Warm rays of the sun poured onto her face when Sonju awoke. In a week, Jinju would turn seventeen. Her daughter was born during the best time of the year. How excited she was seeing 1966 in a large print on a calendar on New Year’s Day. She had just one more year to wait. Her mood rose and stirred like a canary in the spring season. She walked around the living room, then looked out the window at the garden several times. Still, her body didn’t want to settle down. A stroll under the sunlight, the spring breeze, the smell of spring air, perhaps a new outfit, she thought.
She got off the bus at the Ducksu Palace stop and walked, looking at the trees with new leaves over the stone fence and along the sidewalk and noticed the cobblestones were a few shades lighter under the bright sun. She went past the city hall, then to Myungdong. It seemed half the people in the city had the same idea. At Midopa Department Store, she came upon a black-and-white houndstooth suit of European import with black trim on the collar and the sleeves. Her heart dropped when she turned over the price tag. She would rather spend the money on her daughter.
She left the store and walked along the street lined with boutique shops. The photographs of Twiggy on the fashion magazine covers were on display windows, and young women in short skirts and black fishnet stockings walked by. Sonju heard her high-heeled shoes click-clacking on the hard pavement as the hem of her skirt touched her knees. The smell of imported coffee wafted from a coffee shop. It was fashionable nowadays to drink coffee instead of tea.
“Little Auntie!”
Sonju froze. She turned. It was Jinwon from Maari. They grabbed each other’s hands at the same time.
“Little Auntie, I thought it was you. How are you doing?” Jinwon’s eyes gleamed and her cheeks lifted in a smile.
“I’m fine. Look at you.” Sonju glanced up and down at Jinwon as if to see how tall the child had grown. She was thirty-nine, so Jinwon must be thirty-two now. Jinwon wore a plain poplin dress in periwinkle blue but no makeup. There was no glimpse of the girl who had desired a shimmering blue velvet skirt. She led Jinwon toward the wall of a stone building away from the briskly walking pedestrians. “What are you doing in Seoul?”
“I’m visiting a friend. This is my yearly vacation. I left my three children with my mother-in-law. My children want something from Myungdong every time I come to Seoul. So lucky I spotted you. You’re with him?”
Take a breath, Jinwon, she was tempted to say. “No. He died in 1952.”
“Oh.” Jinwon’s eyes and mouth drooped. “I’m so sorry.” After a short pause, she asked, “What do you do now?”
“Not much, but I used to work for a businesswoman.” She asked, “How is Jinju? She will turn seventeen next week.”
Jinwon briefly planted her intense eyes on Sonju, then hooked her arm in Sonju’s. “Where do you live, Little Auntie? Can we go to your house now?”
“Of course.” Sonju laughed a little. Jinwon hadn’t changed a bit. “Let’s take a taxi.”
Jinwon sat in the back seat with her and was unusually quiet for a while, even her body. She then said, “I thought of you often. I can’t believe it’s been fourteen years since I last saw you.”
“Yes.” She stroked Jinwon’s hand, which was no longer smooth at the joints. She said, “Second House family is close to my heart.” She wanted to ask about Jinju again but seeing Jinwon’s eyes following the views outside, she thought she would wait. Jinwon was on vacation and there was a lot to take in all around her.
Passing Sonju’s front garden, Jinwon flashed a smile, that same delighted smile of her youth. “I knew you would do things differently.” When she stepped into the living room, she said, “American furniture. It suits you, Little Auntie.” She made a full rotation, scanning the room. She walked to the sofa. “You still get Life magazines.”
“Sit down at the table. Let me get you some tea.” Sonju went to the kitchen to boil water. Jinwon spoke across the living room, “You know, Little Uncle and his wife live in Seoul. I should go see them before I return home. To be honest though, I dread it.”
So, her daughter had been living in Seoul. But Jinju’s name was not on any of the bulletin boards of the middle schools, and three years later, of the high schools. Jinwon had said what … Oh, about dreading the visit with Little Uncle and his wife.
