an'wei'- an intangible sense after everything fell apart: resolution and recovery
Junior apparently doesn't trust me to close the store that i've closed a hundred, more, times. i watch him as he checks that the door was locked securely and turns off the lights up front- methodically, caringly, as if the store was his own. i ask if we could leave early since the customer flow was negligible and the bugs were starting to swarm in and beat against the walls and windows. "ni xian zou ba," he says, and i slip out the back door to a calm evening, complete with ink-blue sky and a smattering of stars. the melody of my cell phone ringer breaks the silence, and when i answer, it is the warm voice of my father on the other line. i can tell he's calling me from his car, and i know he is driving home after an evening in york, seven hundred miles away. "next time i go to korea, you are going to come with me, too?" he asks, in my heart language. i assure him that i will, and we say goodbye over marginal static. i drive home absentmindedly singing along to paul's cd, slipping down a curve 10 mph too fast in full view of a police officer. for some reason, i know he won't come after me tonight, and he doesn't, remaining posed like a silent sentry against the dark landscape of houses. and between the routine and embracing warmth of the inanimate familiar, just somehow, suddenly, i get the sense that everything will be all right.