How human, how beautiful even our mistakes could be. Once again the bronze gate had been left open. The same two cars—glistening and new—had been parked in the driveway along with a muddy landscaper truck. A weed whacker whirred in the distance.

The creamy white two-story house appeared even more dreamlike during the day. The sun drenched the surrounding foliage in a honey-colored light, and well-fed birds flitted playfully on the dense grass. The tiered stone fountain gushed water as the palm trees rustled against each other in the breeze.

She tapped the heavy brass door knocker, and the very handsome and chiseled man from the other night answered, wearing a soft gray cashmere sweater and perfectly fitted dark slacks. He smelled like a Dolce & Gabbana ad, and from what she could tell, had the body to match.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Her knees almost buckled beneath her from nerves. “I’m here to see Mrs. Kim?”

“Can I ask who you are?” His brows furrowed.

She gulped. “I’m someone from . . . her husband’s past.”

“You mean a friend? Or a relative?”

“Kind of,” she said. “Um, yeah, a relative.”

“One moment.” He shut the door as she waited. Behind her, the landscaper dumped bare branches into the back of his truck. She waved hello at him, and he nodded back under his cap. The cold morning air smelled like fresh-cut grass.

A minute later, Dolce & Gabbana reappeared. “Come in,” he said.

After walking through the entryway where she left her shoes, embarrassed about the condition of her dingy socks, Margot perched herself on the edge of the ivory tufted sofa in the living room that she had peered in on the other night. The air felt impossibly crisp and clean inside the house as if she had been sealed in a vacuum of perfect temperature and humidity and light—both wondrous and eerie.

“Can I help you?” Mrs. Kim asked as she entered. She tucked her silky black hair behind her ear, revealing a large iridescent pearl like a full moon, hypnotic and silvery. Her fingernails were shiny, oxblood-colored. She wore a voluptuous sweater, snow-white, a pair of heather gray leggings, and chic mule slippers made out of the most impractical velvet.

“You look lovely,” Margot said out loud, involuntarily, as she stood up like a suitor in a Victorian novel.

Mrs. Kim smiled and patted herself on the cheek, blushing as she sat on the armchair beside the sofa. “I try to take good care of my skin. Please, have a seat.” She raised her brows. “Could I offer you something to drink?”

“Oh, no, not right now, thank you.”

“Is there something that I can help you with? My driver mentioned that you might be related to my husband. A relative?”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Margot said, realizing that her lover was the driver. She couldn’t wait to tell Miguel about this.

“And we’ve never met? You . . . do look familiar.” Mrs. Kim’s face was indeed beautiful, in the most idealized Korean way—line-free and luminescent, narrow chin and jaw and nose, creased and doe-like eyes—but immobile the entire time as if she didn’t quite feel anything anymore, or as if there was a human being trapped behind the skin. She was like the perfectly constructed woman—from an alien planet, luxurious and fur-covered.

Suddenly, Margot became very self-conscious about her socks, the lack of makeup or any color on her face, her ragged nails.

Margot took a deep breath and began. “I don’t really know how to say this, but—”

Mrs. Kim’s driver-slash-lover reappeared. “Would you like something to drink? I’m making myself some tea.”

“Oh, no, no thanks,” Margot said. “Well . . . what kind of tea?”

“Green tea?”

“Sure.”

He nodded. Mrs. Kim stared at Margot’s face as if she recognized her from somewhere.

“So, a couple weeks ago . . .” Margot cleared her throat. “I found my mother’s body in her apartment in Koreatown. She was dead. And going through her things, I found your husband’s obituary in an envelope.”

“What?” Mrs. Kim’s mouth dropped open.

“Well, let me backtrack. I never knew my dad. I grew up in Koreatown. My mom was working at this supermarket in the eighties, and someone she worked with got her pregnant, and he left right after. I never knew anything about him, but when I saw his picture in the obituary—”

Mrs. Kim froze, eyes open wide.

“And then my mother’s friend confirmed that he is my dad.”

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“Mina. Mina Lee.”