Sonju transferred the tea to the table and tried not to look shaken. “Why would you dread seeing them?” she asked.
“His wife. Him. I don’t ...” Jinwon’s head made a quick turn to the side, her old habit when she was disgusted with something.
Sonju decided to leave that topic alone. Sitting in her chair across from Jinwon, she said, “Now, please tell me. How is my daughter?” She took a sip and put the cup down.
Sudden tears filled Jinwon’s eyes. “Oh, Little Auntie.”
Sonju grabbed Jinwon’s hand and whispered, “What happened to Jinju?”
“Jinju fell ill some months after you left.”
Sonju squeezed Jinwon’s hand and shook. The cups rattled. “What happened to my daughter?”
Jinwon held both cups to steady them with her free hand and took an audible deep breath. “She died in April the year after you left.” She said in a meek voice, “I’m sorry you didn’t know.”
“What did you say? My Jinju died? No!” Something crashed with a terrible dissonance and was all jumbled inside of Sonju. She was confused and couldn’t grasp what Jinwon said. “I waited for fourteen years. Did you say Jinju is dead? No.” She shook her head, her hair flying. Then her thinking became clear. “She is not dead. I saw her from the train. I saw her on the chestnut tree. She was five. She can’t be dead at four.”
“Little Auntie, you must have seen Jinjin. She liked to play on that tree. It couldn’t have been Jinju.”
“No, no.” Sonju sprang from the chair and ran to the bedroom. She returned with boxes of letters to Jinju, threw them on the floor. She brought out more boxes. Letters spilled out of the boxes. “Look. I wrote all these letters to her. Waiting for her.”
Jinwon tripped getting out of her chair in a hurry, knelt on the floor, and gathered the letters and the boxes. She stacked them neatly as if that would undo the moment.
“For eight years,” Sonju ran with her words. “I rode an express rail every Sunday to get a glimpse of her. She cannot be dead. I don’t believe it! I waited. I waited.” She let out a long mournful cry as she folded her body down and wept. “I have waited for fourteen years,” she said. Please hear me, she pleaded to the world, to someone, anyone.
Jinwon covered her face with her hands and cried. They sobbed together until they were exhausted. Then they looked at each other. Jinwon’s face was red and wet, but her eyes were soft. Jinwon, the child who was never seen crying even after her mother left her.
“Little Auntie, we took good care of Jinju. Second Auntie and Grandmother took her to the doctor every day,” Jinwon said, but Sonju didn’t want to hear the details. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Something was sucked out of her body. She went limp.
“Would you like to lie down, Little Auntie?”
“Yes. Please take me to my bed.”
Jinwon helped her rise, put an arm around her waist, and guided her to the bed. She then brought one of the dining chairs and sat next to Sonju. Sonju closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see anything, didn’t want to hear anything, didn’t want to talk. There was nothing to say. She lost Kungu. She lost her family. She lost Misu, even Miss Im, and the unborn baby she left behind on the rise in front of the veranda at Second House. And now Jinju. Everyone she had cared deeply about had been taken away from her. Actually, her loss had begun long ago when she found out that her mother would never love her the way other mothers loved their children. When she started school, she understood that her own country was lost to Japan, and later lost to the great powers of the world and couldn’t dictate its own fate, and freedom of speech was lost under Syngman Rhee’s reign and the current oppressive regime. Her mind had thus roamed, and she thought she must have been born in the wrong decade and to the wrong family.
When she opened her eyes, her daughter was watching her from the portrait on the wall. Oh, Jinju, why did you die? I did not hold you when you were sick. I am so sorry. She turned her head away. “Jinwon, would you take down Jinju’s portrait and store it in the bottom drawer?” Jinwon took it down, then hesitated. “I can’t bear to look at it,” Sonju said. Jinwon quickly put it away and sat back in the chair.
Sonju glanced at Jinwon. That pointed chin, so much like Jinju’s. “Can you stay with me? I don’t think I should be alone tonight.”
“Yes, Little Auntie. I’ll call my friend and tell her not to wait for me.” There was the muffled voice of Jinwon’s whispered words into the telephone. She pattered back into the room and seated herself in the chair.
