Dusty orange globes tumble out, one after another.
“Persimmons,” Solee says.
“We didn’t steal them,” Jieun says.
“There was a tree with too many,” Mila says. “We took all the ones on the ground.”
“When did it turn into persimmon season?” I ask.
They do not respond. I touch my lips—closed—and I do not know if I’ve spoken aloud.
“Look at all these goodies,” I try again, eyeing the plump orbs full of juice. “So many!”
Eunhee cups one below her nose. She pulls off the hardened green cap and offers the fruit to me. It smells too ripe, almost turned.
I let them eat anyway. I wonder if their small bodies will feel the fermentation, if they will dream up fantasies. I want them always to be full, bursting.
I choose one with cracked skin and bite in. I have always loved persimmons. How the furry, bitter taste of the unripe turns so quickly into unreserved sweetness. The scent holds me, heavy on my tongue. “I have an idea. Let’s eat as many as we can,” I say.
“That’s silly.” Solee takes mousy, furtive bites. She is an almost-woman now and too serious.
“So what?” I show her my already empty hands, the mushed pulp filling my mouth.
The other girls try for me—Jieun and Mila and Eunhee. Green caps fall and fingers stain orange. Their cheeks bloat as they chew on the slippery fruit. I am on my fourth when—
“I can’t,” Eunhee says, her hands to her lips, her eyes curving into worry. My Eunhee, who is composed of features that belong only to me. “I don’t feel good.”
“I told you,” Solee says quietly.
“I was wrong. Mommy was wrong.”
The girls nod slowly, the ruined persimmons in their palms.
We lie on the grass with yellowed, sticky mouths. Eunhee pats her bloated belly, and Mila groans on her side, her lips burbling. Jieun, ever eating and thread thin, piles the rest of the fruit in the center of our circle.
“Sunday already,” I say. “What will I do when you go back to school tomorrow?”
“Cook! Sleep!” Mila says. “Draw!”
“Come with me, Mama.” Eunhee yanks fistfuls of grass. “I hate school.”
“Nursery isn’t real school,” Jieun says to our littlest. I cannot tell if she is teasing or reassuring or merely being herself. She raises her face to the sun. “I hope it stays warm so we can keep coming here.”
As the light hits the girls, their sprawling bodies, I see how dark they have become. Toasted and warm like chestnuts. Good. I have shored up my wretchedness, have spilled only cheer onto my children these past weeks.
Because they are too pure for me to ruin, I remind myself, because I don’t want to cast blame on them. Because I want to tend them like they are the best fruit.
Because I want them to love me.
Solee rolls onto her back. Staring at the color-changing sky, she touches my hand. “We’ll come home quickly, right after school. We’ll help you.”
I move to the other side of the circle, where Eunhee lies, listless. Solee is like Jisoo, with his chin and eyes, his personality. Too practical. Too full of knowing. Relentless no matter how absent I am. She is his spy, I think. I heave Eunhee onto my lap. She nestles her face into me, leaves a trail of tacky saliva on my skin.
Today, I see and hear clearly.
The river rushes below us. The water’s thundering sounds louder now that I am not wading through its rhythms. The heat clings to the afternoon air. My girls are like pasque flowers in their purples and reds. Mila braids the grass together, patterning the ground. Jieun hums a song that sounds almost familiar and nods at Solee to join. Eunhee, I hold her.
A bird calls from a high tree. I recognize it, iridescent with green-black feathers and a wisp of a crown rising from its head. I lift a hand into the air, trying to get its attention. A swallow lands on top of our persimmon mountain instead. Brown-bodied and common, swallows remind me of a man I no longer know.
Jieun twitters, pats a patch of dirt. The swallow ignores her, cocks his head, and eyes the fruit.
“Eat it,” I say.
He hops and ruffles. He nips at the persimmon’s wounds, where we bit and broke flesh. We watch as he pecks. We are mesmerized, all except Eunhee. She moves against me in her sunbaked languor.
“Eat more,” I say. “Eat, eat, eat.”
He rips open the skin with his sharp, hungry beak. Our little swallow. He will gorge. I will force him. Until his belly swells with fruit meat and drunkenness, until his wings fracture under his weight as he tries to fly back home.
