As I peeked at the adults in the living room, I thought, Silly Mr. Morrow. Why is he saying everything to Appa? Doesn’t he know Umma makes all the decisions?

Mr. Morrow was our real estate agent. He was telling my dad how to make our two-bedroom house more sellable. Appa nodded his head vigorously. The agent hardly looked in my mom’s direction. Umma stayed silent except to encourage Mr. Morrow to eat the peanuts, dried squid and sliced apples.

I was only 8 then, but I knew where the unstated power in our family lay. Yet Mr. Morrow didn’t catch on. And how could he?

Everyone has a public face that differs somewhat from the private self. I was privy to both sides of my mom. Mr. Morrow had access to only one. 

Ultimately it was my mom who would decide what improvements would be made to the home, when we would sell the home, for what price she would part with it and where we would move to.

From the big, to the small, Umma always had her say. She chose whether we ate at the Korean mall or McDonald’s. She banished Appa from wearing a plaid outfit to church in favor of a dark suit. She determined what school grades she expected of my sister and me.

In financial matters, it was no different. Umma found which type of insurance to buy for the home and the family store. She decided when money would be spent for improvements to the family store. Or how money should be saved or invested. 

At home, with just us, Umma was and still is very animated. She resembles a sports commentator with her running stream of opinions.   

“Ayy, another Alzheimer’s halmeoni,” she’ll say as we watch a Korean soap. “Why do they always have so many Alzheimer’s grandmas?”

At theaters, in my company, she will get upset at the violent content of movies, saying she doesn’t understand why American movies give “the crazies” more ideas. She rails against injustices, such as the killing or injuring of Korean-store owners that gets little press outside the Korean newspapers.

Yet you wouldn’t know that from the person she morphs into outside our nuclear family. She grows quiet among white Americans, whether it’s the real estate agent, banker, waitress or grocery clerk. But she grows even quieter among traditional Koreans. Instead of chatting, she fades into the kitchen, although she doesn’t relish being there (practically a crime for Korean women of her generation). It’s Appa who enjoys cooking fish soup, firing up thinly sliced beef on the table grill and marinating vegetables. He’s the one who mixes vinegar, sesame oil, garlic and red pepper paste to good results. He too might be committing a Korean crime, doing so-called “women’s work.” 

Yet with the Korean visitors, it’s Umma who shuttles nearly invisibly, back and forth from the kitchen to the table with trays of bean sprout soup, kimchi, rice and side dishes. Her head, usually held up, seems heavy and drawn to the ground.