She and Rosie were in a race against time. After giving away all of their Dad’s belongings to the Salvation Army, their mother had begun packing their things into old cardboard boxes. She’d already thrown ten years’ worth of National Geographic into the recycle bin and said she’d deal with the crockery the following week.

Nights, Mrs. Park made phone calls to friends and relatives in Korea, always beginning friendly and ending desperate, her eyes rimmed with red and her arms entangled in telephone wire.

“Do you even know anyone there anymore?” Mira would ask her. “You left twenty years ago. That’s, like, a really long time ago!”

Mrs. Park wouldn’t answer; she’d keep her eyes tilted away from the questions, defiant. Mira was only a child, and a spoiled, mean-spirited one—what did she know about obligation? The girl’s histrionics always ended the same way anyhow, with her screaming “I hate you!” and storming out of the kitchen, then returning two minutes later in tears, pleading, “Please, Ma, please don’t make us go!”

Mira found a way to distract her mother. After dinner, she read to her from When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Though it was a hideous task having to explain each line to her mother in language she could understand, it prevented Mrs. Park from disappearing to make those calls to Korea and it kept her from noticing that Rosemary was outside, trying to figure out the Camry’s controls with Driving for Idiots in her lap.

Mira read aloud from a chapter entitled “Why Do the Righteous Suffer?” She couldn’t wait to get to the chapter called “Sometimes There Is No Reason” just to watch her mother lose her mind.

“The misfortunes of good people are not only a problem to the people who suffer and their families . . .”

Her mother interrupted her, tapping at the words on the back cover.

“What is this say?” Mrs. Park asked.

Mira flipped the book over.

“For anyone who has ever been hurt by life . . . It means that this book was written for people who feel cheated and eff-ed over by their circumstances. Like you.”

Her mother nodded.

“You also, yes?” she said, hopefully.

“This book was written by a rabbi. I’m probably not ‘hurt by life’ in the way that he’s talking about.”

“You not feel missing your Dad?”

“I guess . . .” Mira gazed at the hairy mole on her mother’s neck. “But this is not about me. It’s about you.”

Mrs. Park looked wounded.

“You pray to Jesus?”

“Ma, that’s too many questions. Can we just continue reading this thing?”

Mrs. Park pushed the book away and tried to get her daughter to look at her.

“You asset Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?”

“Ma . . .”

Mrs. Park grabbed Mira’s wrists and forced her palms together in prayer.

“You asset Jesus as Lord and Savior. Yes?”