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By Root 381 0

slit with the knife in the skin of the skate with her red, frozen hands, your young fingers pulled the membranes off. It would have been easier if they came off in one piece, but they would fall off in sections. Mom would make another slit in the fish, and the whole process would be repeated. It was a typical winter scene, you and your mom squatting by the well that was covered in thin ice, skinning the skate. The cleaning of the skate repeated itself each year, as if someone were rewinding film. One winter, Mom gazed at your frozen hands as you sat across from her and declared, “Who cares if we don’t skin it,” stopped what she was doing, and confidently cut the fish into chunks. It was the first time that the ancestral-rite table had seen a skate with its skin on. Father asked, “What’s wrong with this skate?” Mom replied, “It’s the same skate, just not skinned.” Father’s sister grumbled, “You have to put care into food for the ancestral rites.” “Then you try peeling it,” Mom retorted. That year, whenever something bad happened, someone brought up the unpeeled skate. When the persimmon tree didn’t bear fruit; when one of your brothers, who was playing a stick-toss game, got poked in the eye by a flying stick; when Father was hospitalized; when cousins fought—Father’s sister grumbled that it was because Mom hadn’t bothered to skin the skate for the ancestral rites.

Mom placed the steamed octopus on the chopping block and tried to slice it. But the knife kept slipping, just as it had when she was slicing the radish. “I’ll do it, Mom.” You took her knife again, sliced the hot radish-scented octopus, dipped a piece in red-pepper-and-vinegar sauce, and held it out to Mom. This was what she’d always done for you. Each time, you’d tried to pick it up in the air with your own chopsticks, but Mom would say, “If you eat it with your chopsticks, it doesn’t taste as good. Just open your mouth.” Now Mom tried to lift it in the air with her own chopsticks, and you said, “If you do that it won’t taste as good, just open your mouth.” You pushed the piece of octopus into her mouth. You tried one, too. The octopus was warm and squishy and soft. You wondered, Octopus for breakfast? But you and Mom ate it with your fingers, standing in the kitchen. As you chewed on the octopus, you watched Mom’s hand as she tried to pick up a piece and dropped it. You put a piece in her mouth for her. Soon she gave up trying to eat the octopus herself and waited for you to plop it in her mouth. Her hand seemed unfocused. Eating the octopus, you said, “Mother.” It was the first time you had called her “Mother.” “Mother, let’s go to Seoul today.” Your mom replied, “Let’s go up into the mountains.”

“The mountains?”

“Yeah, the mountains.”

“Is there a hiking trail from here?”

“I’ve made one myself.”

“Let’s go to Seoul and go to the hospital there.”

“Later.”

“Later when?”

“When your niece’s entrance exam is over.” She was referring to Hyong-chol’s daughter.

“You can go to the hospital with me instead of with Hyong-chol.”

“I’m fine. It’ll be fine. I’m going to the doctor of Chinese medicine for it. I’m getting physical therapy, too, because they said something’s wrong with my neck.”

You couldn’t persuade Mom—she kept insisting that she would go later. Then she asked you what the world’s smallest country was.

The smallest country? You stared at Mom, a stranger asking you a random question: What is the smallest country in the world? Mom asked you to get rose rosary beads for her if you ever went to that country.

“Rose rosary beads?”

“Prayer beads made of rosewood.” She looked at you listlessly.

“Do you need prayer beads?”

“No, I just want prayer beads from that country.” Mom stopped and let out a deep sigh. “If you ever go there, get me a set.”

You were quiet.

“Because you can go anywhere.”

Your conversation with Mom stopped there. She didn’t say another word in the kitchen. After the breakfast of steamed octopus, you and your mom left the house. You went across a few paddies in the mountains that rimmed the back of the village and stepped onto a