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By Root 396 0

if surreptitiously, took the lunches the woman made. One misty morning, on the way to school, he gathered his siblings at the creek snaking by the cemetery. He dug a hole near a blooming weeping willow and made them bury their lunches. His brother tried to run away with his lunch, but Hyong-chol caught him and hit him. His sisters obediently buried their lunches. He thought the woman would no longer be able to make them lunch. But the woman went to town and bought new containers. They weren’t yellowish aluminum containers but special ones that kept the rice warm. Awed, his siblings touched the new containers cautiously. When the woman handed them their lunches, his brother and sisters looked at him. He would push his lunch toward the end of the porch and leave for school alone. His siblings would wait until he was out of sight, then go to school themselves, carrying their warm lunches in their hands. Perhaps having heard from someone that he wasn’t taking the lunches made by the woman and that he wasn’t eating, either, Mom came to school to find him. It was about ten days after the woman had come to live with them.

“Mom!” Tears spilled from his eyes.

Mom led him to the hill behind the school. She pulled up the legs of his pants to reveal his smooth calves, grabbed a switch, and hit them.

“Why aren’t you eating? Did you think I would be happy if you didn’t eat?”

Mom’s thrashing was harsh. He had been upset that his siblings weren’t listening to him, and now he couldn’t understand why Mom was whipping him. His heart brimmed with resentment. He didn’t know why she was so angry.

“Are you going to take your lunch? Are you?”

“No!”

“You little …”

Mom’s whipping became swifter. He didn’t admit it hurt, not once, and soon Mom grew tired. Instead of running away, he stood still, silent, and suffered her blows.

“Even now?”

The redness bloomed into blood on his calves.

“Even now!” he yelled.

Finally, Mom tossed the switch away. “God, you brat! Hyong-chol!” she said, embracing him and bursting into sobs. Eventually, she stopped, and tried to persuade him. He had to eat, she said, no matter who cooked the meals; she would be less sad if he ate well. Sadness. It was the first time he’d heard Mom say the word “sad.” He didn’t know why his eating properly would make Mom less sad. Since Mom had left because of that woman, it seemed to him that she would be sad if he ate the woman’s food, but she told him the opposite was true. She would be less sad if he ate, even if it was that woman’s food. No, he didn’t understand it, but since he didn’t want her to be sad, he said, grouchily, “I’ll eat it.”

“That’s my boy.” Mom’s eyes, filled with tears, lit up along with her smile.

“Then promise you’ll come home!” he insisted.

Mom faltered. “I don’t want to come home.”

“Why? Why?”

“I never want to see your father again.”

Tears ran down his cheeks. Mom acted as if she would really never come home. Maybe that was why she’d said he had to eat, no matter who cooked the food. He got scared.

“Mom, I’ll do everything. I’ll work in the fields and the paddies and sweep the yard and bring the water. I’ll grind the rice and make the fire. I’ll chase the mice and I’ll kill the chicken for the ancestral rites. Just come back!”

For ancestral rites or holidays, Mom always begged Father or any other male in the house to kill a chicken for her. Mom, who went into the fields after a heavy rain and propped up fallen beanstalks all day, who practically carried Father on her back to bring him home when he was drunk, who beat the pig’s behind with a stick when it escaped from the pen to usher it back inside, couldn’t kill a chicken. When Hyong-chol caught a fish from the creek, she wouldn’t touch it until it was dead. When every student was instructed to bring in the tail of a mouse to show that everyone had captured a mouse at home on mouse-catching days, other children’s moms caught a mouse and cut off the tail and wrapped it up in paper to take to school. But Mom shrank away even from hearing about it. A woman of sturdy build, she couldn’t bring herself