It’s Monday afternoon, and exhaustion fills me to the brim. The congestion in my nose coupled with the persistent itch in my throat makes it difficult to take a breath without coughing. The house is quiet, but only for a moment. I’ve barely slipped my shoes off before my mother descends. I brace myself for the usual bombardment of questions, followed by tasks that would not be expected of most middle schoolers.
“?? ????”
“Good.”
“??? ???”
“Nope.”
“?? ? ???”
“Yes.”
“?? ????”
“I don’t know yet.”
I lean my backpack against the wall in the hallway as my mother continues to fuss, swiping dust off my shoulders and from my hair. She’s still asking questions, an endless string of them, and doesn’t seem to notice that I’m too tired to answer. My bed is my prize after a long day, and my mother is the wall standing between it and me.
“Heejin,” she suddenly calls, my Korean name rolling off her tongue like every other syllable but catching my attention in a way the others couldn’t. “Before you eat, I need you to call AT&T again.”
Annoyance rises as she herds me to the kitchen, the indignation pushing a groan from my throat. “Again?” The word comes out like a child’s whine. I flop onto my seat at the table and my mother slides her phone my way.
I glare at my mother across the kitchen table as the robotic voice of AT&T drones in my ear. Finally, I’m put through to an actual human being.
“Can I get your name?”
I pause; it’s always strange to impersonate my mother on the phone. But when I look at her, the annoyance shifts to a muted shade of tolerance. I know she’s embarrassed by her accented English, and the AT&T employees will ask for clarification again and again if she’s the one on the phone. So with a quiet sigh, my gaze drops to my socked feet as I answer in perfect English, “My name is Jin.”
That time, and many many others, I was my mother’s bridge to the English-speaking world. Taking important phone calls from her bank and filling out applications became my job. Even proofreading simple notes of absence for school fell into my hands. For a long time, I was tired of shouldering my mother’s burdens, of having her rely on me for something as simple as “Please excuse my daughter from school today.” Everyone else had mothers who could do these things themselves. Why couldn’t mine?
But as I grew older, I realized that my mother was still struggling to fit into the American society that I navigated effortlessly. It was hard for her to conform, so she read Korean newspapers and watched Korean shows instead of working to become fluent in English, like my father had. Maybe it was culture shock, a disorientation caused by the American way of life that she’d never truly shaken. Maybe there was pride in being who she was, in staying true to the land where she’d been born and raised. Maybe it was the comfort of keeping her language in a land so foreign to her, retaining a piece of the culture she lived in for 18 years of her life.
She had married young, had two children, and that was that. There was little need for her to learn English; she ensured that her children knew the language of success, and that was enough.
“Ma’am?”
I’m yanked back to the present, to the phone pressed to my ear and my mother hissing, “Tell him I pay the bill.”
“I’d like to confirm that my payment for August was received,” I say, smiling reassuringly at my mother.
After the call ends, as I watch her prepare rice at the kitchen sink, a heavy sigh escapes me that takes the leftover irritation from my body. I wrap my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on her shoulder. It’s all I can do to express my appreciation for her and the struggles she’s endured to secure my future. Though I won’t make it to the sanctuary of my bedroom anytime soon, the exhaustion ebbs away as I listen to my mother’s animated rambling and think about the gifts she has given me: a chance for an education and the experience of having a foot in two worlds.