Sonju kept staring at the ceiling, saying to herself she should call Lady Cho. Silence—Five minutes, maybe ten. With a sluggish turn of her head toward Jinwon, she said, “Tell me how Jina is doing. She was a sensitive child.”
Jinwon cleared her throat. “Second Uncle’s family moved to Seoul three years ago, just in time for Jina to start college. She studies fine arts.”
“Fine arts.” Keep on talking, don’t think, she told herself. “Tell me what your husband is like. How did you meet him?”
“My husband came to visit his friend, a new teacher in Maari. I was introduced to him.” Jinwon leaned in. “Little Auntie, do you want anything? Water, tea?”
“No, thank you. So, you married a man you chose as you used to say you would.”
“Yes. It was much easier than expected. When I told my family that I wanted to marry him, they didn’t even argue. I think, after you left, my grandparents learned something. My grandmother told me an arranged marriage isn’t for everyone. That shocked me.”
Sonju saw the image of her former mother-in-law in her hobby room saying what Sonju told her was like a new adventure to her. She must have been quiet for a good length of time. “Little Auntie?” Jinwon was looking at her with her head cocked. “Ah, yes, your grandmother,” Sonju said, “She can be open-minded. Tell me about your husband’s family.”
“They own a bookstore in Yesun. Can you imagine me married into a family of book lovers? I still don’t read if I can help it.”
Sonju half-smiled. “And your children? How old are they?”
“They’re nine, seven, and four. Their grandparents spoil them. My husband is an only child.”
“How about Second Auntie? How did she manage to join her husband?”
“Second Uncle was promoted to president of a bank in a small village some distance from Maari two years after you left, he wrote a letter to his parents that he was sick and needed his wife to take care of him. Grandmother was rattled.” Jinwon smiled. “You know how my grandmother is. She was terrified of losing another son. She told Second Auntie to pack up and go to her husband immediately. Second Auntie left in two days taking the two little ones. She had another baby after you left, a girl again. She left the two older ones to save face for the family, so it didn’t look like abandoning the aging parents. Jina and Chuljin cried when their mother left, especially Jina. She cried for her mother every day.”
The image of Jinju crying every day for her sent tight, squeezing pain to Sonju’s belly. She drew her knees up to her stomach and held her breath until the pain eased.
Jinwon asked, “Is something wrong?”
“No, I am fine. Continue.”
“Grandfather passed away in 1958. Second Auntie was there to take care of him when his illness turned serious.”
“Your grandfather was very kind to me,” Sonju said.
Jinwon looked away. “It’s not the same without him.”
“What kind of wildflowers bloom on the rise in front of the veranda?” Sonju often imagined flowers blooming on the rise where her unformed child was buried.
Jinwon cocked her head for a moment. “I have no idea. I’ve never paid attention.” She walked over to the window and looked out to the garden. “Jina talks about you. She says she remembers everything about you.”
“Would she see me?” Sonju asked.
“I’ll ask.”
That evening, Sonju called Lady Cho with the news of Jinju. Within half an hour, there was a knock on the door. Sonju sat up in her bed hearing Lady Cho say, “You must be the niece. Thank you for being here with your aunt.”
Lady Cho came into the bedroom and sat in the chair next to the bed. Without words, she held Sonju’s hand and occasionally pressed it to her cheek. They didn’t talk about Jinju. What could they say?
Sonju looked at Jinwon standing near the chair then at Lady Cho. “My niece is spending the night with me.”
“I am glad. I will stay a little longer and come back in the morning.”
After Lady Cho arrived the next morning, Jinwon left, casting a worried look at Sonju.
Lady Cho sat on the couch next to Sonju and leaned in to sweep Sonju’s curly hair off her forehead. “I called Gija and Yunghee. One of them will come.”
“Thank you. I didn’t sleep well last night. I am going to try to sleep now.” Sonju went to her bed. Lady Cho followed. Sonju looked up at Lady Cho as a child would at her mother. “Can you stay here with me?” she asked and was confused by her neediness.
