ON THE FLOOR of her mother’s bedroom, Margot pored over the contents of the safety-deposit box—a large envelope of documents in Korean and mostly black-and-white photographs extending over decades. For the first time, she saw her mother as a small child—her oval face and clever gaze—posing by herself in front of a traditional Korean house with its elegant tiled roof and dark wooden beams, then her mother as a young teenager, defiantly unsmiling at a communal dining table. All of these images had faded through the years, which reminded Margot, almost, of the Seattle sky in winter, all those layered gray washes of muted softness and light.

She could begin to imagine what her mother’s life might have been like at the orphanage, from which she had never been adopted and which she had almost never discussed.

But what stood out most, what startled Margot with waves of uncertainty, were several color photos, in particular one of her mother as a woman in her late thirties with a husband and child, a pigtailed daughter in a red T-shirt and leggings. With its yellowish tint, warped surface, the photo had been thumbed, touched through the years repeatedly like a worry stone.

The husband had a long sensitive face and an easy smile, standing in a relaxed, open stance with one hand on his daughter’s shoulder and the other arm around Mina, fashionable in her wide-legged jeans and floral blouse. She stood stiffly with a slight smile on her face that shone without a single wrinkle or line. In the background, a tree-covered hillside revealed a slip of blue sky at the top of the frame. A sunny remarkable day in the woods or the country. Dust from ambling on trails covered their shoes.

The little girl in the photograph resembled Mina with her high cheekbones and narrow chin, more than Margot did herself. And the strangers, the husband and child, had an innocence and clarity about them, untouched by the hardness of Mina’s orphan past and her future immigrant life.

Margot had always thought of Koreans as workaholics, religious and pragmatic, yet at times showy and status-oriented when they had the means. But studying those relaxed faces in the photographs, those dusty shoes, Margot could see someone else, Koreans—not Korean Americans, not immigrants hardened by the realities of living in a foreign country, who like her father in Calabasas had stubbornly “succeeded,” achieving a sheen of perfection while obscuring his actual complexity, an isolation from the self. Or like her mother, who had worked tirelessly yet had never amounted to more than the long days, the long hours, alone.

What did this country ask us all to sacrifice? Was it possible to feel anything while we were all trying to get ahead of everyone else, including ourself?

And how could her mother have abandoned this other family to live in America, where her life had been tough in this cramped apartment, working an often soul-crushing job, as she yelled, Amiga! Amiga! to strangers walking away, as she raised Margot day-to-day, month-to-month, by herself? Unless, for whatever reason, the husband in this photograph had been worse, this family, this life had been worse. But how could that be possible?

Of course, her mother might’ve wanted to tell Margot about all of this one day—another family, another country, a half sister somewhere. But when and how? Perhaps her mother, like herself, didn’t know what to do with life sometimes, hadn’t made any decisions yet. Her mother had kept the key to the safety-deposit box inside the teddy bear’s silly heart, which she had assumed no one would ever steal or touch. She, too, might have been under that spell, the illusion that delaying one’s decisions, one’s actions was the same as prolonging life. But then—unexpectedly—she died.

Who could help Margot understand this all now?

In the stairwell, the landlord had said Mrs. Baek had been at her mother’s apartment in September or October, when he had seen Mr. Park waiting for her outside.

We all lived in the same house together until you were maybe three or four. Your mother used to bring you to the restaurant that I worked at, Hanok House. Do you remember?

Only one person knew her mother well enough.