If You Leave Me

by Crystal Hana Kim

  At the table next to Jieun and Mila and Mommy sat the man who had scared my dog. With his darkened skin and dusty face, he looked like the farmers in the fields.

  “This one’s my smartest, Kyunghwan. Like a boy.” Daddy guided me into the room.

  I tugged on my short hair. I hated it when he called me a boy. “You’re the man on the motorcycle,” I said.

  “You’re the girl who feeds the starving dog.” He laughed, and everyone joined in.

  “Go bow to your uncle,” Daddy said. Instead, I hid my face in Mommy’s soft stomach. She combed my hair with her fingers as I let my embarrassment fade.

  “Say hello like this!” Jieun stood on her chair, bowed, leaned over Mila, and kissed the man on the cheek. Everyone laughed again.

  Uncle hugged me like we knew each other. His cheek was softer than Daddy’s, and his breath smelled like persimmons. “Hello, Miss Solee.”

  “Hello,” I said back.

  They drank as if we girls were invisible. It was nice. Once, on Jieun’s third birthday, Mommy and Daddy drank so much they stumbled out of the room. They left us at the table, our hands sticky from miyeok-guk and cinnamon juice. In the doorway to the backyard, they kissed. I hoped they would do that again.

  I woke early the next morning and lay still, collecting the floor’s coolness inside me before the day heated through with the summer sun. It was my job to make tea in the morning. Daddy drank ginseng and Mommy angelica. Jieun and Mila slept on with open mouths. I imagined dropping seeds down their throats. The kernels settling in their bellies, growing sprouts. Pear blossoms would flow from their lips and crawl up the walls of the room. Then I could puppet them around by their stalks and have them prepare the tea.

  But I wasn’t the only one awake. In the kitchen, Uncle sat at the table with a newspaper laid out before him. Washed and brushed, he didn’t look like a farmer anymore. I stared at my feet. My nightclothes were too short in the sleeves and at the ankles.

  “Morning, Solee,” he said.

  “Good morning. Would you like some tea, sir?”

  “You’re so formal! ‘Sir’ makes me feel old. Do I look like an old man to you?”

  I ducked my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Besides . . .” He pointed to the tea he’d already made, the napkins folded into flowers and tucked beneath each cup. “How’d I do?”

  “I like the decorations.” I nodded. “I need to bring these to my parents.”

  “They can get their own tea. Come sit.” He nodded at the floor pillow across from him. As I settled onto it, he gave me an American cookie. Rectangular and beige and patterned with small square indents. I licked the creamy middle layer until the sweetness made the back of my ears hurt. I decided he was a nice man after all.

  “What are your plans for today, Miss Solee?”

  “I have school. I stay late every other day to study extra with the teacher. When I come home, I help Mommy.”

  He nodded, serious. “You make them tea in the morning. What else?”

  “If she’s working at the orphanage, I watch Jieun and Mila.”

  “All that and studying!” He smiled and I could see his nice, square teeth. “Jisoo says you could go to college.”

  I nodded, my head raised. “I’m the best in class.”

  He quizzed me with addition and subtraction problems. I started to boast that I even knew multiplication, but no one liked a bragger, even if Mommy told us that girls should show their smarts. That was why the other school kids weren’t nice to me.

  “What else do you know?” He flattened his newspaper. Stories about the capital ran down its columns. coming election. who will be our next president? a new korea. I mouthed the words even if I didn’t understand them.

  “Uncle Hyunki is in Seoul,” I said. “He’s studying in college.” I remembered his funny nose and big eyes, the pencils I liked to count in his room.

  “I’ve heard. I haven’t seen him since he was your age.”

  “I saw him last year, but he didn’t come home in time for Halmuni’s funeral,” I said.

  Kyunghwan’s face stretched with surprise. “Why?”

  “Mommy said no.”

  He frowned, like I’d said something wrong. “He had to take a test,” I tried to explain.

  Kyunghwan sipped from Mommy’s cup, set it down too hard. Tea sloshed against the rim. He glanced around the room. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asked, but his attention stayed on the door.

  I wanted him to return to me. I thought of a name that would make Uncle Hyunki laugh. He liked it when I was clever in my letters. “He’s not really my dog, but I call him Dokkaebi.”

