Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [64]
“Are you asking me if you can go? Why are you even asking, when you’ve already decided you’re going? How can you do this?” Your hand holding the phone is shaking. “There was a dead bird in front of my gate today. I just have this bad feeling. I think something’s happened to Mom! Why haven’t we found her already? Why? And how can you go away? Why is everyone acting this way? Are you going to act like that, too? We don’t know where Mom is in this freezing cold, and you’re all doing whatever you feel like doing!”
Honey, calm down. You have to understand your sister. How can you say this to her when you know how she’s been for the past several months?
“What? You want me to take care of it? Me? What do you think I can do with three kids? You’re running away, right? Because it’s dragging you down. You were always like that.”
Honey, why are you doing this? You seemed to be doing fine. Now you’ve slammed down the phone, and you’re sobbing. The baby is crying with you. The baby’s nose gets red. Even his forehead. The girl is crying, too. The eldest comes out of his room and looks at the three of you crying. The phone rings again. You quickly pick up the phone.
“Sister …” Tears fall from your eyes. “Don’t go! Don’t go! Sister!”
In the end, she tries to soothe you. It’s not working, so now she says she will come over. You put down the phone and sit there silently, looking down. The baby climbs onto your lap. You hug him. The girl touches your cheek. You pat her on the back. The eldest crouches over his math homework in front of you, to make you happy. You stroke his hair.
Chi-hon comes in, pushing through the open gate. “Oh, little Yun!” Chi-hon says, and takes the baby from you. The baby, who is shy around other people, struggles to get back to you from his aunt’s embrace.
“Stay with me a little bit,” Chi-hon says, as she tries to cuddle with the baby, but he bursts into tears. Chi-hon hands you the baby. Once in his mom’s arms, the baby smiles at his aunt, tears still dangling from his eyelashes. Chi-hon shakes her head and strokes the baby’s cheek. You sisters are sitting quietly together. Chi-hon, who came running over in this snow because she couldn’t calm you over the phone, doesn’t say anything now. She looks awful: her face is swollen, her eyes are puffy. She looks like she hasn’t slept well in a while.
“Are you going to go?” you ask your sister after a long silence.
“I won’t.” Chi-hon lies on the sofa, facedown, as if she has just put down a heavy load. She’s so tired that she can’t control her body. Poor thing. She pretends she’s strong, but she’s all soft inside. What is she going to do, running herself into the ground like that?
“Sister! Are you sleeping?” You shake Chi-hon’s shoulder but then pat her. You gaze at your sleeping sister. Even when you fought as children, you two would settle down soon enough. When I came in to scold you, you would be sleeping, holding hands. You go into your bedroom for a blanket and cover her with it. Chi-hon frowns. That child, so careless. How could she drive all this way when she’s so tired?
“I’m sorry, sister …,” you murmur, and Chi-hon opens her eyes and looks at you.
Chi-hon says, as if she’s talking to herself, “I met his mother yesterday. The woman who would become my mother-in-law if we got married. She’s living with her daughter. Her daughter runs a small restaurant called Swiss. She’s single. Their mother’s very small and gentle. She follows her daughter around everywhere, calling her Sister. The daughter feeds her mother and gets her to bed and washes her and says, ‘What a good girl you are,’ and so the mother started calling her Sister. His sister said to me, ‘If it’s because of our mom that you haven’t gotten married yet, don’t worry about it.’ She told me that she was going to continue living with their mom, acting like her older sister. She’s going on vacation in January, but she arranged for their mom to stay at a nursing home. So that’s the only time I have to come and look in, when she’s not here.