Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [65]
She stops and looks at you. “Tell me something about Mom.”
“About Mom?”
“Yes, something about Mom that only you know about.”
“Name: Park So-nyo. Date of birth: July 24, 1938. Appearance: Short, salt-and-pepper permed hair, prominent cheekbones, last seen wearing a sky-blue shirt, a white jacket, and a beige pleated skirt. Last seen …”
Chi-hon’s eyes get smaller and finally close, pushed toward sleep.
“I just don’t get Mom. Only that she’s missing,” you say.
I have to go now, but I can’t seem to make myself leave. The whole day has gone by while I was sitting here.
Oh no.
I knew this was going to happen. This is something that would happen in a comedy. My goodness, it’s so chaotic. How can you laugh in this situation? Your eldest is saying something to you, putting his hat on over there. What is he saying? What? Oh, he wants to go to the ski slopes. You tell him he can’t. You’re telling him that, since your move back here, he hasn’t been able to keep up in school, and that he has to study with Dad during this break to make sure he can catch up when school starts again. If he doesn’t do that, it’s going to be hard to do well in school. While you’re talking to him, the baby, who’s just learning to walk, is about to eat some rice that’s fallen under the table. You must have eyes on your hands. You’re talking to your eldest and looking at him, but your hands are taking away the dust-covered rice from the baby. The baby is about to burst into tears, but then clings to your legs. You fluidly grab the baby’s hand as he is about to fall over, as you explain to your eldest why he has to study. Your eldest, looking around him, maybe not listening to you, yells, “I want to go back! I don’t like it here!” The girl runs out of her room, calling, “Mom!” She’s whining that her hair is tangled. She’s asking you to braid her hair, quickly, because she has to go to cram school. Your hands are now fixing your daughter’s hair. All the while you’re talking to your eldest.
My, all three children are hanging from you now.
My dear daughter, you’re listening to all three children at once. Your body is trained to the needs of the children. You seat your daughter at the table and brush her hair, and when the eldest says he still wants to go skiing, you tell him as a compromise that you will talk to his dad about it, and when the baby falls down, you quickly put the brush down to help him up and rub his nose, then you pick it back up and finish your daughter’s hair.
Then you turn to look out the window. You see me sitting on the quince tree. Your eyes meet mine. You mumble, “I’ve never seen that bird before.”
Your children look at me, too.
“Maybe it’s related to the bird that was dead in front of the gate yesterday, Mom!” The girl grabs your hand.
“No … that bird didn’t look like this.”
“Yes, it did!”
Yesterday, you buried the dead bird under this quince tree. The eldest dug a hole, and the middle child made a wooden cross. The baby made a lot of noise. You picked up the bird and folded its wings as you slipped it into the hole that had been dug by the eldest, and your daughter said, “Amen!” Afterward, the girl called her dad at work and told him all about the burial. “I made him a wooden cross, too, Dad!”
The wind has knocked down the wooden cross.
Listening to your children’s chatter, you come over to the window to take a better look at me. Your children follow you to the window and stare at me. Oh, stop looking at me, babies. I’m sorry. When you children were born, I cared more about your mom than about you three. The girl stares at me, her hair braided neatly. When you, my granddaughter, were born, your mom couldn’t breastfeed you. When your older brother was born, she was discharged from the hospital in less than