I wonder who taught Solee to be so good. She reminds me that a man is coming for dinner. We are standing in our kitchen with its faucet and sink. With a mountain of the yeontan briquettes Jisoo has tried to invest in. We have so many to use now. We can heat our house through winter. We can cook all the food we want.
“Daddy said tonight was important.” Solee dumps a bowl of rice into a boiling pot. Bubbles break on the surface as the grains sift down. She arranges salted blue crabs in our prettiest bowls.
“Who’s coming again?” I ask.
“Get out the kimchi.” She reaches for the engraved chopsticks and spoons.
My child telling me what to do, a little expert.
“I already did,” another voice says from behind me. Jieun. She flattens the belt on her dress.
“What happened to your shorts?” They are wearing matching dresses, sun-dappled yellow with red ribbons in their hair. Solee’s top is too tight across her growing chest.
“Mother.” Solee touches my hand. She is always touching my hand. “Eunhee picked out a hanbok for you, the light green one with flowers at the bottom. She asked if you could wear it. She thinks you look pretty in it.”
“We can finish here,” Jieun says as she tidies the kimchi.
Solee lifts the lid of another pot on the stove. As the thick scent of meat rises, I remember that I braised the galbi ribs this morning. Solee stirs and Jieun hovers. They sigh and raise their heads up and up, not wanting even the slightest cloud of the savory smell to go to waste.
I take out a bowl of cooked chestnuts. “You can have one each,” I say, “for being such good helpers.”
They smile at me and exchange a look I don’t want to understand. “Thanks, Mommy,” one of them says, but I have already left.
I call Mila and Eunhee to my room. They come, yellow and fluttering. I touch the hem of the pale green hanbok they’ve laid out, where the pink- and orange-stitched flowers rise and fall in waves. I touch the wall. I touch my girls’ darkened foreheads. Wide-cheeked, full-lipped Mila—my sweet third, always passed over because of her quiet, dreamy wonder. How obedient she is, without me ever noticing. I squeeze her extra in apology.
Eunhee pushes between us. “Me too. I want hugs, too.”
“We can both have hugs,” Mila says, allowing her space. “Let’s get Mommy dressed.”
The air bristles, shifts. No, it has been a good day.
“Should Mommy wear some jewelry with her hanbok?” I ask. “My stylish, pretty girls.”
“Fancy time!” Mila swings Eunhee around the room as I unwrap and change. My two youngest are gentle, soft beings. They find my jewelry box and rattle it between them.
“I bought this hanbok with my own money. I earned it when I worked at the orphanage before I had Eunhee in my belly,” I say. “Isn’t that nice?”
Their heads are together, ignoring me. Their hands sift through the pieces I have left. A necklace found on a woman by the roadside during the war. My first earrings, smoothed stones made to look like jade. A present from Mother, when I was heavy with Solee. “For good luck,” she’d said. Always, luck.
I comb Mila’s slick-straight strands, Eunhee’s curls. My baby is the only one with hair like mine. She stares up at me as if I am hers alone; she holds a golden bracelet. Delicate chains link together, a real jade at its center. A small, smooth eye. “This, Mama?”
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nbsp; No. That’s not right.
“It’s too plain,” I say.
“Green and gold go nicely together.” Mila nods. “If the jewelry is too showy, it makes you look uglier. A fifth-form girl told me so.”
“Mama’s not ugly.” Eunhee points to the stone. “Green in bracelet, green in dress. Put it on, Mama.”
I have fattened and the bracelet no longer fits. “Should we try something else?” I ask.
“I can do it.” Eunhee squeezes my fingers together and forces the loop up to my wrist.
When the evening’s darkness rolls in, Jisoo comes home. “Mr. Baek will be here soon.” He pulls on a collared shirt, a jacket, and black socks with clear elastics.
“Must be a special man.” I run my fingers along his neckband, where his hair is razored off in a straight, flat line. I try to kiss him.
He rustles his shoulders. His elbow knocks into me. “What did you cook?”
“Galbi-jjim,” I say.