  It worked. Kyunghwan smiled and shook his head. “Those gremlins gave me nightmares when I was your age.” He told me a story about dokkaebis playing pranks on children and old men. He was a good storyteller, using his hands and baring his teeth during suspenseful moments. Soon, it was seven o’clock. I heard Jieun readying for the day. “I have to get dressed,” I said.

  “I’m going hiking this afternoon. Do you want to come along?” He nodded, like I’d already said yes. “We’ll buy you some sturdy shoes. Be good in class, Miss Solee.”

  “Bye,” I said, waving and bowing at the same time.

  Outside, I called Dokkaebi as I waited. He nuzzled his snout against my side. When Jieun came to the door, rubbing her fists into her sleepy eyes, I walked her to school and I watched her run to her friends. I smiled. I was glad she and Mila were too young to make tea.

  Teacher Han rapped my knuckles twice during mathematics. I didn’t mind because that afternoon I would walk up a mountain with Kyunghwan. I played with my hair, brushing it down with my fingers, and I wished Mommy hadn’t cut it so short. I could tell Kyunghwan liked long hair. During dinner, his eyes had spiraled as Mommy twirled one long, loose strand.

  After the last class of the day, I played gonggi stones with my classmates and waited for Kyunghwan. Chunja was the best. She had her own gonggi set, and her stones were smooth from all her hours of practice. I had just caught them on the back of my hand when the whispers began—

  “Look!”

  “Who is he?”

  “A movie star?”

  “Someone’s daddy?”

  “He’s handsome,” Chunja said.

  The boys stared, too. They pointed at his height and the big lump at his throat.

  Kyunghwan called my name, waving a pair of small brown shoes. I dropped the gonggi stones into Chunja’s hand and smiled at her surprised face.

  We arrived at Whul-ae Mountain. Even before we started climbing, large stains bloomed under Kyunghwan’s arms and around his neck. When the boys at school sweated, we made fun of them. But on him, it looked different. “Movie star,” I whispered. He pointed to flowers and trees, naming them as we passed. I tried to remember them all, but the words ran away from me.

  “You see this?” Kyunghwan pointed to a strange little plant with nubs that curled inward like a ram’s horns. “It’s Haemi’s favorite side dish. Gosari. Wouldn’t it be nice if we picked some for her?”

  “My favorite side dish is steamed eggs,” I said.

  “Well, if you help me find these, I’ll make my most delicious eggs especially for you. All right?”

  I nodded. He opened his bag, made room in the middle. We searched for Mommy’s favorite plant. Gosari. I plucked one and stared. It looked like a fuzzy caterpillar curled up on my palm, ready for sleep. I wouldn’t eat any of them, I decided.

  As we searched, he explained that these were babies, that when they matured, the leaves uncurled. When our pile was big enough, we took a break. He lay down with his hands clasped behind his head, maybe drying his armpits. I copied him. He described how he would boil the baby plants, soak them in cold water, and lay them out to dry. “Then we’ll dust them lightly with salt and fry them over a fire. With onions and garlic,” he said.

  “How do you know it’s her favorite?”

  “Haemi and I were friends a
long time ago. I introduced her to my cousin, Jisoo, when the war made us go south. And that’s how you and your sisters got to be here.”

  It was funny, how he called them by their first names.

  “What’re you smiling at?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” I rolled over. “Do you have any children?”

  He laughed. “I wish I had daughters as lovely as you girls. I missed my chance. Now I’m old and ugly.”

  “I think you’re handsome.” I turned my head to his chest so he wouldn’t see my blushing face.

  Down the mountain and through the town, we walked home. Kyunghwan brought the bag of gosari to the backyard. After boiling and washing them, he found the right spot—out of reach of the roof’s and the tree’s shadows, where the sun heated the ground all summer long. I kicked a mud clump as Kyunghwan sprinkled salt on the drying plants. The back of my neck prickled. I didn’t want to watch the gosari shrivel any longer. “I’m tired,” I said.

  “We’re almost done.”

  Dokkaebi circled the tree, and I called him over. He snuffled his head into my hands. “No food for you.” I broke a mud clump over his back and mixed brown dirt into his fur. “I’m tired,” I said again. I knew I was whining, but I couldn’t help it.

