her chest, breathing heavily.
“You okay?” I ask, peering down to try to meet her eyes.
“I don’t like storms,” she confesses. She’s trembling, and I can tell this isn’t just a run-of-the-mill dislike of thunder.
“MJ, we’re going to be okay,” I try to reassure her. She nods in acknowledgment, but she’s still shaking. I ask, “Can I put my arm around your shoulders?”
Her eyes dart over to mine, searching my expression. When she nods, I drape an arm around her shoulders and tuck her to my side, trying to still her full-body shivers. I’m grateful that I’d already offered her that physical comfort when the power cuts out a second later, leaving us in the pitch-black. Madison flinches under my arm, so I hold her a little closer.
“I especially don’t like storms in the dark,” she whispers.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I see that the battery is at 26 percent. Frowning, I switch on the flashlight anyway. Hopefully, the power won’t be out long, and I can plug it in to charge. I set the phone face down on the ground, illuminating the small room with the beam of the flashlight.
Hamlet squeezes his way between us, looking for his own comfort, so I stretch out my legs so he can sit on my thighs. I scratch his chest with my free hand to calm him down. Madison is still shaking, so I lean my cheek against the top of her head and do the only thing I can think of to distract her.
I talk.
“We lived in London until I was eight years old. My mom is American, but she did her postgraduate studies at Oxford, where she met my dad. He was doing his postgrad in biology, and they were such an unlikely match. My mom, the American woman studying Shakespeare, and my dad, the British-Korean science nerd. They didn’t make sense on paper, but as my mom would always quote when sharing their love story, ‘The very instant I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.’ She always said she was a goner from the moment they met.”
Madison’s trembling begins to subside, so I continue. “Their relationship wasn’t always easy. My mom had a lot to learn about Korean culture and family dynamics, and my dad tried to figure out when to hold on to those traditions and when to defer to my mom’s more independent American culture. My paternal grandfather actually chose my and Hana’s names, which is traditional in Korean families. But he’d lived in the UK long enough that he made sure to choose names that were easy to pronounce in both Korean and English. Still, it was a different family mindset for my mom to get used to. My dad is the second son, so the level of expectation on him isn’t quite as high as my uncle, but there’s still a unique relationship between Korean mothers and their sons.
“Of course, I didn’t know any of that as a child. I simply knew that I saw myhalmeoniandharabeojialmost every day. Halmeoni cooked full Korean dinners for us, and she’d take me with her to a tea shop down the street that fused British and Asian tea cultures. In my mind, my nuclear family was my parentsandmy grandparents. Then, one day, we left. And we never went back,” I say.
In the muted light, I see that Madison is absent-mindedly stroking Hamlet’s back as he sits on my leg. And he’s allowing it. Maybe he assumes I’m the one petting him, or maybe he can somehow sense that Madison needs the comfort.
That’s all I had originally intended to tell Madison tonight, but for some inexplicable reason, I continue sharing. “My mom’s parents had moved from Iowa to Arkansas while she was living abroad, and when her dad’s health was failing, we moved here so she could be close to him. My father had been doing research in London, but he was willing to take on a teaching role if it meant my mom could spend some time with her father before he passed. It’s not exactly easy to find open biology and Shakespeare studies positions at the same university at the same time, but Conway, a small city in Arkansas, has multiple universities. My dad was offered a biology professorship at the state school, and my mom got a position at a private university. Even after my grandfather passed away, they both enjoyed their jobs enough that they decided to stay.”
Madison speaks for the first time, her voice quiet. “That must have been a rough transition. London to Arkansas.”
I huff a laugh. “To say the least. And throw in the half-Korean culture, and it was just a mess for a little kid to navigate. Third graders aren’t quite as enamored with British accents as adult women are,” I tease, giving Madison’s shoulders a slight squeeze. Her quiet laugh encourages me to continue.
“I didn’t understand the thick Southern accents any better than they understood my British English. There were zero other Asian students in my grade, and kids can be ruthless to people who are different from them,” I say. “I was trying to adjust, to do well at school—after all, I was the child of not one, but two college professors. And you have to understand—in Korean culture, eldest sons are expected to do everything with the utmost excellence in order to bring honor to the family. It’s not bad or wrong, necessarily, but it’s not an easy expectation to live up to when you’re totally floundering in a new culture with no friends.”
The tornado sirens are no longer blaring, but the power is still out. Madison has stopped shaking, so I continue talking rather than disrupt the peace.
“Conway isn’t tiny like Noel is, but it’s certainly not a big city, either. And small towns love their gossip. So any time I did something remotely wrong or subpar, word would somehow always make its way back to my dad. In fifth grade, I finally felt like I was getting my feet under me. There was this bully in the grade who was always picking on kids, and one day, I caught him being especially cruel to one of the girls in class, and I stood up to him. Another one of the cool kids buddied up to me, acting like he was so impressed that I’d stood up to the bully. I sensed something was off, but I ignored the instinct because I was so desperate to have a friend. We started hanging out after school, and he asked so many questions about my upbringing in London. One day, he invited me to his birthday sleepover party. I was so excited, and my dad gave me this huge lecture about how to act with respect in someone else’s home.”
My chest starts to tense at the memory, and for a second, I wonder why I’m still talking. Madison is calm. The storm has passed. There’sno reason to share the rest of the story. But as I move my head to glance down at Hamlet, Madison nuzzles a little closer against my neck, even as she continues stroking Hamlet’s back. Resting my cheek against her hair again, I continue.
“It was all a huge setup. The kid who I thought was my friend was actually best friends with the bully I stood up to. All the kids at the party ganged up on me to make fun of every personal thing I’d shared about myself with my so-called friend. I wanted to leave, but all I could think about was my dad’s lecture about being respectful in someone’s home. Leaving the party early didn’t seem like it would be respectful, at least in my mind at that moment. So I stayed. And the next week at school, the boys spread all sorts of rumors about how weird I was, which circulated to my dad, who scolded me for making the family look bad.”
Pausing to take a deep breath, I appreciate the weight of Madison against my chest as it inflates and deflates. I focus on the grounding quality of her presence—not on the roiling in my stomach at the memories I’ve shared.
“Liam . . . I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that those kids treated you that way and that your father didn’t understand,” Madison says, voice just above a whisper in the intimate space.
Sighing, I say, “I don’t blame my dad. Truly, I don’t. In retrospect, I think he was still wrestling with his own sense of lost culture after moving to the US, and he was probably harder on me than he wishes he would have been. They definitely weren’t as hard on Hana by the time she was in school,” I say.
