Free The Interpreter by Suki Kim Page B

before the Hallmark section of the stationery store and looked through the ones with the gold-engraved “To Dear Sister.” She chose instead a plain white one, but she never sent it.
    The walk is not easy, increasingly rocky. On Suzy’s left is the dramatic formation of eroded cliffs, the land broken by years of water. To her right is the ocean. No one is around. One o’clock on a rainy November afternoon, who in their right mind would be out here?
    Except someone is. Far in the distance, Suzy can see a figure walking ahead. Either a man or a woman under the umbrella, but a tinge of familiarity in the shape, in the way each step is dragged. Where did the person come from? Had he or she been walking ahead the whole time?
    For a second, Suzy imagines that it might be Grace, and that she will run and catch up until finally the two will be joined, holding hands, together to see their parents, a family as they had never been, as they should have been—Mom and Dad, Grace and Suzy. Since when do you care about their wishes? Grace will never let her forget. It was Suzy who had cut out first, the first escape, the first hole in the foursome. It was Suzy who had ruined it all, Suzy who ran off with her professor’s husband and left everyone back home in shame, Suzy who disappeared for four years, until the day the police tracked her down at Damian’s Berkshire house with the news that her parents were dead. Grace never forgave Suzy for ditching Mom and Dad in their final years. Jen found Grace’s resentment toward Suzy unfair.
“I thought your sister never came home either when she was at Smith. Why is she suddenly the good daughter?”
    But of course it cannot be Grace walking ahead. Grace must be tucked safely back in her Godly New Jersey home. What happened at Smith? What happens at her church, where Grace must spend all her time now? In the spring of 1991, over nine years ago, when Suzy chose Damian over everything, Grace had just moved back home from Northampton, where she had tried a few jobs with not much luck. Suzy was surprised when she learned that Grace was home. Suzy thought that Grace, more than anyone she knew, would have some grand plan waiting for her upon finishing college. Moving back to her parents’ house seemed like a desperate decision. Grace was living in New Jersey when her parents were shot in their Bronx store in November 1995. She taught ESL at Fort Lee High School. Most of her students were Korean kids who had recently landed in America, whose parents were often gone, working overtime. The same kids also attended Fort Lee New Joy Fellowship Church, where Grace was in charge of the Bible study Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons. Grace was a good teacher supposedly, exceptionally competent and quick with her lessons. That was her style, never sentimental, never messy. Suzy overheard all this on the bus after the funeral. The older women who sat opposite Suzy must have been the parents of Grace’s students. “So what about the other daughter?” one of them asked. “Shhhh.” The second woman made a hush motion with her finger on her lips, glancing at Suzy.
    Definitely not Grace up ahead. Someone entirely different, a stranger with his back toward Suzy. Quite a distance separates the two, and with the rain and all, Suzy can barely make out the shape of the other. The rocks are getting sharper, and from here on, there is no choice but to follow the steps to the road, which
continues for a few more miles parallel to the shore. The path is uphill, slippery. Whoever’s ahead must be heading in the same direction. Whoever’s ahead keeps an even distance without once turning around, or perhaps it is Suzy making sure that she keeps up. Perhaps there are other ashes scattered from the lighthouse; perhaps it is the locals’ favorite burial spot. Why scatter the ashes from the lighthouse? Whose romantic notion was that? Suzy, of course, had been left out of the decision. It seemed like a good idea, a