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By Root 339 0

and the first to breastfeed. I was your age when I had you. When I saw your red, sweaty face, eyes shut, for the first time … People say that when they have their first child they’re surprised and happy, but I think I was sad. Did I really have this baby? What do I do now? I was so afraid that at first I couldn’t even touch your squirmy little fingers. You were holding those tiny hands in such tight fists. If I opened your fists up one finger at a time, you smiled. They were so small that I thought, If I keep touching them they might disappear. Because I didn’t know anything. I got married at seventeen, and when I didn’t get pregnant until I was nineteen, Aunt kept saying I probably wouldn’t be able to have children, so when I found out I was pregnant with you, the first thing I thought was, Now I don’t have to hear that from her—that was what made me the most excited. Later, I was happy to see your fingers and toes grow every day. When I was tired, I went over to you and opened your fingers. Touched your toes. When I did that, I felt energized. When I first put shoes on you, I was really excited. When you toddled over to me, I laughed so much; even if someone had spilled out a heap of gold and silver and jewels in front of me, I wouldn’t have laughed like that. And how do you think I felt when I sent you to school? When I pinned your name tag and a handkerchief on your chest, I felt so grown up. How can I compare the happiness I got watching your legs get thicker with anything else? Every day, I sang, Grow and grow, my baby. And then, one day, you were bigger than me.”

He gazed at Mom as the words spilled out like a confession. She rolled over onto her side to face him and stroked his hair. “Even though I said, ‘I hope you grow tall and big,’ when you got bigger than me I was scared, even though you were my child.”

He cleared his throat and turned to stare at the ceiling again, to hide his watery eyes.

“Unlike other children, you didn’t need me to tell you anything. You did everything by yourself. You are handsome, and you were good in school. I’m so proud, and sometimes I’m amazed that you came from me.… If it weren’t for you, when would I have the chance to come to Seoul?”

He resolved then that he would earn a lot of money so that when Mom came back to this city she would be able to sleep in a warm place. That he wouldn’t allow her to sleep in the cold again. Some time passed. In a low voice, Mom said, “Hyong-chol.” He heard her voice from far away, half asleep. Mom reached out and stroked his head. She sat up and looked over his sleeping figure and touched his forehead. “I’m sorry.” Mom quickly took her hand away to wipe her tears, but they dropped on his face.

When he woke up at dawn, his mom was sweeping the floor of the office. He tried to stop her, but Mom said, “I might as well, I’m not doing anything,” and, as if she would be punished if she weren’t doing anything, washed the floor with a wet mop and thoroughly cleaned the employees’ desks. Mom’s breath was visible, and the top of her swollen foot was pushing against her blue sandal. As they waited for the nearby bean-sprout-soup place to open so they could eat breakfast, Mom’s hands made the office gleam.

This house is still here. His eyes grow wide. He has been poking around the narrow alleys filled with parked cars, looking for Mom. Now, as the sun hangs low in the sky, he finds himself in front of the house where he rented a room thirty years ago. He reaches out to touch the gate, amazed. The sharp arrowlike steel spikes on top of the gate are still there, the same as thirty years ago. The woman who once loved him but ended up leaving him would sometimes hang a plastic bag filled with Chinese buns on the gate when he wasn’t there. All the other houses nearby have been converted to townhouses or studio apartments.

He reads the ad posted on the gate:

100,000 WON PER MONTH,

WITH A DEPOSIT OF 10 MILLION WON.

150,000 WON PER MONTH POSSIBLE

WITH A DEPOSIT OF 5 MILLION WON.

8 pyong, standard sink, shower in bathroom.

Close to Namsan, good for