IN HER BATHROOM MIRROR, MINA APPLIED THE DUSTY rose–colored lipstick that she had purchased with Mrs. Baek from one of the swap meet’s dollar stores. Earlier that day, as they were sharing a lunch of rice and various leftover banchan on top of the display-case counter of Mina’s shop, Mrs. Baek had said, “You look so tired these days. Remember back in the day, how much you cared about your looks?” She smiled. “I remember you even wore those long, flowing skirts to work. Weren’t you stocking shelves?”

Mina couldn’t help but laugh at herself, how naive she had once been. “I wanted to make a good impression,” she had replied, recalling the first time she had seen Mr. Kim—the edges of his fingertips as he had dropped the change, the cold hard coins, in her open palm, the pink flyer that spelled help wanted, his eyes, smiling.

“Why don’t you wear some makeup?” Mrs. Baek asked, snapping her Tupperware closed. “You look like a grandma and you’re not even a grandmother yet.”

“Do you know how old I am?”

“So what? Do you know how old I am? I’m older than you.”

“What do my looks matter?”

“Maybe when you look in the mirror, you might be happy. I feel that way. When I’m drawing my lips or my eyebrows, I feel alive, like I’m taking care of myself. I feel like I’m controlling my life in some way. Like I’m in control.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Mina said.

“Let’s go to the dollar store over there and get you some color.”

Together, they stood close, the sides of their arms touching as they lingered over the small selection of lipstick on a stand covered in cosmetics—foundation, powders, and blushes. Mina tested several shades on the back of her hand until a flash of dusty rose appeared and Mrs. Baek said, “That one. That’s it.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, it’s subtle but pretty, don’t you think? You could start off slow.”

“Eventually, maybe I’ll graduate to red.” Mina placed her fist on her waist and popped out her hip.

Mrs. Baek laughed. “Maybe,” she said. “But by then we’ll be on our deathbeds. Twins, I guess.”

Now, in the mirror’s reflection, Mina inserted an index finger into her mouth, puckered, and pulled the finger back out through her lips—a trick that Mrs. Baek had taught her to keep the color from her teeth. She smeared the waxy color onto her cheeks, brightening her face. All she needed was a bit of under-eye concealer, and despite her age, she could be beautiful, or at least, lively again.

Through an open window, she could smell a neighbor grilling carne asada—the smoke of animal fat, citrus, and garlic. Her stomach grumbled. With toilet paper, she wiped the color off her mouth.

The phone rang. Was it her daughter? Or was it some pesky salesman, trying to sell her something in English?

She rushed to the living room. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Lee?” a man said roughly. “Mrs. Lee.”

It was him. She would know that voice anywhere.

She gasped and slammed the receiver down with a crash.

Mina had grown terrified of the sound of unexpected knocking on doors, which would always remind her of when the police officers came to her apartment in Seoul. And so when she heard a knock the next day, she stepped back for a second, thinking that she could pretend she wasn’t here, but then the knock came again, and she realized that whoever it was could hear her television. She crept toward the door, avoiding the fisheye, knowing that whoever it was might see her.

A minute passed. “Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s me.” A throat cleared. “Mr. Kim.”

Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. “Go away,” she screamed, surprising herself. “Go away.”

She slumped onto the floor, crawling on her hands and knees toward her bedroom, where she waited until she could not hear a thing anymore, only the drip of the faucet in the bathroom, the flush of a neighbor’s toilet. She didn’t know for how long she hid.

When was the last she had seen him? Over twenty-six years ago. He seemed to be speaking to her from the past, from the Ferris wheel where she had opened her eyes, observing the beauty of this world that, for a few minutes, promised not to harm her. Like the Ferris wheel, the entire world, her life had pulsed—ripe and bright—with the smell of the ocean bathing away her pain, the grief that kept her up most nights.

Over twenty-six years ago, she had taken the gun from Mr. Kim’s drawer, slipped it into her purse, and gone to the supermarket like any other day at work. She could’ve killed Mr. Park then, but he wasn’t there. The gun bag was in her closet, which she had hidden in an attempt to keep Margot safe, to submerge that part of her life as best as she could.