“Of course,” Lady Cho said. Sonju fell asleep feeling Lady Cho’s fingers combing her hair. In her dream, Sonju frantically looked for her children, a brood of them, in a vast empty field of wildflowers. But even in her dream, she knew she had only one child. She said, “I see you …” repeating the game she and her daughter played the day before she left Maari. Upon waking, she saw Lady Cho. “Is Jinju really dead? Jinwon told me … but did you see Jinwon?”
“Yes, she was here. You saw her leave.”
Then it was not a dream. Jinju was really dead. Her daughter was not coming to her. What would she live for now? She went through the images she had of Jinju growing up to age seventeen. At the beginning, a little miracle with downy hair all over her body with all ten fingers and toes, a three-year old examining a flower, a first grader with her bangs almost touching her eyebrows. A ten-year-old playing hopscotch wearing a white blouse with an embroidered rounded collar and short navy skirt. An adolescent girl carrying a heavy school bag, walking and talking with friends to and from school in a dark navy uniform with her hair pinned on the side. A serious high school girl poring over her books. Her daughter didn’t even live to age five. She fell asleep again.
She woke up and found Gija sitting next to her bed. “How long have you been here? You should have awakened me.”
“Not long. Maybe an hour. Lady Cho said you needed sleep.”
“I’m lucky to have you as family. We are family, aren’t we?”
“We are family, Lady Yu.”
Sonju wept, stopped, looked away, and wept again. She pulled up an edge of the blanket to dry the tears that ran down to her neck.
At midday, Lady Cho returned and told Gija, “I am here to relieve you. You must be busy at the restaurant.”
Gija rose to leave. “Lady Yu, I brought you some food. It’s in the kitchen. Don’t forget to eat. I’ll be back.”
Sonju got out of the bed and thanked Gija. She rested her head on Lady Cho’s shoulder, and said, “I feel empty, but why am I so heavy?” Lady Cho led her back to her bed.
She heard the telephone ring and also a delivery man several times. She thought she had a dream, but Lady Cho told her their former clients sent flowers and that Assemblyman Kim, Chairman Park, and Professor Shin called.
A thought flashed. Sonju bolted up. She was feverish with rage. “He has known for fourteen years and didn’t tell me! Why? Why?” she cried.
Lady Cho asked with an alarmed voice, “Who? Your former husband?”
“Yes. I’m the mother! All those years waiting not knowing. Must he be that cruel?” Sonju covered her eyes with her arm and wept.
“I will stay with you tonight,” Lady Cho said.
The following morning, Sonju insisted that she was not a patient and that Lady Cho should go home. When she was alone, she moved around not knowing what she was doing, or sat on the couch for hours looking out into the garden. During her dream, she said to Jinju, “I thought you died.” But her daughter just smiled. She had once heard that in dreams, dead people don’t talk.
For two weeks, the women visited daily to check on Sonju. Lady Cho said there were letters from Jinwon. Sonju battled with the vexing thought: if her husband’s family had contacted her when Jinju was sick, she could have taken her to the best doctors and best hospitals in Seoul and her daughter might have lived. If she were informed of Jinju’s death fourteen years ago, she might have made different life choices. She was ordered not to contact her daughter and she honored that, but not one of them contacted her when Jinju became seriously ill and died. They could have contacted her parents but none of them did. Her anger burned white.
She stared at the letters she had written to Jinju for a while. Jinwon had stacked them neatly on the floor against the wall. She knelt down and tied the fourteen birthday cards with a ribbon, put the letters in the boxes, wrapped them in a scarf, and returned them to the bureau drawer. She took her daughter’s portrait, wrapped it in another scarf, and placed it on top of the letters, then Jinju’s dress next to it. Afterwards, she went and opened the door to the spare room, and facing the raised alcove, imagined again Jinju performing ballet standing on her toes, arms up above her head, and spinning with a big smile, looking at her. She quietly closed the door behind her. She didn’t want to enter that room.