![]() When she opened her eyes and saw that she had again missed the tray, she cried. And I remember nights that seemed to last for days, when my mother dropped into a darkness of her own, so deep that I did not think she would ever come back to me. I remember the darkness of that apartment: the brown imitation-wood wall paneling blackened from exhaust from the street, the boarded-up windows, the nights without electricity when we could not pay the bill. I remember my mother drifting in and out of under-the-table jobs-washing dishes in Vietnamese restaurants, slinging drinks in Korean bars on Ke’eaumoku-stringing together enough change to pay the weekly rent on a dirty second-floor apartment off Kapi‘olani Boulevard. ![]() ![]() She got as far as Hawai’i when-not knowing anyone, broke, and with a young child to care for-my mother had to put me in school and find work. When my father died, leaving us as guests of his most recent employers, at the Miami Mission House for Boys, my mother cashed what was left of his estate-several pieces of family jewelry, pearls mostly, and shares in a retirement village-paid off his hospital bills, and tried to return to Korea. ![]()
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