Crying in H Mart

by Michelle Zauner

He didn’t tell me until much later that my parents had called him first. That he had known she was sick before me, that he had promised them that he would be there when I found out. That he would be there through it all.

In the mirror now there was someone unrecognizable and out of her control. Someone strange and undesirable. She started to cry.

Not quite my mother and not quite her sister, we existed in that moment as each other’s next best thing.