The Only Child

by Mi-ae Seo

Hayeong decided to hide it well, so that no one would be able to lay a finger on it. She didn’t want anyone else to touch it ever again. As she looked around, a smile rose on her face.

  She had thought of a place that no one else would find out about.

  16.

  THE NIGHTS GREW LONG AGAIN. THE NIGHTMARES YI Byeongdo had driven away long ago started visiting him once again.

  He shouldn’t have asked Seonkyeong for an apple. He shouldn’t have smelled it. He shouldn’t have eaten it. The moment he did, everything began to go wrong.

  When he picked up the apple and took a bite, the hunger he had long kept at bay came over him all at once. It was because of the apple, too, that he’d been so shaken up by the interview with Seonkyeong. The apple that went down his throat spread through his body, bringing back, one by one, decade-old memories.

  Memories of a place he could never return to, memories he had sealed off, ate slowly away at his sleep.

  When Yi Byeongdo lay down on the cool wooden floor with his eyes closed, he could feel the chill from the apple storage.

  The apples, filling hundreds of crates, were sold throughout the winter, and the remaining apples began to rot, giving off a sweet smell, as the weather began to thaw. When the sun grew warm, the woman and the girls began to pick out the rotten apples, and he put them in a crate and threw them away in a river by the orchard.

  Watching the apples flowing down the river, or getting stuck midway, he thought he was like a rotten apple. No one had noticed yet, but hearing his mother’s song again, his mind began to rot little by little. He fell asleep, shivering with anxiety, and was startled awake by the sound of wind or branches shaking.

  You need to check them carefully. One rotten apple can make all the other apples in the box go bad.

  The woman even picked out apples that still looked fine. He didn’t see it, but she couldn’t be fooled. It was she who first noticed that he wasn’t the same as before.

  What’s wrong?

  He acted no differently, but she saw the change in him. He didn’t speak or eat any less than before, but she sensed the chill in his heart. He couldn’t say anything in reply. He shook his head, indicating that there was nothing wrong, but she smiled, trying to hide the look of pity in her eyes.

  You can always talk to me if you want.

  He wanted to gouge it out. He wanted to gouge out the rot in his mind, and live as if nothing was wrong indeed, as he’d told her. But he couldn’t. The memories of his mother, which had already spread through his body, contaminated his blood, flesh, and bones. Feeling himself rapidly rotting away, he threw himself into the river.

  Yi Byeongdo learned that day in the bone-chilling cold that he had to go away. He was no different from the rotten apples dumped in the river. If he stayed, he would only give off a rotten smell and harm the woman and the girls.

  And he never went back.

  The day he buried his mother, he thought of the orchard house. He recalled the big, sturdy apple tree whose apples he’d always eaten. It must still bear apples that would ease his hunger. But he shook his head. He couldn’t turn back the time that had gone flowing down the river. He’d left the place behind; he couldn’t return. He had thus removed the dreamy years at the orchard from his mind.

  If he hadn’t met Seonkyeong, he’d be going to the chair with those memories forever under lock.

  In prison, he had filled the slowly passing hours, thinking back on the dozens of murders he’d committed. There were about a dozen murders he hadn’t told the police about—ones he kept hidden in his memory, and thought about in secret. There were no sweet-smelling apples, but neither was there anything that got in his way. And he no longer heard his mother’s song in his head. He had thought it wasn’t so bad, waiting for death like that. Until he met Seonkyeong.

  YI BYEONGDO WASN’T in a good mood that day.

  He was chasing a cat on an empty plain, with no people or buildings in sight. He didn’t know where the cat had come from; the cat, with gray fur and yellow eyes, had been hovering around him, mewling like a baby. At first he just kept walking, ignoring it. But the cat got on his nerves, stopping when their eyes met, and running when he started going after it. The cat stopped only when he had chased it into a shabby, deserted house.

