After a while, the hunger began to buzz in her ears like flies. She would sit in the back of the shop, looking out toward the wide, bright window, listening to her own death rattle come slithering closer.

From somewhere beyond the bright windowpane, the scent of fresh-baked bread and caramelized sugar wafted. Traffic noise splashed by in the rain. The shop bell dinged continually.

Someone finally yelled, “Parker!” She hopped up, her dirty pant hems dragging.

“Take this out to the customer’s car,” said Mrs. Cho, handing down a box of goods.

On the street, the smell of bread and sugar mingled with the stink of car exhaust and gutter rot.

Always, Parker would look at the goods in the box— the cartons with their vibrant photos, the sheen on the plastic wrapping the loaf of bread, the ruby-red apple skins with their light freckles— and she would dream of running with the box down to the corner and across the intersection to where the haze swallowed the traffic lights.

Every night, her mother showed up just as the Chos were closing, and she darted feral-rat glances at all the shelves, her fingers itching the air. Every night, Parker asked why they couldn’t go to the shelter kitchen, but her mother just stared at her, zombie-like.

On some days when the vulture buzz of hunger roared louder and louder, Parker would hear Mr. and Mrs. Cho begin to argue about her. Mr. Cho thought child services should be called, and Mrs. Cho said they were “worse than the girl’s mother.” Mr. Cho always said, “Really? Worse than… that?” And then their conversation dipped into Korean when Mrs. Cho noticed Parker eavesdropping.

The Chos were the only ones who fought the buzzing hunger, giving her food when they could. Apples, rice, bibimbap, kimchi. But it was never enough. The Chos owned the store, yes, but above that, they were hardly better off than Parker’s mother.

On the nights Parker’s mother did not arrive to retrieve her, the Chos took Parker to their studio apartment where they lived with their son and Mr. Cho’s parents. They slept on thin mattresses that rolled onto the floor and ate around a low table pulled out from the stove. Mrs. Cho put Parker in the tub and gave her clean, white pajamas to wear to bed.

And Parker watched the shadows from flashing neon lights skitter like shooting stars across the ceiling. She listened to Halmoni snore in sputters and snorts and wished she could stay.

When the thefts began at the store, Mr. Cho had no choice but to put up his hands and let it happen. Risking your life for condoms and cough syrup didn’t seem quite right.

Mrs. Cho said, “Parker, when you see the bad men come, you hide back here, all right?”

It never occurred to Parker to ask why these shop owners let her mother burden them— or why they even cared.

Parker just obeyed because they were the only ones dueling the drone of hunger. She obeyed because, even though they sometimes shouted and Mrs. Cho hated Parker’s dirty hems, Parked admired them even in their sterness. She enjoyed being taught to sweep, mop, and do rough addition on the back of receipts. She liked that Mr. Cho would snatch away the pencil, tap his temple, and say: “Now, up here.”

The thefts continued, and Mr. Cho bought a baseball bat and then a gun. Mrs. Cho cursed the cops and then the mayor, then the President, and finally, the Democrats.

Once everything valuable had been locked up or not replaced because they couldn’t afford it, the bad men returned on a morning when the bread across the street smelled of yeast, and Parker almost tasted the sugar in the air. The hungry buzz was replaced by the shatter of glass and the angry rap-rap-rap of semi-automatic gunfire. The bright, wide window dissolved into fractured shards. Mr. Cho yelled and returned fire.

Bap. Bap. Bap.

Parker glimpsed him stand tall behind the counter, cigarette cartons bursting like confetti around his ears.

Mrs. Cho, who had been carrying apples to set out in boxes on the street, seemed to dance in the air momentarily. The apples dropped and rolled backward toward Parker’s hiding place, turning their freckles up at her feet.

And just like that— in a moment of crystal clarity— the buzz of hunger and bullets ceased, replaced by the sounds of men sweeping goods from the shelves and hacking at locks.

Parker trembled just like she was standing outside on a winter day. She could smell a handful of pennies; she had no idea this was the smell of blood. Despite herself, her breath sounded loud, and tears filled her vision.

The sounds died down out front, but Parker didn’t dare move. She didn’t know whether to cry out for her mother or Mrs. Cho.

© 2023 Katie Baker