We walk to the dining room. The girls have laid out the dishes in perfect order. He sniffs, goes to the cabinet where he keeps his soju. He turns over two glasses and pours.
“They’ve prepared this.” He sets the soju on the table and points to the water cups. “They should be doing their homework.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Get the tea.”
Of course. The girls and their cold water. The adults and their need for heat.
“And—” He points to the shadows behind the papered door. Four humps are hunkered together, unmoving.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” I line up the chopsticks that are perfectly straight already. “It was hot today. I thought you’d want a cup of cold water. Take Mr. Baek somewhere else then.”
“Girls!”
The shadows don’t move.
Jisoo slides open the door. They scramble apart. My girls look at their father and then me, blinking slowly as if we’ve disturbed them from their slumber.
“Daddy.” Mila bows.
“We came to say hello before dinner,” Jieun says, moving closer. She knows she is his favorite, his plucky one.
He shakes his head, strokes their cheeks. “Go do your homework. We’ll be fine.”
As they scurry away, he calls, “Solee—make sure. I don’t want to see you out of your room until I say so.”
When we are alone, he turns. He is a good actor with everyone but me.
“You let them run around all weekend, and then they’re tired at school.”
“That’s not why you’re mad,” I say.
“Tonight’s important. Mr. Baek could hurt us if he wants to. You’re so—” He holds me by the head, his palms against my temples. I want him to squeeze harder, to crush this sudden headache wrapping itself around my brain. “You think only your world is collapsing.”
He walks the length of the room and back. “This is important.” His thick lips twitch, like a pair of mice rustling beneath a layer of hay.
I try to kiss him. He pushes me away.
“More tea?” I pour steaming cups for my husband and Mr. Baek. He is a man I do not recognize. A ring of hair salutes his shiny bald crown. His features are boring, except for his eyes. Thick, doughy lids bulge like overstuffed rice balls. His eyes below flit from object to object, like a drunken bee.
He slops the tea down as if it were soju. “Why don’t you leave us to talk? Go join the little girls?” He rubs my wrist when I refill his cup. I jerk away.
We three are too close together around our low, square table. Between Jisoo and Baek, the odors overwhelm me, the stink of their feet and oil. I want to tell this man he smells like ginkgo nuts left out in the sun.
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass a man in front of such a beauty.” Baek laughs and I see all his rotting teeth.
I pick up my chopsticks, sliver my meat. “Embarrass?”
“You don’t need to know.” Jisoo smiles, but I see his lips twitch. “It’s all business talk. You can go now.”
I don’t leave the table. Instead, I push my hand through Jisoo’s still-thick hair and slither toward him like a bar girl. “I would think my husband would be the one embarrassing you, Mr. Baek.”
“Maybe you should be stroking me, not him. I own his land, you know.” Baek touches my feet under the table. I feel his fingers clench my toes in a tight, cold grasp. “He owes me.”
“Enough.” I stand too quickly, drop my chopsticks. “Jisoo? What is this?”
He smiles along with Baek. A cracked, teeth-showing grin I want to ruin.
All men are disgusting creatures. I say it. “You are disgusting.”
Jisoo grabs my wrist and shakes it at our guest. “Apologize.”
“It’s fine.” Baek lounges, stretching his shoulders and rolling his neck. A laugh. “I like a woman with a bad mouth.”
“You can have her, then,” Jisoo says. He throws my wrist as if it weren’t a part of me. “Get out.”
I want to push my husband’s thick body into the earth until he’s buried and lost.
Instead, I leave.
I walk out of the house without my shoes, in rubber slippers and then bare feet. I always go to the same place. A rice field we don’t own. Where I once lay with Jisoo, where I went to cool my pregnant mind, where the neighbors scream when they see me and claim I am a ghost.
During my last pregnancy, I dreamed a baby would come out of this wet earth fully formed. A ghost of Kyunghwan. In the dream, the naked baby cried alone in the field. Wet, sallow, and alive. I ran to pick him up, fearing the rice field water would seep into his mouth and choke him.