  It was the house where he had buried his mother. The cat had vanished, and there was a thick overgrowth of grass, untouched by human hands. There was also a rusty, discarded shovel that looked as if it were about to crumble to pieces, and one of the walls had collapsed, looking quite hideous. When he realized where he was, goose bumps began to rise from the tips of his toes. In his haste, he tried to run out the gate. But the gate, which had seemed within his reach, grew more and more distant, and the solid ground dragged his feet down like a swamp. The more he struggled, the deeper he got sucked into the mire.

  His hands flailing, he felt for something to grab onto. Grasping a handful of grass, he was just about to get out, when something clutched his ankle. He turned his head and saw a bony hand clenching his foot. He kicked as hard as he could, but it was no use. His body began to fall back into the ground. It was like an antlion’s pit. Again, he tried to grasp the grass around him, but everything in the yard began to sink into the swamp along with him.

  “Meow!”

  The cat that had led him there was sitting on the wooden floor of the house, watching him sink slowly underground. Screaming at the cat, Yi Byeongdo woke up.

  The strange dream troubled him. That day, he was to see the public defender, who visited him once a month. He wanted to refuse the visit, but something told him not to. In the end, he decided to keep his feelings under control, and was on his way to the visitors’ room to see him.

  He was about to enter the building where the visitors’ room was, when he saw a group of students beyond the glass door. Their faces were full of tension and excitement as they passed through, wearing visitor’s badges.

  The guard stopped him. It seemed that he would let Yi Byeongdo in after the students had passed through. So he stood there for a moment, waiting, when he saw a woman near the end of the line. Seeing her face, he felt as if he had been struck by lightning.

  In that moment, everything else vanished from his view. He didn’t see the prison building or the guard. There was only the woman, and himself.

  It couldn’t be possible. Yi Byeongdo doubted his own eyes.

  The woman had come walking out of his memories, so old that they had turned into fossils, and passed right by him. The way she swept up the fallen strand of hair on her forehead reminded him of someone.

  The woman at the orchard house had a habit of sweeping up falling strands of hair with the back of her hand as she picked apples, carrying a basket on a shoulder. She would wipe away the beads of sweat on her nose with the back of her hand as well, turning around to smile at him. When she smiled, her nose crinkled up.

  The woman who was passing by looked like her, the way she had looked the first time he saw her at the hospital. He threw a quick glance at the name tag hanging from her neck.

  VISITOR: YI SEONKYEONG

  He felt somehow that the dream he’d had the night before was a sign. It seemed that something had led him to come out, despite the terrible mood he was in, so that he would meet her. She passed right by him and walked toward the group of students. She didn’t notice him watching her at all.

  On his way to the visitors’ room, he talked to the guard and dug up some information on the students and the woman who were visiting. All he managed to find out was that they were from the department of criminology at some university, but that was enough.

  As he began to wake up from nightmares more and more often, he kept thinking back to that day. He shouldn’t have gone to the visitors’ room, when he was feeling so disturbed. Then he would never have met her. He had destroyed his own peace.

  Hundreds, thousands of rotten apples had gone down the river by the orchard. The trees, loaded with clusters of apples, had broken or die
d, with only withered branches remaining. It was all because of his greed. His desire to go back to the orchard house, to see the woman just one more time, had tainted the purity of the place. It couldn’t be undone.

  Awake, he thought in the darkness, his eyes gleaming: What is it that I want? What is it that I want to find out, so much that I wait for her like this? Seonkyeong was not the orchard woman. He had reminded himself of the fact over and over again, but he kept forgetting.

  He began to grow more and more uneasy. He sensed the sound of his mom singing approaching little by little, from very far away.

  When he reopened the room sealing up the memories, it was no longer paradise.

  17.

  BEFORE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL, SEONKYEONG CALLED Heeju, who ran a child psychology clinic.

  Heeju was a friend she had studied psychology with in college. They’d lost touch when Seonkyeong went abroad to study, but Heeju had come to her wedding the year before, surprising her. After a round of photos with Seonkyeong’s other friends in the bridal waiting room, Heeju said to Seonkyeong when they were alone together: To be honest, I don’t like him that much.

