by Ae-ran Kim
My dad didn’t answer.
“They said he has to be in the hospital. That his heart’s a time bomb ready to explode.”
My dad finally opened his mouth. “So how much is it per call?” I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely curious or if he was being sarcastic.
“A thousand won,” she said, her voice small with shame.
I couldn’t keep hiding in the kitchen or go back to my room, because I didn’t want my parents to discover me eavesdropping. I hadn’t even made it to the bathroom yet, but they were whispering again, so I had to hold it and keep listening.
“It’s all my fault,” my mom said.
“What is?”
“I keep thinking about it.”
“Come on, Mira.”
“Then whose fault could it be?”
“Stop. Let’s go to bed.”
She raised her voice. “There’s got to be a reason for it!”
My dad’s voice was patient and calm. “There’s no reason, Mira. We’ve been looking for what caused it for ten years, right? This is just something that happened to Areum. And that’s what all the doctors said. It’s not hereditary.”
“But if I didn’t do that, maybe it wouldn’t have turned out this way.”
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s not true? Running when you’re pregnant doesn’t harm a baby. My mom didn’t know she was pregnant with me, so she played jump-on-the-board on New Year’s. Look how healthy I am.”
“That’s the thing, though,” she argued. “She didn’t know she was pregnant. I did. And I ran. Ten laps, twenty laps. I kept running until my heart was about to burst. All night long.”
After finally relieving my bladder, I closed my door quietly behind me and leaned against the wall. My screensaver was swirling in blue in the dark, like a mirage, like the computer’s soul. I covered an eye as I stared at it. Right, left, then left, right. Sweat trickled straight into my eye, thanks to my lack of eyebrows, and continued to roll down my cheek. I sat in front of my desk and woke the computer. I stared at the manuscript I’d been carefully editing just moments ago. I had been so excited and proud of it. I closed it and went into My Documents, then right-clicked and deleted.
Are you sure you want to delete?
A simple but foreboding question. I stared at the prompt for a long time, dithering, before finally pressing Yes.
9
We sat around the living room after breakfast, eating red-bean shaved ice. An old fan swiveled and creaked effortfully in the corner, and we could hear the faint sounds of a neighbor’s television through the open windows. A relaxing, ordinary weekend. I had been glancing at my parents all morning, trying to gauge their mood. I shoveled a big spoonful of shaved ice into my mouth and put on a lively expression. I figured I would ease my way into what I wanted to talk about.
“Is it too cold for your teeth?” Mom asked worriedly.
“It’s okay if I keep my spoon in my mouth for a while.”
“I took out the fruit and the jelly so it’s easier for you to eat.”
“Thanks, Mom. I do have a hard time eating sour things these days.”
Dad cut in. “This is what shaved ice is supposed to be like. Just red beans and milk. I don’t know if you’re able to appreciate the traditional way.”
“Of course I appreciate it.”
“Yeah?”
I stirred the ice like a little kid. The sparkling shards whirling together looked magnificent; I whispered to my right eye to remember this.
“What’s with the shaved ice, anyway?” Dad asked.
“He’s been asking for it since yesterday,” Mom explained. “Going on about how when you’re old you want to eat something delicious.”
Dad clucked. “What? You’re just a kid.”
I giggled. “That’s what Little Grandpa Jang told me, and I totally agree.”
“I don’t like that old man,” Mom complained, “I wish you wouldn’t hang out with him so much.”
“What? Why not?”
“He’s a little strange. I heard people say that he got into some kind of accident when he was young and something happened to him.”
“And I heard Big Grandpa Jang has dementia, too,” Dad added.
I hadn’t known that.
“Still in the early stages,” Dad continued. “Apparently you can’t tell right away. But it must be so hard for his son.”
Mom frowned. “I still don’t like either of them.”
“Why not, Mom? Little Grandpa Jang isn’t weird. I can really talk to him. And he knows so much about so many things.”
“I still think something’s off. Otherwise why would they be living together at their age? Just don’t get too friendly, okay?”
I sighed. “It’s not like he’s going to live forever.”
My parents suddenly grew quiet, so I quickly changed the subject. “Dad?”
“Hmm?”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“So, I was thinking.”
“Yes?”
“I … I think I want to go on that show that your friend Sumi mentioned.”
My parents froze. Their faces revealed the extent to which they were caught off guard. How does he know about this? How much does he know? I tried my best to explain calmly that I overheard my mom talk about it on the phone, and that I had been thinking about it since then.
My parents stared at each other as I jabbered on.
“Wasn’t she your best friend, Mom? The one who married the producer?”
Mom blushed, at a loss for words, perhaps recalling what she’d said to my dad last night.
“Areum,” Dad said. “That’s silly. Eat your shaved ice.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because that’s our decision.”
“Why do you get to decide something that was a request for me? Don’t I have the right to decide when it’s something that affects me?”
“Are you kidding me?” Dad threw his arms in the air.
