Sonju sat at the table and put three letters from Jinwon in order by date, then put them back down. She looked around. The room was mute as death. She dropped a pencil on the floor to hear the sound of it moving. When it stopped, she picked up the first letter.
1966 March 21
Dear Little Auntie,
I hope this finds you in a better state. I was so worried about you. I still am. I am so sorry. I assumed Little Uncle had notified you.
After I left your house, I went to visit him in his office at the Interior Ministry. I told him about you. He just listened. I am very disappointed in him.
I returned home sooner than I planned and went to Maari to visit Jinju’s grave. I told her about you, about how much you missed her and loved her. I told her she shouldn’t have died. I find that sometimes it helps to think the dead hear you. I used to talk to my father in my head even though I didn’t have any memory of him.
I will write you again soon.
Jinwon
1966 March 26
Dear Little Auntie,
I think about you often. I remember the day you left Maari. Jina looked all over the house for you. It was Monday morning. Nobody told her where you were, so her mother finally told her that you left early in the morning for Seoul and you were not coming back. She asked, “Why? What about Jinju?” and her mother said you weren’t coming back. She cried and refused to go to school the rest of the week. After you left, she slept with Jinju every night until Jinju became very ill. After Jinju died, she placed wildflowers on her grave every time we visited the burial mountain. Much later, I told her you left because you loved another man.
As soon as I returned home from Seoul, I wrote to her that I am in touch with you. She wrote back immediately and asked if you were happy after you left. She included two photographs of Jinju for you to keep. Those were taken after you left. In them, you can see signs of illness on Jinju’s face.
I hope these photographs will be of some comfort to you.
Jinwon
There was no mention of how Jinju reacted to her absence. It must have been bad. Sonju grabbed her stomach and hunched over. When the knot eased, she straightened up and opened the soft rice paper wrapping. Two small photos, one of Jinju alone and the other with her cousins. Her daughter looked so tiny, much smaller than she remembered. She kept looking at the photographs until they blurred.
1966 March 29
Dear Little Auntie,
Jina wrote again to tell me how many fond memories she has of you. She talked about your red lipstick, and the time you let her stain your nails and Jinju’s red with impatiens petals. She said the stain lasted for months until the last color was gone from the tips of your nails. You were the only adult that had red nails, she wrote.
Jina regrets she can’t see you. Little Uncle’s wife put everyone in the clan on notice that they are to have no contact with you. She thinks her husband still has feelings for you. She had a hysterectomy two years ago, leaving her childless. She must think that makes her position weak in the eyes of the family. No one wants to anger her because of his position in the government and they may need him to secure jobs for their children. Little Uncle pacifies his temperamental wife to avoid scenes. His wife complains to everyone around her that he sleeps with easy women. Second Auntie told me he did the same when he was married to you.
How do you spend your days? I hope you are not too lonely.
Jinwon
Sonju used to feel a lump of ache in her chest for the harm she had done to her former husband, to his public image that he placed such importance on, and to his image of himself—unfit as a man, as a husband, and as a lover. She had no such remorse now. He achieved success in his career and was now sitting smugly in his high place, thinking he got even with her. She didn’t care if she was wrong about this.
It was a balmy day in mid-April when Sonju walked into the roomy, upscale office. Age wore well on him. He even looked dignified. He looked up from his desk with a shocked expression. She sat across from him and calmly laid fourteen letters on his desk, one letter for each year. He shifted in his chair. Sonju started reading. She heard him clear his throat and say, “I …” She put her hand up. He stopped.
After the reading was done, she collected the letters one at a time. She looked at him with her rage-filled eyes and said, “Sitting in this spacious office, you may think you have achieved the success you wanted. I’m here to tell you that you were an endless disappointment to me in every way—as a husband, as a lover, and more importantly as a person. Now I hear your current wife dominates you and rants publicly about your personal failings.”
His expression froze. Something passed over his face. He then said, “I lost everything when I lost Jinju. I didn’t know what I would say to you.”
She slowly rose from the chair and left. He deserved her every word, and she was satisfied. By the time she arrived home though, guilt set in for cutting down an already broken man so harshly.