After a long bout of silence, she checked the fisheye. He was gone.

He had pushed a note through the bottom of the door.

Please call me. I don’t have a lot of time left. I have cancer. I’m dying. I can help you. I want to help you with your family.

She turned toward her coffee table and slapped the Virgin Mary statue, a twin to the one at her store. The statue tipped to its side, tumbling to the ground with a crack.

AS DAYLIGHT ENDED IN THE GRAPEFRUIT-AND-ORANGE glow of sunset, Mina called him almost two weeks after his visit. A part of her hoped he would disappear and die, unable to bear the idea that he was alive, and another part of her could not tolerate the idea of him not existing in this world at all.

Within these two weeks, trapped in this limbo between calling him or not, she avoided Mrs. Baek. She thought all day and night about what choice she would most regret. Would he help her? What would that mean? Could she trust him enough to let him in her life again? Or was this all a ruse to humiliate her, as he had done when he abandoned her, as he had done when he had failed to meet her in Las Vegas? What was the excuse then? How much more humiliation could she take?

Twenty years ago, she had driven to the desert for him. He had found her, in their apartment, mailed her a letter asking her to meet him in Las Vegas if she could.

I am going to be in Las Vegas for one week. Can you come and meet me? I will be at this hotel. Ask for me at the front desk. Please do not let anyone know.

She planned to introduce him to Margot, six years old then. She didn’t understand what he had been doing in Vegas, or why, but she remembered their trip there together a long time ago, when they had gorged themselves on American food at the buffets, gambled on penny slots until the crack of dawn, made love in the dim light of the sun still rising, and slept soundly until lunch.

Mina had packed up the car with her daughter, who sat in the back by herself, unaware. She had no idea what to tell Margot and decided to not say a word about Mr. Kim, in case, for whatever reason, he either didn’t show up, or he had changed or didn’t want to have anything to do with them, or perhaps the correspondence had all been a terrible mistake.

That had been the first and last time she had ever driven on the freeway. She drove below the limit. Despite the cars around her honking, all she could remember was not the dry arid landscape and the fear that she should’ve felt driving alone for such a long distance, but the way her heart throbbed in her throat thinking about Mr. Kim, their time together in bed or on the Ferris wheel, and the pleasure, the joy she had felt around him for the first time since her husband and daughter had died.

But he never showed up. The hotel where they were supposed to meet didn’t recognize his name. She hadn’t heard from him since.

Until now. Chewing her fingernails, she dialed the long-distance number on the note that he had slipped under the door. What had overcome her? Perhaps at the end of his life and toward the end of hers, she needed to hear his voice again. She needed to know that their time together was not an illusion that she had tucked somewhere inside of her brain. She needed to know that it was all, in some way, real.

“I didn’t think you’d call.” His voice, worn and raspy, startled her.

Did she dial the wrong number?

“Hello?” he asked.

She remained silent.

“Mrs. Lee?”

She placed the receiver down on her lap, contemplating if she should hang up the phone. She couldn’t stand to be reminded of the life that she had lived without him, yet she couldn’t bear to let him go again. She hated the universe, even God, right now. Why couldn’t He make life simple and clean? Hadn’t she suffered enough? Enough, she wanted to scream.

“Mrs. Lee?” She could still hear his voice, muffled on her lap.

Trembling, she lifted the receiver to her ear again. “Yes?”

“Can we talk? I can help you, I think. I can help you.”

“How did you get my number?” she asked. “How did you find me?”

“The house that you used to live in? The landlady who died, her kids? I called them. You bought a store from them, right? They had your new address, your number.”

“Why would they have—”

“I told them I was dying, that I wanted to reach you, that I could help you before—”

“I don’t want your help.”

“I know that—you probably wondered all these years.”

“What about Vegas?” Her voice cracked. “What about then?”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. We were . . . so young then.” He cleared his throat. “I was—I was in Chicago at the time. There was a conference in Vegas. I worked for my cousin’s import business.” He sighed. “But my wife—”