Free Transparency by Frances Hwang Page A

Jersey and stayed with them one weekend. He ended up moping about in
     his room, staring at recent photographs of his ex-wife which he had dumped in a pile on the bed. He picked up one photo after
     another, passing it over for June to look at, and she could hardly recognize the lovely aunt she remembered. Her aunt looked
     tired and plain, without any makeup on. She did not smile in any of the photographs.
    “She’s completely changed, right?” her uncle said.
    “She looks sad.”
    “Yes,”he said. “But why is she so sad? Why not smile at the camera? Why so sad?”
    “She gave me a comb from her hair,”June said. “I liked her.”
    Her uncle sighed. “People change. She’s not pretty anymore”
    Her uncle married again a year later, and his second wife seemed nothing like the first. It was impossible for June not to
     compare them, and perhaps the story she told her cousin implied this because Helen turned to look at her, and said, “My mom
     was beautiful, too, when she was young.”
    “Yes,”June said.
    “Do you know why his first marriage ended?”
    “I think your dad left her alone in Taiwan for the first year he was starting out in the U.S. He asked his cousin to look
     after her while he was away. When your dad came back to visit, she was cold to him and claimed she’d been raped by a cabdriver.
     No one knew if this story was true or not. Your dad went back to New Jersey, and in two weeks he received a letter from his
     wife saying she wanted a divorce. She was in love with his cousin. The two had been having an affair for all this time, and
     now they wanted to get married. The news was quite a blow to your dad. He and his cousin had grown up together, and your dad
     considered him his best friend.”
    “I feel so sorry for him.”
    “I know.”
    “It’s just so strange to think all this happened to him,”Helen said. “I would never have guessed it was possible. Your parents
     always seem so ... devoid of mystery, you know what I mean?”
    June smiled. “Did you ever look through the old family albums in Grandma’s apartment? Maybe everyone looks better in black
     and white, or maybe it’s just that everyone seems more beautiful because they’re young. But your dad was really handsome then.”She
     had once expressed surprise to her mother about her uncle’s striking looks, and her mother had said he was photogenic but
     that all his beauty evaporated the instant he opened his mouth. In the photographs, he had a dark, intense gaze that was mysterious
     and appealing, but in person her uncle’s stare revealed an obsessive anxiety, an inward spiraling of some kind. He had been
     born with a birthmark staining his face which ran slantwise from the corner of his mouth all the way down to his chin. Children
     had teased him in school and called him Black Mouth, and her uncle had been self-conscious about the mark and finally gotten
     it removed by a surgeon when he came to the United States.
    “I’m glad you told me,”Helen said. “I feel like maybe I can understand him a little more.”They had returned to the house,
     and she wished June good night.

    June was surprised when both her cousins woke up early the next morning to see her off. Helen looked sleepy and smiled at
     June, clutching her elbows as though she were cold. She seemed so thin in her nightgown...June wondered what would happen
     to her after she left. By the time they saw each other again, would Helen have seen China or would she be living with her
     family or would her life have taken a new, unexpected direction? She hugged Helen close and then Gerard, too. “Take care of
     yourselves,”she said.
    Gerard smiled at her with closed lips. “So,”he breathed, “you’re going to Mexico?” He spoke shyly from the corner of his mouth.
    June nodded. “Do you want to come with me?”
    He only smiled at her, one hand in his pocket.
    In the car, her uncle asked June if she’d spoken to Helen.
    “Uncle, I don’t think