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naturally for me. “See? You act like problem when there’s no problem.” He slammed the door shut again.
    If I hadn’t just come back from the interview with the Mazer-Farleys, I might not have opened my mouth right then (it was hard to believe that interview had taken place only a few hours ago). “I think we should have . . . a
conversation
about it,” I said, repeating Beth’s words.
    â€œA what?” Sang jerked his head toward the front of the store, and through the rubber flaps of the doorway I could see the growing line of customers at the register, where Hannah was now. “Who got time for conversation? You think time like some kind of luxury?”
    With that he pushed aside the thick plastic strips hanging in the doorway and wheeled off.
    I stared at the door with a rising anger. I tried it again.
Fuck this.
I grasped the handle with two hands and yanked it free.
    The first thing I heard was a
pop!
Then a crunch. The door handle pulled free and clattered to the floor.
    Sang heard the commotion and rushed back to the walk-in, immediately followed by Hwan. They both surveyed the damage. Then Sang looked at me, his eyes blackening.
    â€œYou . . . nothing . . . but . . . the . . . careless!” Once he wrenched those first words out, the rest poured forth quickly. “What, you do on purpose? Show off how you right? You no idea how much it gonna cost?”
    When Sang grew excited, his already tenuous command of English grammar fell in inverse proportion to his rising anger. I always found it odd that he stuck it out with English rather than simply switching over to Korean. But in the house he spoke in Korean only to his wife and in select moments of tenderness, like when he was talking with his daughter.
    Hwan was crouched at the door with a can of WD-40 and a pocketknife, trying to pry it open.
    â€œYou know why this happen, right?” Sang went on. “Because you act like wild girl!”
    But each person has a breaking point. I had reached mine. I shouted, “That door’s been like that my entire life!”
    There was another
pop!
and crunch between us, but it wasn’t the door handle. Then Sang’s voice grew eerily calm.
    â€œOkay. Go to office call Mr. Hwang. His brother the repairman. Get the brother number and tell him come to Food right now. But after that you just go home. Today you causing more trouble than you help.
Ga.
” That last command—
Go
—was issued in Korean. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
    When Sang was gone, Hwan said, “I hate this damn door, too.” With a twist of his knife, he set the door free. He dragged the cinder block against it, leaving it a crack ajar. He fixed his steady gaze on my face; I looked away. “Your uncle, he get angry now, but, eh, you know he always cool down quick. You no worry, Miss Jane.”
    I looked up. But before I could say, “Thank you,” Hwan was already gone, the plastic strips in the doorway flapping closed behind him.
    * * *
    The week wore on. At work I measured out my life with cans of Spam, with apples and pears and boxes of Napa cabbage, with milk and honey and D batteries, with dimes, nickels, pennies, and food stamps. With each passing day, my thoughts would turn to the Mazer-Farleys. I took their silence to mean they’d moved on.
    One night, almost a week after my interview, the five of us were sitting around the flimsy card table in the kitchen. The remains of our dinner were spread before us: a picked-apart fried mackerel, its shredded skin glinting like flakes of gold leaf; cubes of
kkakdugi
-radish kimchi (a name, I was certain, that derived from the sound you made—
kkak!
—as you bit into it); garlic stems, smothered in red-pepper paste; cold beef chunks and hard-boiled eggs, stewed in soy sauce; shriveled-up baby sardines.
    The window fan whirred but offered little reprieve from the