Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [84]
“Mom had pain in her nose, too?” you asked, your voice dull, and Father said that Mom couldn’t sleep when the seasons changed because she would be coughing. He said, “It’s my fault. It was because of me that your mom didn’t have time to look after herself.” On any other day, you would have said, “Father, it’s nobody’s fault,” but on that day, the words “Yes, it’s your fault” jumped out of your mouth. Father drew in his breath sharply on the other end of the phone. He didn’t know you were calling from the airport.
“Chi-hon,” Father said after a long pause.
“Yes.”
“Your mom isn’t even in my dreams anymore.”
You didn’t say anything.
Father was quiet for a moment, then started speaking of the old days. He said that one day they cooked a scabbard fish that Hyong-chol had sent down. Mom dug up a radish topped with green leaves from the hillside garden, brushed off the dirt, peeled it with a knife, cut it into big chunks, spread it on the bottom of a pot, and steamed the scabbard fish, which turned red from all the seasonings she added. Mom plucked a plump piece of fish and set it on Father’s bowl of rice. Father wept as he recalled that one spring day, when they shared for lunch the scabbard fish that Mom had cooked in the morning and, stomachs full, napped together, stretched out. He said that back then he didn’t know that this was happiness. “I feel bad for your mom. I complained I was sick all the time.” It was true. Father was either away from home or, when he was home, sick. He seemed to be remorseful about that now.
“When I started getting sick, the same thing must have been happening to your mom.”
Was Mom unable to say that she was in pain, pushed aside by Father’s illnesses? Because she took care of everyone in the family, Mom was someone who couldn’t be sick. When he turned fifty, Father started taking blood-pressure medication, and his joints ached, and he developed cataracts. Right before Mom went missing, Father had a series of surgical procedures done on his knee, over a year, and because it was difficult for him to urinate, he had an operation on his prostate. He collapsed from a stroke and went to the hospital three times in one year, and each time he was released fifteen days or a month later, and the cycle was repeated. Every time this happened, Mom slept at the hospital. The family hired an aide for Father, but at night Mom had to sleep there. On the first night the aide slept over at the hospital, Father went into the bathroom, locked the door, and refused to come out. Mom, who was staying with Hyong-chol, got a phone call from the aide, who didn’t know what to do about Father’s sudden rebellion. Mom went to the hospital at once, even though it was in the middle of the night, and soothed Father, who was still locked inside the bathroom.
“It’s me. Open the door, it’s me.”
Father, who had refused to open the door no matter what anyone said, opened the door when he heard Mom’s voice. He was crouching next to the toilet. Mom helped him out to his bed; Father gazed at her for a while and finally fell asleep. He said he didn’t remember any of this. The next day, you asked him why he had done that, and he asked you, “You mean I did that?” And, worried you would continue to question him, he quickly closed his eyes.
“Mom has to rest, too, Father.”
Father had turned away. You knew that he was pretending to sleep but listening to you and Mom. Mom said she thought he had done it because he was afraid. He woke up, and he wasn’t at home but at the hospital, where there were only strangers and no family,