  Kyunghwan looked up. “I’m sorry, Miss Solee. I should have brought you home earlier.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. It was the color of potato pancakes, my other favorite side dish. He dipped it into a bucket of water and washed my face, from forehead to nose to chin. He wasn’t tickling me, but it felt like he was.

  He wrapped the kerchief around my neck, and a trickle of water dripped to my belly. I followed the stain on my shirt with my finger. “I want my special eggs now.”

  “Go find Haemi for me. I’ll finish here. Then I’ll cook you up something delicious. You can keep the handkerchief for being such a good partner.”

  I ran into the house with my chin raised, so everyone could see what Kyunghwan had given me. “Look!”

  “My wood nymph.” Mommy tugged the kerchief’s bow. “How was your hike with Uncle?”

  “He picked some baby plants for you. He said they’re your favorite and that you like to eat them with your mouth wide open. Like this.” I copied Kyunghwan’s chewing and smacked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

  Before I could describe Whul-ae’s peak and my new brown shoes and the eggs I would soon eat, I saw her eyes close. She swayed. She wasn’t listening.

  “Mommy?” I shook her, tried to bring her back to me. She did this sometimes. “He’s waiting for you.”

  She smiled slowly, like a goddess returning to her human body. “Watch the girls.” She loosened her bun. Raking a hand through her curls, she walked out.

  Kyunghwan and I shared a morning game. I rose earlier each day, but he always won. He waited in the common room, the tea hot and ready. Sometimes he had a present for me, like a brand-new Monami pen or speckled quail eggs, already boiled. As we waited for the others, we talked. He touched a small scar on his cheek as he told me stories, and I touched my scar, too, the one on my knee shaped like a leaf.

  Jieun and Mila awoke next. They always ran to him with their orange blanket dragging, like an open dress. He gave them presents, too. He pulled them onto his lap and fed them spoonfuls of tea. I wanted him to feed me, too, but he winked and I straightened. He thought of me as a grown-up, a friend.

  At night, when everyone went to bed, I imagined him holding me. I wanted to see him. When I snuck into the hallway, no one stopped me. At Uncle Hyunki’s door, I bent down, dusting my ear against the crack. And then I heard it, the in and out of Kyunghwan’s breathing.

  On Kyunghwan’s ninth day, a Saturday and a special no-school day, Daddy ate breakfast with us. “Listen,” he said between bites of rice and egg. He smiled and bumped his cup against mine. “When Kyunghwan and I were boys, he found a secret pond.”

  “Where the air tastes sweet and the water is clear!” Kyunghwan sang.

  Daddy laughed. “We said we’d never show the pond to any women, but today, we’ll go!”

  Jieun jumped up and swung Mila around. Mommy shook her head, not at them, but at Daddy and Kyunghwan singing a song we didn’t know.

  At the pond, we girls pulled off shirts and shorts and ran into the water in our panties. As we played, the adults baked themselves on boulders, like squid laid out to dry.

  Mommy wore a tee shirt and a pair of Daddy’s pants folded up to her knees. I saw the roundness of her breasts where the fabric stretched tight. I looked down. I had two little nipples but no roundness. Little soybeans no one would want to look at. I pushed my chest forward. Nothing changed.

  “I’m going to catch a great big fish and fry it over a fire!” Daddy yelled before jumping off a rock. One arm glued to his side, the other in an arc aimed at the water. He made a giant splash and we whistled and whooped and made echoes.

  “Don’t forget who won the last diving contest!” Kyunghwan started with his back against a tree and ran straight off his boulder. As he fell, he flapped around like a panicked animal.

  He sank, screaming.

  Mommy shrieked his name.

  Silence stretched out in ripples. Even little Mila quieted as we waited for bubbles and his body. But he didn’t appear.

  “Kyunghwan?” Daddy yelled. “Stop it!”

  “Where are you?” I called.

  “Are you drowning?” Jieun shrieked.

  Kyunghwan bobbed up with a long, high howl. He winked at me and howled again.

  “He’s a dokkaebi!” I yelled.

  His laughter filled the pond and floated all around us. It was contagious. Soon we were laughing, too, chucking our heads above the water to stop ourselves from drowning.

  Only Mommy stood quiet, her arms across her chest. “That wasn’t funny.”

