Read Online Triplines (9781936364107) by Leonard Chang - Free Book Online Page A

hearsthem discuss other job options for her. They speak a mix of English and Korean, and his mother mentions her graduate work at Northeastern, and how that might help her get a secretarial job.
    Umee’s favorite novels are on the bookshelves in the basement, and until Lenny overhears her talking about graduate school he doesn’t connect these novels with her schooling. He leafs through her paperback copies of Hawthorne, Twain, Faulkner and Steinbeck. In the margins are notes in Korean script, and when he brings
The Scarlet Letter
up to the kitchen he asks her what the notes are.
    She skims them, smiling to herself. “Some words I needed translations of.”
    Lenny then understands that she read these in a second language.
    She says, “That’s one of my favorite novels. I must have read that twenty times over.”
    â€œReally?” he asks. The only books he ever rereads are his martial arts manuals. “Should I read it?”
    â€œTry Mark Twain. Maybe Charles Dickens. Have you been going to the library?”
    â€œFor karate books.”
    â€œOh, you should read fiction. It’s more fun.” She flips through the novel and says, “Books saved me.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    She smiles. “You’ll see.”
    It’s a quiet night for the first time in weeks, and Lenny keeps waiting for a fight to erupt, but it doesn’t. Instead his parents go to sleep together in the bedroom, something that ends up disturbing him because it’s so unusual. He hearsthem murmuring.
    He has his mother’s copy of
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
with him, and reads the first couple of chapters, studying the Korean notes in the margins. When he sees the brief note about the author in the back, he’s amazed that this novel is almost a hundred years old and that his mother still likes it.
    The house becomes quiet. He hears his brother in the kitchen, and walks out to see him. Ed wears sweat pants and a ratty T-shirt and eats a cold burger. He glances at Lenny and grunts.
    Lenny tells him that Sal saw him smoking pot.
    Ed smiles. “That dirtbag sells it. He’s pissed that I didn’t buy any from him. What are you doing hanging out with him?”
    Lenny shrugs his shoulders.
    â€œWatch out for him. He’ll get you in trouble.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œJust watch out for him.” Ed punches his arm lightly. “Who’s going to look out for you when I go to college?”
    â€œI can look out for myself.”
    Ed laughs. “Tough guy.” He finishes his burger and goes downstairs. It occurs to Lenny that he barely knows his brother.
17
    The lump in Umee’s thyroid is a tumor, and she needs to go back in for more tests and a biopsy. She explains this to Lenny on the way to church. Mira stays at home with a cold, and Yul has work to do, something about looking for a new job. So Umee turns to Lenny, who sits in the passenger seat, and tells him that if the tumor is cancerous she might be in trouble.
    â€œWhat kind of trouble?”
    â€œIt could spread. I need an operation no matter what, but they want to check the tumor first.”
    Lenny stares at her throat. Nothing looks different, but he imagines a pulsing tumor. She says, “I want to have your grandmother visit, to help out. She might come before my surgery.”
    â€œFrom Korea?”
    â€œYes. She will stay with us,” she says uneasily.
    He asks if Grandma ever visited before.
    â€œYes, when I was pregnant with you. She and your father don’t get along.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    She sighs. “He told her to leave.”
    â€œHe kicked her out?”
    His mother says, “They are both very strong people. Very stubborn.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œYour grandmother saw how your father treated me andcouldn’t stand it.”
    â€œAnd she’s coming back?”
    â€œI need help. We have to close the store, and take