  Heeju had a habit of beginning her remarks with the phrase “to be honest.” True to the words, she always told you in honesty what others couldn’t bring themselves to say. There were times when her excessive frankness made Seonkyeong uncomfortable, or hurt her feelings, but thanks to Heeju’s honesty, the two had become close friends who shared their innermost thoughts.

  Heeju said that she had seen the groom, greeting the guests outside the ceremonial hall.

  What don’t you like about him?

  That he’s your husband.

  Seonkyeong’s thoughts were interrupted by a staff member at the clinic picking up the call and connecting Seonkyeong to Heeju.

  “An eleven-year-old child? And you’re raising her?” Heeju asked, her voice escalating, after listening to Seonkyeong. It wasn’t completely unexpected, but her reaction made Seonkyeong feel drained before she had even gone in for a counseling session. Heeju must have sensed it, as she didn’t go any further than that.

  “I guess the situation is what it is. Tell me what it was that made you call me,” she said.

  Now that she was ready to listen, Seonkyeong wasn’t sure how to begin.

  After a moment’s thought, Seonkyeong began by telling her about the day Hayeong moved in. Heeju listened without interrupting. But when she got to the part about the stuffed animal, she jumped in and said, “Wait a sec, so you’re saying you took away her stuffed animal, when she’d lost everything in a fire?”

  “What do you mean? I just washed it for her.”

  “How can you talk like that, when you studied psychology?”

  Seonkyeong couldn’t say anything in response.

  “Have you considered what the stuffed animal meant to her? You should’ve guessed, if she managed to bring it out with her in the confusion of a fire. What if it smelled of her mother? It would mean that you’ve erased her memories of her mom,” Heeju said.

  Seonkyeong understood at last.

  She’d had a similar experience.

  After her mother’s funeral, she went home and opened her mother’s wardrobe; she went inside, took down all the clothes from the hangers, and smelled them. There was no trace of her mother’s smell, but she buried her face deeper in the clothes, thinking a little had to remain somewhere. When her father found her after hours of looking, worrying himself to death, she’d thrust her mother’s scarf at him, saying, “Dad, this smells like Mom.”

  She didn’t remember how he’d looked in that moment. She’d felt flustered, as he clutched her to his chest and began to weep, his shoulders shaking, before she even had a chance to see his face.

  Soon after that day, he said that they had to gather up her mother’s things and burn them, and Seonkyeong didn’t speak to him for a while. She was angry that he was trying to remove her mother from his mind so soon.

  She tried to put herself in Hayeong’s shoes.

  The woman who had pushed Hayeong’s mother aside and taken possession of her father was now trying to remove all traces of her mother. It was only natural that the child resisted. On top of that, the woman slapped her. No wonder she flew into such a rage.

  Seonkyeong thought back to what happened in the morning at breakfast.

  Hayeong didn’t even look at Seonkyeong, or answer Jaeseong’s questions. She said she didn’t want breakfast and her father made her sit at the table anyway, but she couldn’t be forced to eat. She swung at the bowl of rice in front of her with her hand. Her father scolded her, but she didn’t even blink an eye. An oppressive silence hung over the table.

  “Are you listening to me?” Heeju asked, breaking into Seonkyeong’s thoughts.

  “Huh? Oh . . . yes, go on,” Seonkyeong said.

  “I’ll just say one thing. At that age, she isn’t as young as you think. A child that age can figure out in a second what kind of situation she’s in, cause-and-effect relationships, and who holds the reins in the house. Just as you’re watching her, she’s watching you, sizing you up.”

  Seonkyeong hadn’t thought of that. How distant had the child grown from her because of the incident the day before?

  “Don’t worry too much. It’s not going to happen right away, but when she regains emotional stability and feels that she can trust you, she’ll forget about what happened yesterday,” Heeju said.

