After taking off their shoes inside the front door, they found her mother in the kitchen, pulling glass Pyrex dishes out of the refrigerator.
“Sit! Sit!” she told them, waving them toward the kitchen table. “All I have to do is heat this up in the microwave. It will be ready in just a few minutes. Do you want some wine with lunch? I’ve got Riesling. Riesling goes great with bulgogi.”
“That’s what I said!” Dawn crowed, shooting Victor a triumphant look. But then she frowned and asked-signed her mother, “Are you supposed to be drinking the day before your surgery?”
“It’s okay,” her mother insisted, pulling down three glasses.
“Not for me, mom, thanks. I don’t drink,” Dawn said with a hasty glance towards Victor.
“You don’t drink?” her mother answered with a laugh. “You are no daughter of mine!”
Her mother had probably meant that as a little quip as she bent down to open a standalone wine fridge at the far left of the outer wall’s counter. But with her back turned, she didn’t see the way Dawn visibly flinched, as if her mother had slapped her.
Jokes like that, Victor supposed, were what the internet often referred to as “too soon.”
He also noted that the little fridge was nearly as stuffed with bottles as Dawn’s had been before Victor had Wayne clear it out.
“You’ll have a glass with me, right, Dawn’s Husband?” Gyeong said when she stood back up with the bottle. The bottle was already uncorked. And Victor wondered if her slightly flushed face had less to do with the windy day than this not being her first glass.
Dawn’s eyes darted between him and her mother, obviously distressed. And that was how he discovered the hard way, that he still didn’t love seeing her upset. Not unless he was the one who put her in that state.
“None for me either,” he signed to her mother. Not out of solidarity with Dawn, he insisted to himself. Rather because he wanted to stay sharp and clear for this once-in-a-lifetime meeting.
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Dawn’s Husband! You know sign language?”
Victor cut his eyes to Dawn, eager to see how she would explain this to her mother.
But Dawn just answered, “Yes, Mom, he knows sign language, too, and I’m just going to take this bottle from you and put it back in the fridge because I get that you’re probably scared and upset, but there’s no way you should be drinking the day before liver surgery.”
That declared-signed, Dawn tugged at the bottle in her mother’s hand as she asked, “Do you have a pitcher we can use for water?”
“When did you become the boss of me?” Gyeong asked her daughter with an annoyed cluck.
Nonetheless, she relinquished the bottle to Dawn and went back to the cabinets to pull down a plastic pitcher.
“Has Dawn made you any Korean food?” her mother asked after handing Dawn the pitcher. “Or do you two only eat takeout like my son?”
She eyed Dawn up and down. “You look like you’ve only been eating takeout. What happened to that diet from the year when you lied to us all about going to med school?
The ding of the microwave saved Dawn from answering.
And that was how he ended up having an unexpected lunch with Dawn and her mother.
“Look at how nice he is chewing!” Gyeong observed with a pointed look toward Dawn. “Unlike some people I know.”
Before he could stop himself, Victor glanced over at Dawn, the memory of their one and only conversation on this topic echoing in his head. She had been right about how her mother would respond to his necessary chewing habit.
“See, I told you she would like that about you!” Dawn crowed, her voice triumphant.
Victor tried and failed not to laugh.
“He’s savoring the food,” her mom insisted, taking a drink of water. “Not shoveling it down like you and Byron. Probably because he hasn’t had a homemade meal ever from you.”
“I cooked for him,” Dawn insisted. But then she sheepishly added, “Once.”
“What did you make?” Gyeong asked, her eyes lighting up. “Was it good? It must not have been if he never asked for it again!”
Victor’s hands started moving before he could stop them. “She made me bulgogi. It was much spicier and more garlicky than the kind you heated up for us. But she said it was from your recipe, and she guaranteed me it would be the best meal of my life. She did not lie. I appreciated it because most of my tongue is missing. That means my taste buds are highly compromised. So the meal was perfect for someone like me.”
Both Dawn and her mother stared at him, their eyes wide, but for different reasons.
“You made him my spicy garlic bulgogi?” Gyeong grinned and squeezed her daughter’s arm. “No wonder he is so happy to be married to you. I don’t make it anymore because it gives me the heartburn, but that is my best, best recipe. You know I invented it. You couldn’t get bulgogi recipes off the internet back when I first had Byron and Dawn. And the Asian market was very far from where we lived in New Jersey. I had to shave my own meat and put together recipes for the Korean foods I loved as best I could, using ingredients from the white people’s store. But my spicy garlic bulgogi was always Dawn’s favorite. I used to try to make it at least once a week because she loved it so much.”