Lady Cho was determined to keep Sonju busy. They had a late lunch at Gija and Yunghee’s restaurant two, three times a week. They met Professor Shin and Assemblyman Kim weekly at a coffee shop. They went to the South Gate Market and the East Gate Market to get lost in the myriad of odors and noises and colors. With all these activities Sonju slept well at night. Even she thought she was doing well.
Then …
1966 May 13
Dear Little Auntie,
A quick note to let you know that Little Uncle got into a bad traffic accident on the way home after work. He was inebriated at the time of the accident. He is said to take medications for constant pain and is not expected to return to his job. This changes a lot of things in the family.
Sonju didn’t bother to read the next line. She paced the room, then halted as if struck by Jinju’s ghost when she saw the door she hadn’t opened since March. Leaning on the door, she wept begging for her daughter’s forgiveness for disappointing her, telling her she knew she loved her father. Sonju took Jinwon’s letter outside with a match and watched it burn to ash.
She tried to focus on something beautiful and gentle. She gardened. This summer, her climbing roses were studded with blooms and covered the entire fence in bright pink. Since the start of the garden three years before, she had watched every plant and shrub grow and fill the garden a little more each year. Many neighbors and passersby made comments. She weeded and pruned, and when done, came inside to remove the black dirt from under her nails, only to repeat it a few days later. In the flowers and bees and butterflies and ladybugs, she saw Jinju.
There came three knocks on the door. It was her sister. Entering the house, she said, “Oh, the garden is so pretty. I like the way you lowered the fence. And no gate.”
“Thank you.” Sonju said, forcing a smile.
Sitting on the couch, her sister said, “I can’t stay long. You understand, three boys and a husband.”
“How are they and Mother?”
“Mother is the same. My children are growing fast. The oldest one is in college and the second one is preparing for a college entrance examination. My husband expanded his practice and has three doctors working under him.”
“I’m glad things are going well for you,” Sonju said. Should she tell her sister about her daughter? What would be the point of telling? She didn’t want pity, but she didn’t want her family to think she was still waiting for Jinju either. After reconsidering, she said, “I recently learned that Jinju died the year after I left Maari.”
Instantly, her sister’s eyes welled up with tears. She pulled out a handkerchief from her purse, and dabbing her eyes, said, “I don’t know what to say.” She sniffled. “I feel bad the way …” She clutched the handkerchief. “I should have stood up for you when our parents disowned you, but I didn’t have the courage to go against the family’s wishes.”
“I should’ve been the one to stand up for Kungu, but I failed,” Sonju said. “After I married, I always had a feeling that I would not be welcomed home for many years. So, when Mother and Father disowned me, it wasn’t a surprise.” She saw sadness in her sister’s face. “I’m fine now. I learned that I can overcome difficulties no matter how devastating.”
After her sister left, she felt saddened that her family had not met Kungu or Jinju. If she had brought her daughter to her family, they would have known her as a living person. Jinju had once lived. Kungu had once lived. They mattered because they had once lived.
The next day, her sister returned with their mother. Her mother looked at Sonju, sighed and said, “Why is your fate so harsh?”
“It is not fate, Mother.” Sonju said it with such sharpness that she looked down briefly in shame. She had said to herself before that she wanted to reconcile with her mother.
Her sister gently tugged her mother’s skirt. Her mother waved off her daughter’s hand. “Since you no longer work at such a job, maybe one day your brother and his family will see you.”
Sonju’s stomach churned. She reminded herself not to react to her mother. She took a deep breath and said calmly, “There was once a time when I hoped you would say, ‘Enough time has passed. Why don’t you visit home?’ But it didn’t come, not after Kungu died, not even when Father was dying. I wanted to apologize to him for bringing shame to our family.”
Her mother’s face fell. Suddenly, she looked old. Wringing her hands, her sister glanced at her mother, then at Sonju.
“Mother,” Sonju softened her voice. “For a long time, I resented you for separating me from Kungu. I even blamed you every time my marriage turned sour. I know you thought it best for me and the family, but just as you could not imagine my life being different from yours, I could not imagine unquestioningly following your conventions.”
“You would have had an easier life if you did.”
“But I didn’t want your life,” she said.
