Free Transparency by Frances Hwang

here.”
    “Yes,”Helen said, growing quiet. Her brow was pensive and her lips were parted slightly, a look of waiting on her face. They
     walked on in silence, retracing their steps and circling the neighborhood once more. “I don’t know why I get depressed whenever
     I come home,”Helen said. “It’s like part of me is blunted, and I can’t wait to go back and be with people who really know
     me, the better part of me at least. Your family always sees the worst in you, and you see the worst in them, and it’s like
     neither of you can ever change for the better.”
    “That’s a bleak way of looking at things,”June said. “I hope that’s not true.”And yet she recognized what Helen was saying.
     It was hard not to feel limited by your family. She herself always tried to hide from them her tender spots, her weaknesses,
     as best she could. Why was that? There was a gap, she felt, a flaw in their understanding. Their way of looking at things,
     their assumptions about her and other people, so often seemed wrong, and she had learned to shy away from their judgment and
     even their sympathy. No doubt her brother did the same with her and the rest of the family. June could be quite callous when
     talking about him with her friends, saying he was a computer geek who holed himself up in his room, but what did she really
     know about his life? She didn’t know what he did with his days, who his friends were in college, if he had ever kissed a girl
     or been in love. At some point, a veil had fallen between them, and now so many things were left unsaid.
    “Helen,”June said, reflecting a moment, “does your father ever mention his first wife?” There was a pause in which she realized
     she shouldn’t have asked this question.
    “What did you just say?” Helen asked. June was silent, and Helen said cautiously, “Was my father married before?”
    June felt her mind racing as she grasped for a lie, a loophole she could slip through, but she could only nod her head. “I’m
     sorry. I thought you knew.”She couldn’t believe her own stupidity. She had never imagined her uncle would be able to keep
     his first marriage a secret from his family.
    “Could you tell me more?” Helen asked.
    “I probably shouldn’t. My father is going to kill me when he finds out I told you.”
    “But I really want to know,”Helen said. “How did you know my dad was married before?”
    June hesitated. “Well, I met her,”she said. “I was really young, maybe four years old, and we were visiting Taiwan. My parents
     asked her to babysit me and Meg for the day, and for some reason, she left a strong impression on me. I thought she was very
     beautiful.”June remembered how this young, pretty aunt of hers had made them laugh when she bent one arm up and the other
     down and moved her head back and forth like an Egyptian. June and her sister had tried to imitate her in the mirror. Then
     they had taken a cab together to a small boutique, and there had been the prettiest sparkling things inside, and all these
     glittering bits had seemed to June like tokens of her aunt’s beauty. She had never met anyone so lovely and was devastated
     when her parents returned to take her and her sister away. Her aunt smiled and bent down to kiss her—she had such bright,
     clear eyes!—then took the rhinestone comb out of her hair and gave it to June as a memento. During the taxi ride back to her
     grandmother’s apartment, June had clutched the comb in her hand and felt a delirious happiness. She put the charmed comb in
     her hair, fully expecting something wonderful to happen, but when she had a chance to look at herself in the mirror, it did
     not look so nice — or maybe it was she who did not look so nice. The comb was too large and slipped from her hair. She took
     it out to inspect it more carefully and noticed for the first time that one of the little rhinestones was missing.
    Soon after his divorce, her uncle drove down from New