My Brilliant Life

by Ae-ran Kim

  * * *

  At that very moment my mom was lying on her stomach in her bedroom, notebook open, gnawing on the end of a ballpoint pen. She resolutely drew a lone line down the middle of the page. The left column would be the downsides of having a baby and the right column the positives. She filled out the cons first.

  1. Get in trouble with my parents.

  2. Get kicked out of school.

  3. People gossiping about me.

  4. No money.

  5. Can’t make money.

  6. Get fat and ugly.

  7. Get some disease during pregnancy and die.

  8. Can’t do anything else for a few years.

  9. Don’t know what Daesu wants.

  10. His life will be ruined. And mine.

  11. Won’t be happy.

  The list was spiraling in an extremely negative direction. My mom imagined herself crying her eyes out in a bleak, destitute household with an alcoholic husband and a rebellious kid. There was her answer. Not wanting to be hasty, she decided she would fill out the right-hand column, to be thorough. But she couldn’t think of anything positive. This made her panic. People were probably enthusiastically breeding right at that moment, and she had nothing positive to say about having a baby. Of course, my mom had heard about the beauty of childbirth, having gleaned things from TV and school, such as “every life is precious” and “everyone should take responsibility for their actions.” None of those phrases felt true to her, though. She wanted to write something she could affirm wholeheartedly, something she believed deep down. She looked at the stark contrast between the pros and cons, terrified. Her fear was rooted in something else, and in that instant she didn’t know what it was. But what she was truly afraid of turned out to be the premonition that she would be head over heels in love with another being, the anxiety that came with that kind of love lurking in the shadows. She didn’t know if this sensation was good or bad, and therefore didn’t know which list to place it in.

  While she was at it she decided to make a list about Daesu. That was easier than she expected.

  Pros: He’s nice.

  Cons: He’s too nice.

  Again, unsure if that was good or bad, she stared at the paper for a long time.

  * * *

  I don’t know who had a bigger impact on my being born, my dad or my mom. All I know is that neither was decisive. Sometimes in life, the answer we search for so avidly reveals itself elsewhere, and the question we ask is born from a context that has nothing to do with the answer.

  A few days after their initial conversation, my parents took the bus to a far-flung city they had never been to before, conscious of being seen by their neighbors. They walked into a small obstetrician’s office.

  “There’s protein in your urine,” the doctor informed my mom.

  “What do you mean?” my mom asked.

  “Do you normally have high blood pressure?”

  “My father does, but I didn’t think I do,” my mom said, more politely than usual.

  According to the doctor she had preeclampsia, and if her symptoms grew worse, the damage to her organs could be irreversible. In the worst-case scenario, both her life and that of her fetus could be threatened.

  “Doctor, what are we supposed to do?” my dad asked, on the verge of tears.

  My mom waited for the doctor’s advice anxiously. The doctor gazed stoically at this nervous teenage couple, and said, “Let’s wait and see. If it gets worse, there is treatment, but—”

  “What is it?” my mom interrupted.

  The doctor hesitated.

  “Please tell us, please!” begged my dad.

  “The best treatment—”

  “Yes?” they replied at the same time.

  “At that point,” the doctor said, and paused to look down at the chart. “The only treatment would be to give birth.”

  * * *

  Even after that, my mom couldn’t make up her mind. She vacillated several times a day as time flew by. I continued to grow in her womb, surrounded by an unrelenting thumping. I heard it not with my ears but with my entire body. I tried to determine the true nature of this vibration, as though I were a soldier attempting to crack a code in an underground bunker. Pitpat … pitpat … pitpat …

  It could also be described as banging, as drums being struck from far away, or as heavy rumbling footsteps caused by a giant striding toward me. The sound made me want to retreat but also made me want to dance, dance to my mom’s heartbeat laid over mine. Boom thump thump. Boom thump thump. Boom boom thump. Boom thump. My mom’s boom set the tone while my thump hit the offbeat. I concentrated on the sound, tethered to the long umbilical cord. My mom’s heart, floating above my head somewhere like a plump moon, spread beats all around, drop by drop, the way a tree blooms in green. Bits and beats scattered life throughout my body, sending me important orders, making me want to become something, to act. My organs sprouted and expanded, my liver swelling and my kidneys ripening. My bones formed. I grew rapidly. In my dreams I met my mom’s dreams for rambling conversations.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m nervous. My heart is pounding. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

  “Baby?”

  “Yes?”

  “I feel that way, too. My heart keeps pounding. So much so that it hurts.”

  * * *

  This was around the time my mom began to bind her belly; she still hadn’t settled on a decision. As each day passed, the pressure exerted by the band grew and she had a hard time breathing. Sometimes she breathed so rapidly and shallowly that I couldn’t match her beat. She still went to school as though everything were normal. One morning, when she couldn’t fasten the buttons on her uniform, she slid down onto the floor, her backpack in her arms, and sobbed.