“I want to go on that show. Everyone else does it. We’ll get help and it’ll be fun to see how people make shows like that.”
Mom finally spoke. “It’s not going to be fun, Areum. It’s going to be hard.”
“There’s no way it could be as hard as it is now.”
“No,” she said.
“Dad? Come on.”
“No,” he said.
“I’m telling you I want to do it!”
“Listen, kid. No means no.”
I decided to switch tactics. “So what, you won’t let me go to the hospital? That’s no way for parents to act. Did you think it was going to be really easy to raise a kid?” I reached toward the shaved ice, but my fingers grew weak and I dropped my spoon, which banged on the floor. It shined like a dagger, cold and quiet. My hand shook in the air. Frozen in place, we all stared at my hand.
PART TWO
10
Chae Seungchan was the producer’s name. He went to the same middle school as my mom, as a transfer student from Seoul during the time the Daeho Tourism District was being established. Seungchan was the kid who took Sumi’s place as the number one student. According to my mom, Sumi glared at Seungchan with resentment and envy throughout their teen years.
“So they hated each other?” I asked.
Mom frowned, trying to recall. “I don’t know about Seungchan, but Sumi wasn’t happy about it.”
“So then how did they end up getting married?”
“Yeah, I wonder about that too. Maybe it was when we were in the eleventh grade? I already had you. She confessed that she had liked him for a long time.”
“Hm.” Maybe when you glared at someone for a long time, hate morphed into something else. “So who did he like?”
“What?”
“You haven’t mentioned anything about him. And it’s so weird that you and Sumi were best friends but you didn’t know how she felt about him for such a long time.”
“Well…”
&
nbsp; “Yes?”
“He…”
I met her eyes and nodded. Go ahead, Mom, brag about your youth a little.
“He … well, he didn’t like anyone.”
“Aw, come on.”
“It’s true. And anyway, kids like that who don’t get distracted are the ones who succeed in life.” Mom turned away, not wanting to humor me anymore.
Seungchan was about to arrive at our house, and my mom had to prepare for his visit. She and Sumi had grown apart and hadn’t spoken in a while, and she hadn’t seen Seungchan in nearly twenty years.
She didn’t tell me anything, but I did know about the two of them. When I was in the hospital a few months ago, one of my uncles had told me some stories when he came to visit. That uncle had made Mom’s life hell when they were kids. He was only a year older than her and his sole pleasure at the time was to rifle through his little sister’s diary and desk drawers. When she was in eighth grade and my uncle was in the ninth, she had started reading poetry, his sister who had never even glanced at a book before. He began digging around in earnest, and found a love letter, a book of poetry titled Standing On My Own, and a cassette tape of the Vienna Boys’ Choir.
“There weren’t a lot of kids our age in our hick town who knew enough to give romantic gifts like that,” my uncle explained. “And a boy at that! Usually guys gave things like chocolate or a stuffed animal or maybe a mixtape.”
I asked my uncle if he knew where the letter was now, but he deflated my hopes by telling me that our family wasn’t the kind that cherished mementos. Anyway, my uncle kept catching my mom gazing into the distance, listening to the tape, with a textbook open and unattended in front of her. He told me that humans turned the ugliest during puberty and that it amazed him how such ugly people could be so passionate.
“But didn’t you go through something like that, too?” I asked.
“Of course I did.”
“Right? I knew it.”
“That’s why I’m embarrassed to go back to our hometown. I see so many kids wearing their school uniforms. And it’s like time flows backward in the countryside. How is it possible that the kids today are so much less fashionable than I was?”
“You’re probably the one who’s changed, not the countryside.”
“You think I don’t know that? Don’t you act all grown-up in front of a real grown-up! Anyway, whenever I see girls that age, I’m shocked. I can’t believe I lost sleep over girls like that.”
My uncle’s stories transported me out of my hospital bed. I imagined kids my age a long time ago, staggering around hormonally.
“Anyway, where was I?”
“You found the poetry and the tape.”
“Right. So I got curious. Who was this kid? Mira seemed to be into him, too.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went to his class and saw a kid I knew, and told him to tell what’s-his-name to come out.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember. It was such a long time ago. Older brothers are interested in other people’s younger sisters, not their own.”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t realize I was Mira’s brother, and I didn’t tell him who I was. He said, I heard you were looking for me? So I said, Are you what’s-his-name? and he said yes. So I looked him over and said, You can go now.”
“Ooh, like an adult! And?”
“Well, he wasn’t good looking but he looked solid and confident. But it didn’t work out for them.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” my uncle said. “I guess Mira went to his apartment. The women who lived at the complex were really competitive and gossipy. And I guess that kid was more self-conscious of who was around. Instead of paying attention to Mira, he acted embarrassed she was there. Totally different from the letter. The next day the kid’s teacher called Mira to the office and said what’s-his-name was destined to go to a prestigious high school, so it would be good if she wasn’t a distraction. Mira was done after that.”
“Over something so small?”