“Oh my God,” she said, slapping her hand down on the cushion of her seat. Her face grew red, jaw clenched. “So, that’s who she is.”

The driver reappeared. “Here’s your tea,” he said, handing the delicate, bone-colored cup on a saucer to Margot then exiting the room.

An awkward pause fell before Mrs. Kim finally spoke. “My husband and I . . . We were not exactly . . . conventional.”

“Okay.”

“We have always been very open.”

“You mean . . .”

“Open about our relationships with others.”

Margot almost spit the tea out of her mouth. “Like swingers?”

“No, not like that.” She gave a small laugh. “But we were . . . flexible.”

“Open relationship?”

“Yes, basically.”

“Wow. Modern.” Margot placed the cup and saucer on the glass coffee table next to perfectly positioned, untouched books like monuments to a very predictable taste—Richard Avedon, Chanel, and black-and-white Paris.

“Anyway, my husband got very sick over the summer. He had cancer. And I had seen this . . .” her voice broke “. . . woman’s name that he had been calling a lot. Mina. Your . . . mother. I didn’t care much. So what, he’s dying. ‘Go for it. Have fun.’” Tendons pulsed in her neck. “But then after he died, I realized—” Her eyes widened. “Do you know how much he spent on that woman?”

“My mom?”

“Yes, your mom. Sorry. I’m sorry for your loss. I mean—” She gritted her perfect teeth. “Do you know how much he spent?”

“No. No, I don’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.” A heaviness built inside of Margot’s chest. What money? None of this made sense.

“He hired an investigator that he had been using, for himself, to find out some things for her. I found all these receipts—”

“What?” Margot exhaled, letting all the air out of her lungs. She had been holding her breath. She picked up the saucer and drank some of the tea that had cooled and now tasted faintly metallic. “What would she have been using this investigator for?” She shook her head. “It’s not like he spent money on her for stuff. There’s nothing of value where she lives.”

“This investigator works with people all over Korea to find missing people, missing families, like the ones who were separated by the war. My husband found out about his own father that way.” She sighed. “Not that your mother or her family didn’t matter, but to me, she was just a stranger, see? Some random woman that he just met.”

“Do you know what she found out? Or what specific information he would’ve—”

“No. And I tore it all up. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.” Frustrated, Mrs. Kim pinched between her brows with her fingers.

Margot felt a pang of remorse that she would never know what the investigator found.

“Why would he spend so much?” Mrs. Kim asked. “But now . . . now it makes sense.”

“I don’t think he knew about me.”

“But she was someone from his past then. It was some kind of deeper relationship. Maybe he even . . . loved her,” she said, biting her lip as if ashamed of herself.

Margot didn’t know what to say. “Why did you marry him?” she asked. “Did you ever love each other?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But you know, it just made the most sense. He was rich, and I wanted security. I had had my heart broken so many times before then.”

“By other men?”

“By all kinds of people,” she said. “I used to feel so much, you know? But feelings are dangerous.”

“Wouldn’t life be meaningless without them?”

“Ha, you’re very sentimental. Like your father.” Mrs. Kim nodded. “I never understood him much, to be honest. He was so different from everyone else.”

“How?” Margot could feel the grip of her muscles loosening, relieved to learn even this tidbit about him—what they might have in common. For a few seconds, she felt less alone. It was wondrous to be like someone, to be carrying someone else in your blood and bones. People whom you might not have even met.

“Oh, in so many ways. I can’t really talk about this right now.” Mrs. Kim wiped carefully at the inner corners of her eyes with her fingertips. “I do miss him.” She exhaled out loud. “I’m sorry, but I have this terrible headache.”

“Can I get you something?”

“No, no, that’s okay.” She shook her head. “It’s been difficult for me, now that I’m on my own.” She opened her eyes. “He took care of everything, you know? The finances, the bills. Now what? I’ll probably sell all the supermarkets, and then?”

The driver stood by the wide doorway, waiting and watching Margot. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck rising.

“I should sell everything and travel the world, don’t you think? I could go to Machu Picchu. I’ve always wanted to go there. Have you been?”

“No, I’ve never been.”