Chapter 2: Hope, Idaho
Jia closed the front door behind her, dumped her backpack on a chair, and stopped when she heard a voice. Her grandmother was in the living room, speaking to someone, and Jia stopped in the kitchen to listen.
“No, I don’t know. It’s all up in the air,” Constance. After a lull, Jia assumed that her grandmother was on the phone.
“I’ll let you know, but I’m stuck here for now. But I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
There was another pause, and Jia took a few steps and saw that her grandmother was standing at the open sliding door. She paced back and forth for a few seconds before turning and seeing Jia.
“Yeah, Jia’s home from school. I’ll call you back,” she said before disconnecting.
“Everything okay?” Jia said.
“Yeah, my neighbor is upset that I’m not there. I’m missing her weekly card game, and she had to tell me that one of my goats got into her yard.”
“Ha! I remember chasing your goats. Well, kind of. That’s about all I remember. That was a weird day,” Jia said. “Do you have to go back?”
“Oh, no,” Constance said quickly, then hesitated. “I mean, not right away.”
“But soon, right?”
Constance shrugged and changed the subject.
“How’d it go at the assembly, Peach?”
“Okay, I guess, but—”
“Mm? What happened?” Her grandmother Constance had a way of humming at odd times, and for a few days after she had arrived from Hope, it had thrown Jia off. But then, she didn’t know her Grandmother much since it had been half a lifetime since they’d seen each other.
“Oh, I tried to play that piece I wrote a couple of months ago but totally humiliated myself because I couldn’t finish it. But we got out of there after that.”
“Where’s Zilly? You and her mending things up yet?”
“Well, I didn’t punch her like I promised last time, so there’s that.”
“You two and your boys—”
“Not my boy! Her boy. And he’s stupid anyway—”
“Yeah, I don’t think what he did was appropriate, that’s for damn sure.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Jia regarded her grandmother, who had mysteriously shown up the day after her mother had died. She hadn’t seen her for eight years, half a lifetime ago. The memory returned: Jia and her mother had arrived in Idaho on a sweltering summer day after a day and a half in a sticky, hot car. Upon arrival, Jia, gleeful to be released, explored a small backyard and neighboring wheat field, marveling at a goat wandering down the country road. She finally went inside for a soda pop, which her mother never allowed.
It was idyllic. Jia liked the countryside, and she’d never been to her grandmother’s house before. Inside, she explored the small, tidy house room by room, touching a knickknack, picking up an old photo of someone she didn’t recognize, and fluffing, then sniffing a small bouquet. She idly wondered why her grandmother didn’t have a piano. Didn’t everyone have one?
While exploring the bathroom and bedroom, fascinated by the ancient bits and pieces of her grandmother’s life, Jia heard raised voices from the front yard. When she went to see the commotion, her mom and grandmother were going at it at top volume. Her mother glanced at Jia and immediately rushed her to the car, where she peeked through the window, slack-jawed as the argument escalated, finally ending with her mother saying a few choice words, climbing in the car, slamming the door, firing up the engine, yelling at Jia to buckle the fuck up now they were leaving.
She sighed and filled a glass with water before downing it all in one long drink. She set the glass on the counter and said, “Grandma?”
“Mmm, Peach?” Constance had made herself comfortable on the couch and opened a novel.
“I do want to talk. I mean, there are so many unanswered questions—two big ones—but I just haven’t wanted to bring them up—not yet.”
“And you do now?”
Jia nodded, “I think so,” and settled in on the other end of the couch.
“Shoot.”
Jia breathed in and focused on her hands for a moment like her mother had taught her when something important was at hand. She turned and looked up at Constance.
“Why did you and Mom get in that big fight the last time we visited?"
Constance sighed and let out a small chuckle. "Oh, Peach, that was so long ago. Your mother and I were both stubborn souls who often clashed. I'm afraid I can't even recall what that particular dispute was about."
"It seemed so serious, though. Mom whisked us out of there so quickly..."
"When tensions run high, things are said in anger that folks later regret. I know your mother and I wounded each other deeply at times."
“So if you and Mom struggled to get along, why are you here now?"
"Because, for all our differences, she was still my daughter. And you are my grandchild. I'm here because you need family right now."
"I appreciate that, Grandma. It's just...complicated. But I'm glad you came."
They sat in silence for several minutes.
"Grandma, what was Mom like as a kid?"
Constance smiled wistfully and said, "Oh, she was a firecracker from the start — bright, talented, with a will of iron. She knew her own mind, that one, even at five years old. Drove me crazy and made me proud all at once."
Jia laughed softly. "That sounds like Mom, alright."
"She adored you, though, Jia. Don't ever doubt that."
"I know, Grandma, I know she did. I miss her more than I can say,” Jia said, her voice a whisper.
Jia remembered the car’s tires spinning in the gravel as it sped away from the cute little bungalow in Hope, Idaho, leaving nothing behind but silence and gloom. Jia had peered through the back window and watched her grandmother’s dwindling image, raising her hand in a sad and slow goodbye as the little farmhouse disappeared.
As she saw it, the town named Hope held anything but. With Grandma Constance in Concord, a sea of emotions and memories had come to the surface, along with a hundred unanswered questions about why they had fled in such visible hurt and despair. Jia had tried to talk with her mother about it, but after a few attempts that went nowhere, she’d let it drop for good.
“You said you had two questions. That’s one. What’s the other?”
Jia waited for several beats again and then said, “When Mom was in the hospital, she mentioned something I’d never heard her talk about before.”
“What’s that?”
Jia screwed up her face and looked sideways at her grandmother, and said, “Something she called the Mystic Alliance. But then she called it something in a different language, Korean, I think it sounds like it. I wrote it down.” She pulled her phone out, tapping it a few times as Constance stared uneasily.
“Sinbihan Yeondae. What do you know about that?”
Constance’s face clouded over as her brows tightened, and after several moments, she turned to face Jia.
