Page 224 of The Havenport Collection

Luke

I had fucked up. Badly.

I knew it when I woke up with a fuzzy head and pieced together the previous day.

I had been sad and paranoid, and I took it out on Nora.

I yelled at her and accused her of using me.

The situation with James had gotten under my skin and fueled my suspicion.

I was embarrassed and ashamed of my behavior.

James’s news was shocking, but Nora was not Laura, and our situations were completely different. As sad as I was for my friend, there was no reason for me to project that onto my relationship with Nora.

I had been drunk, but not drunk enough that I couldn’t remember.

In fact, I remembered it all a little too well.

She had up and left New York and flown home without me.

I had texted her to make sure she got home safe.

She responded promptly that she had and thanked me again for letting her stay at my apartment.

Professional, efficient, and devoid of any emotion. It was what I deserved.

So I flew home alone and had spent the last few hours aimlessly wandering around, unsure of how to proceed.

How did I screw this up so badly? It was times like this that I missed my mother the most. She was never one to pity—tough love was more her style—but for all the hardship she endured, she was an optimistic person.

She wasn’t bitter and suspicious like I was.

She would probably tell me I was being an idiot, feed me, and then tell me not to come back until I had apologized to Nora.

I smiled; that was so much like Mom. But she wasn’t here.

So I had done nothing but sulk around all day. I played video games and attempted to work, but nothing helped. I knew I had screwed up. I knew I had hurt the person I loved.

But there was no fixing this. Nora was not the type to give second chances, and I had to face it—this was probably the best outcome. I was not built for intimacy; I was not built for relationships. I got selfish. I wanted her so much I didn’t stop to think about the damage it would do.

I should leave town. That was probably the best idea. I could go to California for a bit, hang there, buckle down and work, and forget all about this. March was so depressing here. At least there I could be miserable in the sunshine.

A loud banging on my door roused me from my downward spiral.

“What the fuck, man?” Josh said, toeing off his shoes. “What did you do?”

I shrugged. Bad news apparently traveled fast in this tiny town.

“My wife and all her friends want you dead, dude. You are about to be confronted by an angry mob of empowered women, and it will not be pretty.”

I stared at him, trying to process what he was saying.

He pulled out one of the kitchen stools and pushed me onto it before filling the coffee maker. “You are going to sit here and tell me what happened, and we are going to figure out how to fix it.”

“There is nothing to fix. Nora hated me for years. She thought I was a selfish, entitled asshole. And you know what? She was right all along.”

Josh cracked his knuckles and glared at me. “You are making it really hard not to punch you right now.” He slid a cup of black coffee in my direction. “Start talking.”

Josh’s verbal ass kicking only made me feel worse. He seemed to think there was a chance for Nora and me. That I could fix it. But right now I just wanted to continue my depressive spiral alone.

Nora was strong and tough. I was awful to her, and she walked right out. She wasn’t going to give me a second chance, and I didn’t deserve one. I was lucky she even gave me a first chance.

After several attempts at being productive, I got up and started to wander around. I had donated my mother’s furniture and most of her things. But I had never touched her bedroom.

I walked up the stairs, and opening the door, I was greeted by the cheery yellow wallpaper and ivory upholstered headboard.

I walked over and examined the framed photos on her dresser, smiling at one of the two of us eating lobster when I was a kid.

We were both wearing plastic bibs and huge grins on our faces.

I opened the door to the walk-in closet and was hit with the smell of her perfume.

After she died, I threw almost everything in here.

It was certainly never this cluttered while she was alive.

In my grief, I had pushed so many things in here and found myself looking through the boxes and plastic storage totes.

I sank to the floor, letting my grief wash over me. I looked around at the carefully arranged clothes, shoes, bags, and jewelry. One wall of shelves housed photo albums, books, and other keepsakes.

On the bottom shelf were stacks and stacks of books and letters.

I sat down and ran my finger along the spines.

There were different sizes, bindings, and thicknesses.

I pulled one out. The cover read 2012 vol.

3. I flipped it open and discovered it was a journal.

Each page was dated in my mother’s neat handwriting.

I grabbed another—2007 vol. 1—and skimmed through a colorful entry about a Seollal celebration she had attended at her cousins’ home near Boston.

I smiled as I read her recollections about the food, the new outfits she had planned for the three-day Korean New Year Celebration, and the preparations she had made in her home.

I remembered taking the long ride to the H Mart in Burlington, about a forty-minute drive from Westbury, to get all the special ingredients, including the specific brand of rice cakes she needed to make tteokguk , a traditional New Year’s soup.

We would fill her little car with all the best Asian snacks and sit on the floor of the living room, watching sitcoms and eating gim , goraebab , and pocky sticks until our stomachs hurt.

What was I even doing back in 2007? I was twenty-five and working hundred-hour weeks in Palo Alto, building my company. I had some money and rented a modest house and bought myself a car and used to sleep in my office after late-night coding sessions.

