by Sonia Patel
Her eyes find mine, and she throws her hands up to cup her mouth. Her face scrunches a little. She approaches me, slow, like maybe she thinks I’m an apparition or a dream.
I see the tears falling freely from her eyes. She’s smiling at me the way she did all those years ago. Now she standing in front of me.
She’s real.
I count her laugh lines. Three on either side of each eye. Just the right number.
She extends her shaky hands up to cradle my face, crying hard but quiet. One of her hands slides to the back of my head, caresses it.
My eyes slowly fill with tears.
“My little Kyung-seok, not so little anymore,” she whispers.
Suddenly my body convulses and then not just my eyes, but my whole body, cries for the ten years I’ve missed with her.
She holds my face and wipes my tears with her thumbs. She reaches into her purse and brings out a handkerchief with a stitched border.
Green, single thread…
She dabs my cheeks. “Here, use this. I made it for you.”
I take the soft white cloth and blot my face. I flip it over, and that’s when I see the willow tree, the same as the one she stitched on Dad’s handkerchief. I pull his out of my pocket to show her.
She takes it and holds it to her heart. “So now you have two,” she whispers.
I nod.
“I’m sorry for everything,” she says. She dries her face with Dad’s handkerchief. “I’m here now,” she whispers. She wraps her arms around me and presses her cheek on my chest because that’s how much taller I am than her. She squeezes me in the tightest bear hug. “I’ve missed you so much, Kyung-seok.”
I lift one arm up, drape it around her, then the other. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want her to let go. I try to think of what to say, but my brain can’t formulate thoughts. Even if it could, my vocal cords and mouth aren’t functioning anyway.
Ever so gently she pulls away. She takes my hands in hers. More tears fall from our eyes, but neither of us wipes them away.
“So many years,” she whispers. She looks at my hands, strokes my dragon tat, then my tiger tat. “We’ve got each other now. We’re safe,” she says.
“Mom,” I say in a wobbly voice. “I-I…”
She shakes her head and smiles. “It’s ok,” she says. “We’ve got time. All the time in the world. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” She touches my cheek, then whispers, “Did you eat?”
I smile inside, and out, because that question from my mom sounds like beautiful music to my ears. I tap my thigh once, twice, but make myself resist the third. My heart speeds up, and it’s harder to breath. That’s how difficult it is not to tap the lucky third time. But I endure because it’s time for a change. A good change. And I’m hopeful—ready—for my new life.
New life just around the bend.
More happiness than I can comprehend.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am forever grateful to the people who helped me navigate my Bloody Seoul journey.
My deepest thanks and bow to the following people:
Everyone at Cinco Puntos Press for their faith in my stories.
Lee Byrd for your vision and wise and straight-up editing. You’re still always right!
J.L. Powers for your multiple readings and insightful comments that helped me see things I couldn’t.
Bobby Byrd, John Byrd, Jill Bell, and Mary Fountaine for the behind-the-scenes work that made this book a reality.
Gregory Lee and Hyunjin Han for the cultural guidance that allowed me to keep this book more real than I could’ve otherwise.
Annis Lee Adams, John Manaligod, and Jaclyn Marie Brown for offering fresh perspectives that helped me shape the book.
Zeke Peña for the incredible cover art that, for a third time, left me speechless, jaw dropped.
James Manaligod, Maya Manaligod, Joaquin Manaligod, and Hansa Patel. My angels.
SONIA PATEL knows teenagers inside and out. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, trained at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii, she has spent over fifteen years listening to and understanding the psyche of teenagers from all walks of life. She chose South Korea as the setting for her third YA novel, Bloody Seoul, because of her extensive treatment experience with Korean and Korean American teens on Oahu (and her love for the Korean gangster film genre).
As a writer, Sonia is passionate about giving voice to the underrepresented youth she treats. Her YA debut featuring a Gujarati-Indian American teen, Rani Patel In Full Effect, was a finalist for the Morris Award and was listed on YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults and Kirkus’ Reviews Best Teen Books of 2016. Her second YA novel, with a Gujarati-Indian trans boy and a mixed ethnicity girl, Jaya and Rasa: A Love Story, was selected for the 2019 In the Margins Book Award Recommended Fiction Book List. She’s also been a teenage girl herself, growing up on Moloka’i as a first generation Gujarati-American.