Cold by A.N. Lee (p

Cs h o r t O s t o r y

It is too cold inside the car. I blow on my chapped hands and place them under my thighs, where they sit like icicles, absorbing the heat from my leggings. I can see my breath in puffs of milky white.

Dad shuts the car door and starts it with a growl. Umma straps Soojin in and folds herself into the passenger seat, bringing a blast of icy air with her. I shiver. She taps her phone and winces; the screen is bright in the dark car. I tap her on the shoulder and she wordlessly passes me her earbuds, which I connect to my iPod. It’s really

Umma’s iPod, but she stopped using it when she got a phone. It’s one of the old ones. It has a square little screen and a scrolling button you press with your thumb. Dad hints that if I treat it well and don’t lose it, there may be a phone on the way for me when I turn fourteen. When Umma and Dad remember, they sometimes give me an allowance and occasionally encourage me to put it all in the hideously green piggy bank I’ve named Mr. Lump; he contains maybe five dollars and a few coins. I’ve spent all that money on music. I love piano songs, especially ones that go on for so long you lose yourself in the gentle sound of the keys. When I play I always close my eyes. If Umma is feeling good she promises to take me to my recitals, but it’s always Samcheon who picks me up, a battered rose waiting on his car’s passenger seat.

“Umma, chuweo,” Soojin complains, her indignant voice piercing through my music. She holds up her tiny red hands as evidence. She is too little to have figured out the thigh trick, and Umma straps her into her seat so tight I have to fish for her toys if she loses them. Right now she loves Ddalgi, her pink-and-green stuffed tiger, so named for his strawberry color. He sits in her lap everywhere she goes, even to church. He’s tucked in between her

OL by D a.N.lee

right shoulder and torso, ears peeking out of the cheery puffs of her heavy winter coat. She’s only had the jacket since November, but there is already a rip by the zipper and Sharpie stains and glitter streaks on the sleeves.

I should take the jacket off. She’ll get too hot like that. If she gets too hot she’ll start to cry and if she starts to cry Umma and Dad will tell me off for making her upset.

“Ask Daddy to turn it up,” Umma says, absorbed in her phone. She bites her lip and frowns. I know she’s checking the weather reports. She’ll look at the Weather app, and then Weather. com, the hourly report from CNN, and then she’ll tell Dad to switch from oldies to KWGRZ 88.1, where the newscaster is beginning his evening weather report. It’s not like the forecast will change; when the snow starts falling, it lasts for days at the very least. I crane my neck to read the reflection of Umma’s phone on the passenger window. I like it when the world is blanketed in white, but I hope they don’t cancel school. School is cozy, especially in the winter, and it is so easy to hide. I fill out my worksheets as fast as possible and beg for a library pass, where I linger, reading about dragons and princesses and knights until the bell rings.

“Appa, chuweo,” Soojin repeats. She crosses her arms.

“Ask me again in English, honey,” Dad says without turning around, and then to Umma, so low I can barely hear it: “You have to tell her that I don’t know Korean.” He says this to her all the time now because Halmoni and Haraboji watch us after preschool and seventh grade, until our parents finish work, and every day it takes longer and longer to convince Soojin to greet Dad in English, or call him