I missed many years of Seollal with my mom and our extended family. I had neglected so much of my Korean identity during my twenties. I was busy, trying to make money and keep pace with the breakneck speed of technology.

Coming back here to take care of my mom five years ago not only forced me to slow down but gave me an opportunity to enjoy and embrace my heritage—brushing up on my Korean, practicing her recipes, and spending time with my cousins in Boston.

I began to order the journals chronologically, pausing to grab one from 1989.

My breath hitched. This was just after we left my dad and headed to Massachusetts.

It was written in Korean with a few English phrases sprinkled in and some sketches.

One page had a pencil sketch of me as a little boy, my cowlick sticking up at the top of my head.

A tear rolled down my cheek. Her love for me was right there on that page.

She was pouring her heart out, describing her fears and her dreams and uncertainty for the future.

But she stopped to capture me in that moment.

Her life was in shambles; she was scared and overwhelmed. But she sketched me. My heart clenched.

I knew I was lucky. I woke up every day of my life completely and totally certain of my mother’s love for me.

She was always there, always supporting me, and ready to do absolutely anything I needed.

Logically, I knew I was one of the lucky ones.

But damn if I didn’t feel like I was robbed.

She was taken away from me too soon. I still had so much to learn from her, so many things to do with her, and I missed my opportunity to say thank you.

I grabbed my phone and turned on some Carole King.

My mother loved her and played her music endlessly while I was growing up.

After a few deep breaths, I stood up and began to organize the chaos.

I lined the journals up chronologically, removed old shopping bags, and gathered clothing to donate to Goodwill.

Under some winter coats I found a large, leather-bound album. I pulled it out, vaguely recognizing it. It had been on top of my mother’s dresser for months before she died. I recall her wanting to look through it toward the end of her life.

It was positively stuffed with papers, clippings, and other items.

I opened it carefully to find Cub Scout badges and clippings from the newspaper, carefully laminated and dated with her precise handwriting.

It was pages and pages detailing my life—photos, report cards, random pieces of childhood artwork, a photo of us at my high school graduation, her face splitting with happiness.

I smiled as I flipped through. I had seen photo albums of my childhood, but this was something else altogether. A repository of Lucas, every little detail captured for posterity.

I saw my chubby adolescent face transform into an adult and marveled at some of my mother’s hairdos over the years.

And then I found it. A large manilla envelope. To My Lucas was written on the front in her neat script. What was this?

My hand shook as I carefully opened it and removed a stack of papers, clipped together with a pink paperclip.

The first page began Dear Lucas .

Minutes later I had to put the pages down so my tears wouldn’t stain them, depriving me of my mother’s writing forever. I placed them carefully on her bed, laying each one out and taking scans with my phone in the event anything got damaged.

The project gave me something to focus on. Something to focus on while I tried to compose myself. While I tried to give myself some mental distance from my mother’s last words to me.

Twelve pages in all. Just a dozen slips of paper with my mother’s writing on them. A small piece of her that I never wanted to lose.

It was her goodbye to me. She told me how proud she was of me, chided me to remember certain things, not to neglect my Korean heritage or become “too American.” She asked me to go back to Korea and deliver letters and some keepsakes to her sisters, which she had enclosed.

And then she gutted me.

…One thing I’ve learned about life is that the only thing that matters are relationships. The people you love and appreciate must come first at all times. Nothing else matters.

While I am so proud of your success and your brilliance, I fear that these things have closed you off to what is most important.

Family, community, and love. I know we had very little, and I’m sorry I was not able to give you more.

And while I am so proud of your success, I worry that all money does is isolate you from people.

I’ve watched you become more cynical, more closed off, and more resistant to love in recent years. And it breaks my heart.

Because you, Lucas, were born with an enormous heart. And even though life has not always been fair to you, I’ve seen it grow and grow. Show the world your heart, Lucas. Don’t hide it away behind fancy houses and cars.

Your gift to the world is not a company or a piece of software code. It is your heart. Don’t lock it up. Don’t let it shrink away. Give it and share it—because the world needs it, now more than ever.

I continued to read, clutching the papers to my chest as the tears flowed. It figures that my mom would choose this moment to deliver this message. When I was heartbroken and angry, confused and overwhelmed.

It was her way; she never pulled punches, never sugarcoated things. If she were here right now she’d be angry with me, ashamed that I had built a fortress around my life and my heart.

I reached for my phone and texted Josh. I owed him an apology for how I had behaved earlier. I needed my best friend right now.

My life was rich with wonderful people, and I needed to embrace it rather than fight it. I was going to talk to my best friend and then I was going to find a way to apologize to Nora. I had let my paranoia and fear get the better of me and hurt her in the process.

I had to do better. I had to be better. For Nora.

She deserved a man who could own his mistakes and learn from them. A man who could admit when he was wrong and work to do better. And I was going to be that man.