  The news sped through our village. My dad came clean to his own father, who returned home drunk in the middle of the day to pummel him. Still, my dad didn’t show remorse. A similar scene unfolded at my mom’s house. His face harsh, my grandfather spewed all kinds of awful curses. Nobody took my mom’s side, and everyone avoided meeting her eyes as they criticized her poor choices. In a fit of rage, my grandfather grabbed a broom and was about to strike his daughter with all his might when he paused, trembling, the broom hovering in the air. Anger and sorrow had overcome him, observing his youngest child crouched over, shielding not her head but her belly.

  My parents set up house the following spring. Making the decision to have me was the hard part; once it was a done deal, the rest followed easily. My dad got acclimated to living with his in-laws, though he still looked stunned. My mom beamed and glowed. She pored over pictures of movie stars and instructed me in who they were. “Look, baby. It’s Jung Woo-sung. Isn’t he so hot? And this is Kim Hee-sun. Let’s see, who else do we have here?” This was how my mom put into zany practice the common advice to show only beautiful things to the fetus. She was serious about prenatal care and ate only healthful foods, and selected only perfectly shaped vegetables and fruit. She gazed only at beautiful scenery and tried only to have positive thoughts, and was even picky about the design of maternity clothes and baby gear. She didn’t feel any of the humiliation or shame of a teenage mother. Vowing to be brazen in times like these, she became even more confident. According to her, others would look down on her even more if she acted as though she had done something wrong. “Let’s see who’ll be happier in ten years,” she promised, as though she believed I would be the bearer of her happiness. As for books—well, she tried to read more but soon gave up, not wanting to do anything that would unduly stress the fetus.

  * * *

  Sometimes the young couple carried on a whispered conversation at night, so that their neighbors couldn’t overhear.

  “Daesu, are you asleep?”

  “No.”

  “It’s hard making a living, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you miss y
our parents?”

  “Nah. I’ve lived in dorms farther away from home.”

  “Let’s save up as fast as we can so we can get our own place.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And we’ll finish raising the baby while everyone else is still in school, so that when they are in the workforce all we have to do is hang out and have the kid support us.”

  “Right on.”

  * * *

  “Daesu, are you asleep?”

  “No.”

  “What kind of kid do you want the baby to be?”

  “Um. A cute kid?”

  “No, I mean the baby’s personality or its future or that kind of thing.”

  My dad hesitated. He wasn’t certain that he was allowed to have those kinds of hopes when he, the baby’s father, didn’t know what he wanted to do with his own life. So he said what he wanted to tell himself. “Well—I guess I want him to have hopes and dreams. What about you?”

  My mom’s gentle eyes brimmed with hope. “Me? Um—I want him to be loved by everyone.”

  “That’s not that easy,” he said.

  “Why not? That’s got to be the easiest thing for a baby. He’s going to be so lovable.”

  My dad turned over to face her, whom he still thought of as his girlfriend rather than his wife. He rubbed her belly and whispered, shadows crossing his face, “Do you think the baby will like us?”

  My mom laid her hand over his. “I hope so.”

  “Do you think we could give him everything he wants?”

  “I hope so.”

  They stared into the darkness for a long time. Outside, the sleeping trees sighed deeply and the plants rustled in the wind, nestled among the dreams being dreamt by the hills. They could hear their next-door neighbor’s faint snores from the other side of the cement wall, which was pasted over with cheap wallpaper.

  “On second thought,” my dad said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t care if he’s not good at anything.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just want him to be healthy.”

  My mom thought for a long time, then said in a quiet, almost sad voice, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  * * *

  The villagers predicted I would be strong and healthy. They said a young mother is likely to have a smart child and teased my parents to have another one right after me. After all, they reasoned, back in the day everyone had kids at my mom’s age. Even people who had been scandalized when the news broke became nice, telling my mom that not enough babies were being born in our village these days. They were eager to be near a soft, bright, brand-new life. My mom exuded the self-confidence and pride of a youthful, fertile being.

  * * *

  One day a gaggle of girls in school uniforms came over to our house. My mom’s best friend, Sumi, had organized the visit. They had pooled a few thousand won each to buy a pair of adorable baby shoes, and they hugged my mom, shrieking, “This is so crazy!” They huddled in my parents’ tiny room to eat junk food and gossip about teachers and celebrities, but my mom was definitely the center of attention.

  “So are you having a boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t know,” my mom said, “but the nurses said I should buy blue clothes.”

  “Oh, my god! It’s a boy! She’s having a boy!”

  “I bet he’ll be tall like Daesu,” another girl said.

  “Oh yeah,” another chimed in. “He’s just average in looks but he does have a smoking body.”

  “Which is why he knocked her up,” interjected a third.

  “Oh my god, you guys!” the girls screamed, their peals of laughter containing shame and joy in equal measure.

  Buoyed by their high-pitched chatter and giggles, I moved more vigorously than usual.

  “You know what my sister says?” one of the girls said secretively. “They cut you down there when you’re giving birth.”

  “What? Where?”

  “There. Down there.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s true! They take a blade and cut you just a little bit. But you don’t even feel it because you’re in so much pain already.”