  “Oh, come on,” Kyunghwan said.

  She turned away. We watched Daddy leave to comfort her. She started laughing when he tickled her arms. Kyunghwan shrugged, gulped air, and sank back into the water.

  When everyone was happy again, we paired up for a cavalry fight. Jieun on Daddy’s shoulders, me on Kyunghwan’s, and Mila and Mommy cheering from the rocks. Kyunghwan’s hands pushed against my butt, nestling me until I sat with my legs draped against his chest. His body was so slick I thought I’d fall off. He lifted my arms, flapped them up and down until I felt it—I was high and flying.

  When the water weighed heavy in our bones and it became harder to float, we headed to the hills above. Boulders crumbled into pebbles. Our skin smelled like pond and sun. Trees thickened to block out the evening light.

  “This is where we’d fry fish,” Daddy whispered. He seemed so calm and peaceful, with sleepy Mila on his back. There wasn’t a fire pit any longer, but he described one until I could almost see it—logs burning and fish crisping in the heat.

  “Let’s get some wood,” Kyunghwan said to Daddy. They left, their bodies hulking together into the forest.

  We lay down around Mommy. She sang the apple-cucumber-pumpkin song we liked, squeezing our noses with each new part. We hummed along, rubbed Mila’s wide cheeks at the words Our funny round pumpkin.

  When Daddy and Kyunghwan returned, Mommy went to sit with them. In the dark, Mila drew our family into the sky, using the evening stars to trace our crooked elbows and noses. Jieun snored against my shoulder. I tried to stay awake.

  On the first night of Kyunghwan’s visit, the adults had told stories. Of the war that split our Korea, of a president who controlled us, and of people now dead. They seemed quieter tonight. When Daddy went to pee in the woods, Kyunghwan slid closer to Mommy. She looked over at us. I wanted to hear what they were saying, but I felt heavy with sleep. Their whispers twisted together in streams.

  The next day, Daddy woke up sick. I brought tea to his room, and he grumbled that his head was wound too tight. He drank in big gulps. He hadn’t been in the kitchen to see it, how Kyunghwan and Mommy had smiled at each other with a sliver
of shared laughter between their lips. “Come eat breakfast,” I said. He pushed the drained cup into my hand and waved me away.

  Daddy left the house without saying good morning or goodbye. When he was gone, Kyunghwan turned to me. “Solee, can you do your uncle a favor? Can you watch Jieun and Mila for a few hours?”

  “Where are you going?”

  Mommy stared out the kitchen window, even though there was nothing there except our tree.

  “Whul-ae Mountain. Haemi wants to collect more of those plants she loves. Can you be the ruler of the house while we’re gone?”

  “Can we go hiking tomorrow, only us?” I asked.

  “Of course, Miss Solee.” Kyunghwan squeezed my shoulder. “Just you and me.”

  I smiled at Mommy. I wanted her to see that I was his favorite, but she didn’t even look at me. She mussed my hair and glanced at the room where Jieun and Mila slept.

  “Are you really going to Whul-ae?” I asked.

  She bent down. She was pretty, with big eyes and pale skin the color of eggshells. “Where do you think I’d be going?”

  I didn’t know, still I thought she was lying.

  “Don’t worry so much.” She smiled. “I’ll be back soon with an armful of plants for us.”

  They didn’t come home for dinner. Jieun whined because I burned the rice and said she wanted oxtail soup, not dumplings. “Where’s Mommy?” Mila shrieked and shrieked. I gave them pear slices to make them stop, but they only fussed more, now with sticky hands. I told them they were brats and smacked my spoon against the table.

  I didn’t know where Daddy had gone. I wanted to tell him everything. How Kyunghwan and Mommy had left for Whul-ae. How I was supposed to be the only one hiking up mountains with him.

  In our room, Jieun asked for the goddess story. Even little Mila sighed happily when I began. “One day,” I said, “when the world was new, a goddess came down from the heavens. A man found her and fell in love. Knees mucky from kneeling in the dirt before her, he asked for her name. ‘Lee Haemi,’ she said. The man snatched her name from the air and swallowed it. He wrapped her in a piece of silk, scooped her up, and brought her home. Mommy is a goddess from the heavens, and sometimes, when she thinks of the sky, she fades away.”