“This…Eunmi’s…Mom me give…” I tried my best to explain in Korean.

In desperation I looked to Seong Young for help.

“My mom bought this for me after Eunmi died so we could have matching ones. But now that she’s gone, I want her to have the other one.”

Seong Young translated and Nami took the necklace and closed her fingers over it. She lowered her eyes with a wince and held it over her heart.

“Oh, Michelle-ah,” she said, putting it on. “Thank you.”

* * *

—

THE FUNERAL WAS WEIRD, mostly because I hadn’t been to church in over ten years and I didn’t realize just how bizarre religious practice can appear to an atheist. An old woman clad in an elaborate robe appeared with a giant rod terminating in a large cross, which she sort of lifted up and down around the pastor as he moved through the liturgy. Then came the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, which sounded more like a Charlie Brown VHS special than an appropriate reading for a funeral.

I looked over at Nami, whose hands were clasped together. She wept, solemnly nodding along to the words she could not understand but punctually joining in for every “amen.” Christianity was a language she understood. Religion was a comfort and in that moment I was grateful it was there for her.

They called on me to read her eulogy. Peter was on standby in case I broke down. My voice shook and I was nervous, but I read through what I had written. It almost frightened me, that I was able to get through the whole thing without collapsing in tears. I hadn’t cried much during the funeral at all.

There was a small reception. Cups of pretzels and trail mix had been laid out by someone, and I felt some remorse that I hadn’t been more involved in the planning. I felt awkward, like my mother had at Eunmi’s funeral, unsure of how to behave. The pressure to perform and cater to others felt like holding in a sneeze.

When it was over I collected all the bouquets, not wanting to leave a single flower behind. I had a selfish, desperate desire for her gravesite to be so packed with blossoms and bulbs that you could see them from the road. I wanted to advertise how deeply loved my mother had been. I wanted every passerby to question if they had a love like that.

We took her remains to the gravesite. The procession was private, just two cars full of the family staying with us. Her plot was under a tree nestled high on the cemetery’s sloping hill. I looked down at the headstone.

“Dad, it says ‘loving…’?” I whispered.

“That’s bullshit,” he said.

* * *

—

AFTER THE FUNERAL, I invited Corey and Nicole along for dinner with my family at a French restaurant that my father complained was overpriced. I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. A perfect little circle of rare beef tenderloin, glistening with a bone marrow jus, sitting atop a small pool of sunchoke puree. I severed slice after slice of the savory meat, devouring it, piling in spoonfuls of the buttery mash. It felt like I hadn’t eaten in years.

As my father paid the bill, I sat quietly, full of food and wine, and finally let all my emotions take me. I had held in so much. I had starved myself, not just of food, but of a reckoning. I had tried to be stoic. I had tried to conceal my tears from my family and at last they were all funneling out. I could feel the entire restaurant staring as I sobbed and shook, but I didn’t care. It felt so good to release it.

We stood to make our way to the car and I felt my legs give out beneath me. I let myself fall into the arms of my two best friends as they rushed to support my weight. I cried all the way home, big, comically fat tears, and then I cried hot, small ones alone in my bedroom until I fell asleep.

* * *

—

I WOKE UP in the early morning feeling like my face had absorbed half a swimming pool. My eyes were puffy and swollen. I was exhausted but restless. I thought of Nami and Seong Young sleeping in the guest room two doors over. I envied the two of them together, bound to each other, while my father and I struggled to connect. I wanted to do something for them, to make them feel comfortable as my mother would have. I was the woman of the house now.

I racked my brain for something I could make them for breakfast and landed on doenjang jjigae, the ultimate Korean comfort food. My mother often served it alongside our Korean meals, a rich, hearty stew filled with vegetables and tofu. I had never made the dish myself, but I knew its basic components and what it should taste like. Still in bed, I turned onto my side and googled how to make Korean fermented soybean soup.

The first link led me to a website run by a woman named Maangchi. There was a YouTube player at the top of the page and a recipe on the bottom. The video was shaky and pixelated. A Korean woman who appeared to be about my mother’s age stood over the sink of a dimly lit kitchen. She wore a green tank top with a sequin decal around the collar and had her hair up in a loose ponytail, tucked back into a decorative orange-and-yellow handkerchief revealing long, dangly earrings. “It’s Koreans’ everyday house food. We eat it with other side dishes and rice,” she addressed the camera. Her accent was comforting; her words were reassuring. I’d had the right instinct.

I scanned the ingredient list. One medium potato, one cup of chopped zucchini, five cloves of garlic, one green chile pepper, seven dried anchovies with the heads and intestines removed, two and a half cups of water, one stalk of green onion, tofu, five tablespoons of fermented soybean paste, four large shrimp. Nothing too intimidating.

I washed up and went to the laundry room to look inside my mother’s kimchi fridge, an appliance specifically designed to keep fermented foods at the ideal temperature. Supposedly, it mimicked the soil of the Korean winter, where women would bury their earthenware jars, storing their kimchi for the spring. Inside there was already a large container of soybean paste. I could get the other ingredients at Sunrise Market.

I slipped on a pair of my mother’s sandals and a light jacket and drove into town. The market was opening just as I arrived. I bought the vegetables I needed and a block of firm tofu. I decided to skip the seafood and picked up some marinated short rib instead, remembering that my mother used beef for her recipe.

I drove home and cooked the rice in my mother’s Cuckoo. I peeled a potato and chopped it along with a zucchini and onion, minced some garlic and cut the marinated short rib into bite-sized pieces, then rooted around my mother’s cabinets to find her ttukbaegi.

Over medium heat, I put the ttukbaegi straight onto the burner, heated some oil, and tossed in the vegetables and meat. I added a spoonful of doenjang paste and gochugaru, then poured water on top. Every few minutes I checked the broth, adding more paste and sesame oil until it tasted as close as I could get to the memory of my mother’s stew. Once I was satisfied, I added squares of tofu, heating them through for a minute before finishing it off with finely sliced green onion. I placed little banchan I found in the kimchi fridge on small ceramic plates—sliced baechu kimchi, braised black soybeans, and crisp soybean sprouts marinated with sesame oil, garlic, and scallions. I set the table with spoons and chopsticks, and opened small packages of seaweed, channeling the movements of my mother as I zipped around the kitchen where I had watched her prepare so many of my favorite dishes.

Seong Young and Nami woke at ten, and I scooped up two bowls of fluffy white rice just as they came down the stairs. I ushered them over to the table and placed the jjigae on a hot plate before them.

“You made this one?” Nami said in disbelief.

“I’m not sure if it’s any good,” I said.

I took a seat beside them at the table and watched them spoon the broth over their rice, breaking up the tofu with the edges of their spoons, steam wisping from their mouths. For a moment I felt useful, happy that after all the years the two of them had looked after me, I could do this one small thing for them.