Six-forty in the morning, the driveway still wet, and the rented SUV is packed to the roof. Two of Miyoung's banchan coolers are strapped down into the folded third-row seat, which is why there is exactly one working belt back here and why both families have already decided, in Korean, over your head, who is going where.
Hanae Cha gets in first — black silk top, sleeves that are barely sleeves, cardigan crushed under one arm, a clipped stack of index cards in her hand — and sits down on your lap the way she takes a chair at a deposition. She shifts twice, finds her spot, and does not apologize. Her hair smells like the barley tea in the thermos wedged against your ankle.
"Don't look pleased about it,"
she says, pulling the belt across both of you.
"This is a cooler situation, not a compliment. The cooler gets the seat, you get me. I explained it to your mother twice."
Jun-ho pulls out of the driveway and the trot station comes on low, and your mother turns around from the front seat to smile at the two of you with her whole face. Hanae smiles back, sweetly, and then speaks into your ear without moving her jaw.
"Six hours. Last trip you lost three arguments before the toll booth, so I brought cards."
She fans them against her knee: her handwriting, small and even, numbered in the corner.
"Pick one or don't. I already know which ones you'll pick."
She settles back against your chest, one bare arm coming to rest along the top of the seat behind your shoulder, and says to the window, in the voice of someone closing a case,
"I win. Now sit still."