But when I clutched him to me, his head began to tilt. It swung around and around, until the neck tightened into nothing, until his head rolled off with a squelch—in its place, a hole, an empty space. Slowly, a new bulge grew out. Not a face but something misshapen and puckish, with a wide-open mouth.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t leave. I kissed this new creature and searched for its tongue with my own.
Jisoo wakes me as he enters our room. Still dressed, he crawls closer until the sour smell of soju routs any lingering sleep from my head. He has gotten drunk with Baek, has found a bar girl who purrs as they please. I tuck my blanket tighter around me, but he tries to tunnel into the sheets like a dog.
“I meant it,” I say. “I was saying it to you.” I turn away from his drunken body as he collapses beside me. “You are disgusting.”
He doesn’t react the way I expect.
I open my eyes to his damp cheek against mine, his hands pulling on my underwear.
“Take it off,” he says. His belt buckle unclasps. A snake of leather whizzes through the air and onto the floor.
I don’t care. I go back to sleep.
I pretend he is someone else.
Kyunghwan.
I confuse my senses. I blur shapes, sounds, colors, tastes—the slight bridge of Kyunghwan’s nose, how the skin crinkles around it when he’s upset and, when he’s overjoyed, summons the pale pink insides of salmon. Incandescent. When I last saw him, he stood soaked in lamplight, glowing and flimsy. A swallow.
Both of these men are invading me. I see Jisoo’s eyes, violently dark, and a surge of sour lemon stings and scratches at the back of my throat.
I love you, when whispered by Kyunghwan, is pale green. By Jisoo, harsher, it is white.
“Look at me.”
A hand grips my face. The heat of a sweat-slicked body presses into me. It is Jisoo. It is always Jisoo.
The girls are gone at school. I will be alone all day, all week. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” I say to no one, to the crow in the tree above me. It preens with its wretched beak.
I am tired of red pepper paste stinging my cuts, staining the underbeds of my nails. The limp cabbages have been soaked and pummeled in enough paste for one day. I set the kimchi jar aside in a patch of darkness, where the leaves and branches above provide safe shade.
My fingers, tainted red, leave marks on the clay.
The sight of my carelessness, of myself, bothers me. My long, thickened joints and rumpled knuckles.
I want to plunge my hands into the dirt, to clean the red from them with the earth. Then I see it. I am still wearing the bracelet. That pale green eye.
I pull and tug, but it won’t come off. My hands are too fat, too swollen.
And I want it all to fall away—my bracelet, the red paste on my skin, the cottoning in my mind, the sounds and tastes of today and yesterday, and even the girls.
They, too, will slip from me, like leaves from a tree.
I will slip, too. Like a heel on a mossy rock—one misstep leading to another until the body is only a buoyant thing floating away with the stream. I can imagine it, the whiteness of arms and legs, of her face. The water, mineral and cloudy, paints her until she is no one, until she is only mine.
Laundry stretches from the tree to the house, folded over a length of twine. I trail my fingers from one sun-dried piece of cloth to another, leaving stains behind.
I stop at the row of jars lining the back wall of our home. Earthen brown, formed from clay and sand. They hold expected and unexpected items—soybean paste, rice, kimchi, but also seeds, another for spades, and one for the superstitions that come with each birth.
I find the kumchul rope that Jisoo hung around the house the last time I was pregnant. I pull off the red peppers and pine needles. It is difficult. He knotted each piece in tight with his eager hopes. It is bad luck to prepare the rope before birth, but he did it anyway, for every pregnancy, for each dream of a boy.
He has saved them all. And at the bottom of the jar, two carved ducks. I throw the birds into the air and listen as they plunk onto our neighbor’s land. I braid the four ropes together until there is a new object in my hand. Thick and sturdy, my fingers don’t meet when I hold its body. The bristles are smooth and the color pleases me. It reminds me of old barley fields, dried out in the summer heat.
I wrap this new rope around my arm and pull down until Kyunghwan’s bracelet is forced from my wrist, until it is nothing but a bit of metal and stone on the ground.
I stand beneath the tree. Gold glints in the grass. Burned skin turns red, a wet pile of kimchi waits for me.
If You Leave Me Page 33