was an ocean sunfish. You were reminded of a character in a book whose title you couldn’t remember. She was from a seaside town, and she would go to the huge aquarium in the city every time she had a problem, to talk to the ocean sunfish swimming inside. She would complain that her mother took all her life savings and went off with a younger man to a different city, but then, at the end, would say, But I miss my mom; you’re the only one I can tell this to, sunfish! You wondered if that was the same fish. Thinking it was a unique name for a fish, you asked, “Really, it’s called an ocean sunfish?” And the vendor said, “We also call it Mola mola!” As soon as you heard the words “Mola mola,” the tension you had been feeling inside the library dissipated. Why did you think of Mom as you wandered among the heaps of seafood, which cost a third of what they did in Seoul: live octopus with heads bigger than a human’s, fresh abalone, scabbard fish, mackerel, and crab? Was it the ocean sunfish that made you think of Mom for the first time at a fish market? That made you recall preparing skate at home, by the well, next to Mom? You could see Mom’s frozen hands peeling the brownish mucus stuck to the meat. You stopped at a store that had a boiled octopus as big as a child’s torso hanging from the ceiling and bought a live octopus for fifteen thousand won. You bought some abalone—though they were farm-raised, they had been fed different kinds of seaweed. When you said you were going to Seoul, the vendor offered to put your purchase in an ice chest for an extra two thousand won. As you walked out of the fish market, you realized you still had a lot of time left before your flight. Holding the Braille volumes in one hand and the ice chest in the other, you hopped into another cab and told the driver that you wanted to go to the beach. It took only three minutes to get there. The November beach was empty except for two couples. The beach was big. As you walked toward the water, you almost fell twice. You sat down on the fine sand and stared at the sea. After a while, you turned around to look at the stores and apartment buildings facing the ocean across the road. People who lived here could jump into the ocean on a hot night, then go home and take a shower. You absent-mindedly took out a Braille volume from the paper bag and opened it. The white dots on the pages sparkled in the sunlight.
Tracing your finger along the indecipherable Braille in the sun, you wondered who had taught you to read. It was your second-eldest brother. The two of you lying on your stomachs on the porch of the old house. Mom sitting next to you. Your brother, a gentle soul, caused the least trouble among your siblings. Unable to disobey Mom’s orders to teach you how to read, his expression bored, he directed you to write numbers and vowels and consonants over and over. You tried to write with your dominant left hand. Every time, your brother rapped the back of your hand with a bamboo ruler. He was doing Mom’s bidding. Even though it was more natural for you to favor your left hand and foot, Mom told you that there would be many things to cry about in life if you used your left hand. When you used your left hand to scoop rice in the kitchen, Mom wrenched the scoop out of your hand and put it in your right hand. If you tried to use your left hand anyway, she would grab the scoop and slap your left hand, saying, “Why won’t you listen to me?” Your left hand became swollen. Even so, when your brother wasn’t watching, you quickly switched the pencil to your left hand and drew two circles, one on top of the other, for the “8.” Then you switched the pencil back to your right. Your brother, who knew that you had stuck together two circles as soon as he saw your “8,” told you to put your palms out and slapped them with the ruler. As you were learning how to read, Mom looked over your crouched form on the porch, while she mended socks or peeled garlic. When you learned to write your name and Mom’s name and read books hesitantly before enrolling in school, your mom’s face bloomed