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“Hara-ya. Look at me.”
I raise my eyes to Wansu’s. Her emotionless gaze steadies me in a way that I find surprising.
“I will tell you this not because I want your sympathy or your forgiveness, but because you do deserve to know. When I was in high school, I met your father. He was very kind to me.” He was a predatory jerk who took advantage of you, I think. “I was lonely. My parents worked very hard, very long hours, and I did not see much of them. I became enamored of Lee Jonghyung and we made you. When I told my parents . . . my father . . . he did not understand.”
The pause said a lot. He beat her. I know this without her saying it. There’s a shadow of pain in her eyes that I recognize. I see it sometimes when I look in the mirror. There’s a stain that the betrayal of your parent leaves on your heart. Pat never raised a hand against me, but he hurt me nonetheless. Sympathy stirs and I try to quash it. Sympathy leads to forgiveness and I’m not there yet. I don’t want to be there yet. Still, I want to know more. I’m so thirsty for every morsel of information that I’d do anything to keep Wansu talking. “Your mother? Did she understand?”
That ghost smile appears again. “She understood even less. I told them that I would raise you myself but I did not know what that meant. There are not many jobs for girls who have no education and no skills. I tried for twelve weeks but I could not feed you enough. You were sick and tiny. A church family I cleaned for had fostered a baby that was adopted by a foreign family. The foreign family was very well off. The foster mother would show the infant pictures of the foreign family’s large home and many cars. I thought, if I cannot have that life, my daughter can, so one night I went to the police, and when no one was looking, I set you at the gate. I watched for forty-two minutes until a police officer came out for a smoke break and found you.”
Forty-two minutes. She remembers the exact amount of time. My eyes grow tight and hot. “Then you were married and gained Yujun.” And no longer missed me.
Wansu sets her cup down and clasps her hands together. One finger rubs along a thin silver band. “What good would it have done if I searched for you and found you? Would you have me take you from your mother? Would you have me disrupt your life? Would anything have changed for you?”
I rub one hand down the side of my face. “I think so.” But I don’t know if I’m right.
“I cannot change the past, but I would like it if we can have a new future. In whatever way you want to go forward, I will follow.”
That’s a strange way of putting it. My brow furrows. “What do you mean by that?”
Her eyes flick to the phone on the table. Yujun’s phone. It’s not in a case but somehow she recognizes that it is his. “It has not escaped my attention that you and Yujun share . . . soft feelings for one another.”
I lift my chin. “So what if we do?”
“Do you remember the young couple who were being mourned the same day your father was?”
“Yes, but . . .” The image of the tall, elegant woman sweeping by in the big hat flashes in front of my eyes. “That was you at the funeral home, wasn’t it?”
She nods tersely. How funny. I’d been upset that I hadn’t experienced an inkling of recognition with any of the women I’d met these past ten days, but there was a spark and I’d missed it. I had known something was different about the woman in black. At the time, I had believed it was because she was a striking figure, but . . . something in her must have spoken to something in me. An unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, feeling spreads through me.
“That couple died because the public disapproval of their union was so strong, they could not bear it. If I acknowledge you, then you will become my daughter and the sister of Choi Yujun.”
My heart bumps against my chest as understanding sets in. In order to be a Choi, I have to give up Yujun. I can keep him as Yujun from Seoul forever, but if I do, I can’t be a part of the family I was born into.
I leave Wansu’s place without any clarity of purpose. I’ve found everything I came to find—Lee Jonghyung, Wansu, why I was abandoned, why she never searched for me—but I don’t feel better. My heart still aches. I don’t suddenly feel like I belong. My stripes and polka dots are all mixed up.
