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Jung Yun

Shelter

To my husband, Joel, who changed everything

No man steps in the same river twice,

for it is not the same river,

and he is not the same man.

— HERACLITUS

PART ONE. DAWN

ONE

The boy is standing in the doorway again. He’s smiling, which hardly seems right. A smile means he’s not sick. He didn’t have a bad dream. He didn’t wet the bed. None of the things he usually says when he enters the room uninvited. Kyung nudges his wife, who turns over with a grunt, face-first into her pillow. He sighs and sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “What’s the matter?”

Ethan, still smiling, takes a step forward, holding a remote control in his outstretched palm. “Battery,” he says, pronouncing the word “buttery. ”

“You want batteries now?”

He nods. “To watch cartoons. ”

The curtains in the bedroom are open. The sky outside, a pale silvery blue. It’s early still. Too early to be thinking about batteries, but Kyung resists the urge to say so out loud. At this hour, he doesn’t trust himself to do it nicely. He kicks off the sheets, grazing Gillian’s leg as he gets out of bed.

“Five minutes,” she says. “I’ll be up in five. ”

The night-lights flicker as they make their way downstairs, past floorboards that creak and sigh under their weight. Kyung finds a dusty package of batteries that he doesn’t remember buying. He swaps out the old for the new and hands the remote back to Ethan.

“You want some breakfast now?”

Ethan climbs onto the sofa and turns on the TV. “Okay,” he says, flipping from one channel to the next.

The boy always agrees to eat and then doesn’t. If given the choice, he’d probably subsist on a diet of grapes, popcorn, and cheese. The kitchen is down to the dregs of the week’s groceries. A spotted brown banana. A cup of cereal dust. Half a cup of almost-expired milk. Not much to work with, but enough. Kyung slices the banana into the cereal with the edge of a spoon, making a face with the pieces because Ethan is more likely to eat something when it smiles. As he tosses the peel into the trash, he notices the calendar pinned to the wall. There’s a circle around today’s date. Inside the thick red ring is a single word that disappoints him. Gertie. Weekends are best when there’s nothing to do and no one to see. A visit from Gertie is the exact opposite of nothing.

“Did your mom mention someone was coming over today?” he asks, depositing the bowl of cereal in Ethan’s lap.

“She said I have to clean my room. ”

“I need to go talk to her for a minute. Will you be okay here by yourself?”

“Dad, shhhhh. ” Ethan points at the screen as a bright blue train speeds past. “I’m missing Thomas. ”

Upstairs, Gillian is making the bed. The realtor is coming at ten, she says, confirming what he hoped wasn’t true. He wishes she’d mentioned this the night before, but he knows why she didn’t. Selling the house is her idea, not his. Kyung glances at the ornate paisley comforter, the expertly arranged pillows and bolsters, piled high like a soft hill. He wants to climb back into them, to pull the sheets over his head and wake up to a day that isn’t this one.