  As Seonkyeong reflected on what happened the day before, she heard Heeju talking to someone at the other end of the line.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go in for the next session,” Heeju said to Seonkyeong.

  “Oh, of course. Thank you.”

  “Call me if you have any questions or problems.”

  During the brief conversation, Heeju had thrown light on an important point Seonkyeong had failed to see. Seonkyeong had judged the situation from her own point of view. She had overlooked the fact that though old and dirty, the stuffed animal meant something to the child. She had washed it and removed the only remaining traces of the child’s mother with soap and suds. She saw at last what a great mistake she had made, and understood the rage Hayeong had displayed the night before.

  Seonkyeong had to learn more about Hayeong before she made an even greater mistake. She had a lot of questions to ask Jaeseong in order to understand the child better.

  She left the house in haste.

  “WHY ARE YOU ASKING all of a sudden?” Jaeseong asked, his voice turning stiff, when Seonkyeong asked him about what had happened between his ex-wife and Hayeong. He gulped down his coffee, which he’d gotten from the vending machine in the staff lounge, and violently crushed up the paper cup.

  He was puzzled that Seonkyeong had shown up at the hospital without calling him, but when she said she wanted to talk to him about Hayeong, he willingly set aside some time for her. He had just finished an appointment, and said they could have lunch together. He, too, seemed to want to talk about his daughter. But his attitude changed somewhat when she asked him about his wife as well. Seonkyeong had heard vaguely about what had happened between him and his wife, but it seemed to have wounded him deeply, as it had Hayeong.

  “You must’ve guessed, by what I told you last time,” he said.

  “For me to understand how Hayeong is feeling now, I have to know what kind of relationship she had with her mother, and what happened between them,” Seonkyeong insisted.

  Turning his gaze out the window, he looked up at the sky in silence for a while; then at last, he began to talk, his voice thick, about what happened between them.

  “She always seemed to thirst for more. When I gave her one thing, she wanted two; when I gave her two, she demanded three, she demanded ten. She always wanted me to be at her side, and cared for nothing but me. And she wanted me to care for nothing but her. She couldn’t bear it when all my attention wasn’t focused on her. It wasn’t love; it was obsession. I felt suffocated. The more she clung to me, the further I
ran. After the divorce I thought I was free, but things got worse,” he said.

  When they had begun to grow apart, what his ex-wife did was use their child to keep him close as he became less and less interested in her. She realized that he answered right away when it came to calls about Hayeong, whereas he usually ignored her other phone calls or text messages. Then she began reporting to Jaeseong that Hayeong was frequently sick or wounded because she knew he would respond.

  “Have you . . . heard of something called MBP?” he asked Seonkyeong.

  Seonkyeong nodded. The term had crossed her mind when she heard about Hayeong.

  “At first it didn’t occur to me. But after I realized that Hayeong was hurting herself or being hospitalized much too often, I asked her about it. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Of course she didn’t—how could she even have imagined that her mother was hurting her on purpose? But she did begin to sense it vaguely as time passed, often getting sick after eating something her mother had given her, and getting into accidents when they were together,” he said.

  MBP stood for “Munchausen by proxy,” a disorder in which someone abused and hurt their child or pet to attract attention. Hayeong’s mother had put her own daughter in danger to receive her husband’s attention.

  Seonkyeong had taken an interest in the subject while studying psychology and still had some materials that she had saved on the topic.

  Munchausen syndrome was a psychological disorder in which people feigned illness for attention. They lied about being sick to gain sympathy and concern, and when the attention ebbed, they came up with a different illness.

  Munchausen by proxy was a more serious disorder in which a caregiver feigned the illness of someone else, harming them intentionally, to receive attention as a “guardian” attending to the patient.

  “So on that day, too, when your ex-wife died?” Seonkyeong asked.

  “I think so. I’d told her I wouldn’t go, even when she told me that Hayeong was hurt. I was so tired of it. She must have fallen into despair, realizing that even using Hayeong wouldn’t work anymore.”