  “Oh my god. That’s terrifying.”

  “I’m never having a baby.”

  “Let’s see if you still think that after you get married.”

  “Hey Mira, your boobs are huge!”

  “Yeah, that’s about the only thing that’s good about being pregnant,” my mom remarked.

  “Do you have any stretch marks?”

  “No, I’ve been moisturizing a lot. But I look like a tadpole or something.” My mom massaged her lower back, looking shy.

  “No! You look so good.”

  “Yeah, right,” my mom retorted. “But you know, since I got pregnant I keep getting weird stuff on my underwear.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. This really gross stuff keeps coming out.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s like I’m an animal or something.”

  “Oh my god.”

  My mom’s friends kept nattering on about facts and anecdotes about childbirth, digging up everything they’d heard. They would burst out laughing over something that wasn’t even funny, some of them grabbing on to the girl next to them, then they would all be giddy. It made me feel faint. I turned my head toward one of their voices and then toward another, wondering, Is this what being a woman is like? They’re so noisy and sparkly …

  “Mira?” Sumi said cautiously.

  “Yeah?”

  “Um … can I feel it?”

  “Sure,” my mom said flippantly, as if she fielded this request all the time.

  The girls gathered around her, glancing at each other meaningfully, as if sharing in some secret ritual. Eventually five soft, pale hands were spread over my mom’s round belly like starfish, quietly feeling my presence. I didn’t move, sensing their warmth above my head. A short stillness passed between us, me and those five girls. My mom’s belly was a round universe embracing me, and their five hands were constellations spread out across the celestial sphere. Gentle, warm, living stars. Her friends looked at one another, amazed, then smiled softly, all at the same time.

  Despite their efforts to dissuade her, my mom waddled to the bus stop to see her friends off. The girls talked about how envious they were of her, how brave she was, how amazing this all was. As they waited for the bus, they giggled about a new male apprentice teacher. Not knowing what they were talking about, my mom laughed awkwardly along. All of a sudden, she realized that her friends had been unusually nice to her. She cocked her head, puzzled, but quickly moved on. I thought I knew why. Vivaciousness and kindness emerge when one prepares to say farewell; they must have sensed that they wouldn’t be able to see their expelled friend as often as before. Time would flow by as they prepared for their midterms, their finals, and their college entrance exams. It would soon be a new year. They would have less and less to talk about with someone who was married and had a child. They would pretend that nothing had changed, all the while feeling the awkwardness as the gap widened between them. They must have sensed that when that time came, they would need to rely more on white lies and kindness. Of course, neither my mom nor her friends had fully realized all of that yet. The girls said their goodbyes and got on the bus. My mom waved, gazing at the bus until it became a dot and disappeared. A heavy silence descended on our small village along with the sunset. This quiet had always seemed ever present, but that day, for the very first time, my mom found it unbearable.

  * * *

  A few underclassmen from my dad’s old middle school Tae Kwon Do team stopped by for a visit, too. These hulking young men comported themselves like gangsters, but when they laughed they covered their mouths bashfully with a hand. They tried their best to maintain etiquette and loyalty toward an upperclassman who had dropped out of school.

  “The gym feels really empty without you, sir.”

  “Don’t grovel, fucker,” my da
d said.

  His cursing took my mom by surprise. Men become another species entirely when they are among their own, and true enough Daesu was different from the way he behaved when they were alone. She thought it was hilarious how formal these boys were when they were only a year or two younger, but she daintily turned her gaze down as she peeled apples for them.

  “It’s true, sir!”

  “It really is, sir. You were so good to us. We miss you, sir.”

  The boys all covered their mouths shyly and laughed.

  “Oh, and this…” An enormous young man with the most intimidating face pulled out a bib with a cute rabbit cross-stitched on it.

  One of them attempted to be charming, saying, “You’re so beautiful, ma’am. In another life I would be in love with you.”

  They all laughed shyly again.

  “Oh, and sir, you know that ref who made the unfair call? Last year?”

  “Yeah,” said my dad.

  “Sir, he was arrested on corruption charges.”

  My dad flinched. That referee had given him a warning and penalty points during a competition—which my dad considered undeserved—and my dad had drop-kicked him, which was why he had been suspended from school. That was when he met my mom and fell for her.

  After a while, the boys got up. They had a long way back to school. From our house they had to take a thirty-minute bus ride to the intercity bus terminal, which was another two hours from school. One of them slipped my dad an envelope of cash; it wasn’t much, the boy said apologetically, but they’d collected funds among themselves. Though he didn’t show it, my dad was touched by the gesture. With a benevolent expression, he forced some money on them for their travel expenses. Somehow, somewhere, he’d learned the proper thing to do as an elder, and had been clandestinely saving up ever since he heard the boys were coming for a visit. The boys declined a few times before finally accepting. Their bus left behind a cloud of exhaust as it climbed up the hill. Shading his eyes, he watched it disappear. He stood rooted in place and unconsciously balled his fists, the way he would for Tae Kwon Do, the sport he’d so wanted to quit.