Thick silence descended between them like an early morning fog in the valley. After a few muted words among them, her sister and mother rose, looking sad as they left. Who knew her mother’s decision not to allow Sonju marry Kungu would set the stage for such a disruption in the whole family? Some might say that if only she had stayed in the marriage, she alone would have suffered. Was sacrificing one for the comfort of many a valid ethical argument?
She sank down on the couch and shut her eyes. She saw her mother’s lavender jade hairpin, the symbol of her humiliation and lost prestige. She understood her mother’s own dream to relive her life through her daughters. She herself had once had such a dream for Jinju. Their dreams for the next generation were the results of their own desires being denied, and in her case, her mother was the one who did the denying. Catching herself teetering on anger, she shifted her thoughts to her mother’s hairpin that always elicited in her tender feelings toward her mother, and so it went, running circles in her head.
She still saw Jinju at every age that she had imagined. It made her happy. She watched the fall flowers come up in her garden. She didn’t catch the first snow of the year at the cottage. Spring lilies came up again. Soon the roses trailed over the fence and drew admiring people. Some children snatched a few.
Jinwon continued to write. In early March, she had written how difficult it was to see her grandmother all alone playing cards by herself. Her grandmother didn’t weave any longer, but after the spring thaw, she visited Big House Lady who was in ill health.
Four months later, Sonju received another letter.
1967 July 1
Dear Little Auntie,
Big House Lady passed away in June. I am worried about my grandmother. She doesn’t look well. She looks like she is waiting to die, especially with Big House Lady gone.
I go to Maari with a heavy heart. There aren’t many clan men left there. With both my grandfather and Big House Master gone, the farm needs young clan men to replace them, but their professions keep them in Seoul. Maari has become a place of old people, especially of widows. It has become just another village the young have abandoned.
The soil is no longer fertile. Now they use chemical fertilizers. Second Uncle has a hard time finding seasonal workers. The village young leave for city life where they can make more money in factories. Some leave for Vietnam to fight the communists in the pay of the American government. They send home good money, I hear. With all these changes, you can see now only a hint of the clan’s old wealth and pride.
Second Auntie told me the farm has become a financial burden to them. She wants to sell a portion of the farmland to invest in real estate in Seoul, but her husband won’t hear of it. He tells her it’s his ancestors’ land to be passed down to the next generation, not his. He is a romantic.
I hope you are doing well.
Jinwon
Who would have guessed that Jinwon would be the keeper of the Second House Family’s soul? Yet here she was, the only one to mourn the death of the old glory. Sonju felt sorrow about her former mother-in-law, the once forceful matriarch who was made powerless by the changing tide of the nation. She put away the letter. With rapid industrialization, farmland was no longer the wellspring of wealth. People were more agile and mobile seeking financial advancement. In the midst of so much change, the administration’s oppression to stem the protests of the disaffected was becoming ever harsher.
Then in October came a short letter from Jinwon. Her grandmother had passed away calling her father’s name. Sonju sat quietly for a while before she stepped out to the side garden. She knelt in front of the white chrysanthemums and stroked each floret that curled like a spoon as she had stroked the hands of her mother-in-law whom she had grown to love like a mother.
Sonju didn’t have to comb through the newspapers. It was quite evident that Seoul was changing at an accelerated pace. She saw more and more shiny things and conveniences all lined up in the shops every time she walked out of her house. More luxury goods were pouring in from Japan, Europe, and America. More factories were being built. Textile export was increasing. Office spaces were filled with small businesses of all kinds. There were more office workers, more students, more merchants. There were bigger crowds on the streets and in the marketplaces. Buses were packed during rush hours. Newspapers reported that an influx of people from rural areas and small towns converging into Seoul looking for jobs contributed to the rapid population expansion. Real estate boomed. Housing shortages placed homeownership out of reach for many working families, and the rich got richer. The government-backed chaebols with their conglomerates possessed a larger and larger share of national wealth.
People now might wear better clothes, might have electric fans and electric irons, and even televisions, but they could not speak freely about anything related to the government. University students concerned about expanding the Korean government’s relations with Japan continued to protest even at the risk of imprisonment. “Never trust the Japanese. Remember what they did to us,” people young and old said. Many were born after the Japanese occupation had ended and hadn’t experienced what Sonju and others had, but to most Koreans, distrust and animosity toward Japan were a national inheritance, a collective attitude, and they aimed to remember that wounded national pride.