“That’s what happens when you’re young. Your heart races over nothing special and you’re devastated over nothing special.”
“Aw, did Mom have a hard time getting over that guy?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did it say in her diary? Didn’t you look?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t have time. I fell for a girl.”
* * *
We waited for the crew in front of our house. I suppose it was more like a prep team, since there was no director of photography or other staff, but it didn’t really matter. I was wearing a yellow T-shirt with a teddy bear printed on it and cotton pants. I had tried to find something nicer but it was hard to get age-appropriate clothes my size. I was also wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. I looked like a member of an alien mafia but all of that was necessary to shield myself from the sun. All morning my mom had tried on this or that outfit, looking glum. Even though it was midsummer, she dug out a shirt with a three-quarter sleeve. My dad was at work, unable to get time off that day because they were short-staffed. He would be home on the actual film date.
Seungchan was a lot less impressive than I’d imagined; he was short and plain and had narrow shoulders. But his gaze, at least, was lively and intelligent. I looked him over carefully. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain that it was Seungchan my uncle talked about, but I was getting a stronger feeling that it was. Seungchan was wearing a snug shirt and a fashionable belt, and had a slight mid-thirties paunch. He managed to park his white SUV in front of our building, and squeezed through the narrow alley to our place. A young woman, maybe a recent college graduate, was with him. She was probably the writer, Park Narae, who had been calling Mom over the last several days.
“Hi, Areum?” Seungchan reached out to pat my head but stopped and awkwardly offered his hand. He must have remembered at the last moment how old I really was.
“Hello.” I bowed slightly.
Mom had a stiff smile on her face.
Seungchan offered her a kind greeting. “It’s nice to see you, Mira. It’s been a long time.”
She smiled more warmly. “Thanks for coming. I’m sure you’re very busy.”
“No need to thank me, it’s my job.”
Mom had wanted to meet them somewhere else, but Narae had suggested our house, which would inform camera angles and the story. We sat around the coffee table, on cushions my mom took out from the wardrobe. Buzzing around, she served tea, glancing nervously at Seungchan as he looked around the room. He seemed more relaxed and comfortable than I thought he would. When Mom finally settled down, Narae placed her notebook and a voice recorder on the table. It hit me then that we were really going to be on television.
Mom was interviewed first.
“When did you learn that Areum was sick?”
“When he was two. His hair was falling out and he wasn’t looking well. At the hospital they said it was probably a virus, that it would pass. Finally they told us to take him to a bigger hospital.”
“I see.”
“We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He kept crying and crying … I felt so bad.”
“Is that why you moved here to Bucheon?”
“Yes, to be closer to a large hospital. We didn’t know anyone here, but we came anyway.”
“And how long have you lived here?”
“Areum was two when we moved, so it’s been more than a decade. We moved houses a lot in Bucheon, to smaller and smaller places.”
“What do the two of you do for a living?”
“Areum’s dad tried various things but none of them really worked out. Now he’s at a moving company.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Mom glanced at Seungchan, who was taking notes. She looked down. “I just look after Areum.”
Her blatant lie made me flustered, but I kept my
poker face.
“It must be hard to pay for the hospital bills,” Narae said.
“Yes.”
“Has Areum ever attended school?”
“A little bit. He went to elementary school for about six months. He loved it, but he would have seizures during class, so…”
I thought back happily to school, with its student presentations, music, and spring picnic.
“Aren’t there support groups for patients and families dealing with the same disease? Sharing information and relying on one another? Were you able to find a community like that?”
“Well, we did look for one, but Areum’s condition is so rare. They said it’s rare overseas, too. We were frustrated. There aren’t that many books about the condition, so we couldn’t learn much about it.”
Narae nodded. “And how is Areum doing now?”
“Not that great. And now he’s losing sight in one eye. And his heart…”
* * *
I was up next. Seungchan took the lead this time. “Should we begin?”
“Yes.”
Seungchan gave Narae a look, and she started with easy questions. “Your mother mentioned that you love to read.”
“I do.”
“What do you like to read?”
“All kinds of books.”
“Oh?”
“My body is aging faster than my mind, so I have to make sure my mind matures as quickly as possible if I want to keep up.”
Seungchan and Narae smiled, and I caught Mom looking relieved and proud.
“Tell me about one of the books you’ve read recently,” Narae suggested.
“Hm, let’s see. Oh, there was a book of poetry I read recently. This line is great: ‘It’s wonderful to become someone at once.’”
“It is.”
“I also like this: ‘It’s a little sad not to become someone at once.’”
Seungchan had a mischievous look on his face. “Do you know what that means?”
I wanted to say, Do you know what that means? but I answered politely, “I just like the phrase. You know how when a leaf falls on a lake, the surface of the water ripples silently? That happened in my heart when I read this. It’s from a poem called ‘The Story of Snow.’ I liked it so much that I ripped it out of the book. I don’t usually do that to library books, but still. Um, Mr. Chae?”