“I’m sorry, but I have no memory of my father.”
This was too painful. I closed my eyes as the horrifying images came flooding back. No matter how much I fought against them, the details were as vivid and brutal as in the moments they’d happened: Mi-ja touching her husband’s arm . . . Yo-chan in his little uniform . . . My husband when the bullet hit his head . . . Yu-ri’s screams . . . My little boy being snatched away . . . I would never heal or forget.
Mi-ja quietly cleared her throat, and I opened my eyes. “There was a time when you and I wished for this day.” She allowed herself a small smile. “Although we thought it would be Min-lee and Yo-chan. Still, this day has come. A son-in-law is a guest for one hundred years, meaning forever. It is time for you to put aside your anger, so these two, who have no responsibility for the past, can be wed. May you accept my son as part of your family for one hundred years.”
“I—”
She held up a hand to keep me from speaking. “As your daughter said, they do not need our permission any longer. We can only give them what they want. I had no desire to return to Jeju, but I did because Joon-lee wants to be surrounded by her family on her wedding day. I’ve made arrangements for them to be married in the Catholic church in Jeju City.”
I gasped. Christianity had grown on the island, and those people were even more fanatical than our government when it came to Shamanism. Joon-lee lowered her head as her hand went to finger the small cross hanging from her neck, which I’d been too stunned by Yo-chan’s presence and Mi-ja’s arrival to notice until now. That she was not just hurting me but also abandoning the traditions of our haenyeo family was more than I could absorb.
Mi-ja went on, unfazed. “The ceremony will be followed by a banquet and party here in Hado.”
Resentment bubbled to the surface. “You’ve taken so much from me,” I said to her. “Why do you have to take Joon-lee too?”
“Mother!”
In response to my daughter’s outburst, Mi-ja said, “Perhaps it would be best if the two mothers speak alone.”
“We want to stay,” Yo-chan said. “I want to make her understand.”
“Believe me,” Mi-ja said mildly. “This will be best.”
Yo-chan and Joon-lee were barely out the door before Mi-ja said, “You’ve never understood a single thing. You’ve carried your blame and hatred without ever asking me what really happened.”
“I didn’t have to ask you. I saw with my own eyes. That soldier picked up my son—”
“Do you think I don’t see that in my mind every single day? That moment is burned in my memory.”
She looked tortured, but what did that mean? I waited to see what she would say next.
“After my cowardice, I needed to atone,” she said at last. “When my husband began to travel and I knew he wouldn’t miss me”—an emotion flitted across her face, but she buried it before I could read it—“I moved back to Hado. I wanted to see if I could help you.”
“I saw no help from you.”
“I had to wait a long time. I thought there was no hope for me. Then Wan-soon died.”
“You came to the ritual rite. No one wanted you there.”
“You may not have wanted me, but the spirits of those you lost did. They spoke to me—”
“They spoke to me,” I corrected her.
“You change what happened, because you only see evil when you look at me.” Her quiet calm was having the opposite effect on me. She must have sensed this, because she kept her voice low and steady, like she was trying to lull me into believing her. “Consider what actually happened: Shaman Kim went into her trance. Yu-ri spoke first—”
“Yes, she spoke to me. I’d been waiting so long to hear from her. From any of them.”
“But they only spoke when I was there.” Mi-ja, perhaps sensing my doubt, went on. “They never came to you again, did they?”
My head throbbed as I thought about what she’d said. This couldn’t be right.
“Each of them said the same thing,” Mi-ja continued softly. “They had found forgiveness. Who was that message for, if not for me?”
I was innocent, they killed me, but I have found forgiveness.
I began to tremble. Maybe they had come for her.
“If the dead can forgive me, then why can’t you?” she asked.
“You could never understand, because you haven’t suffered the losses I have.”
“I’ve suffered in my own ways.”
I suspected she wanted me to question her, but I didn’t.
The moment lengthened until she finally said, “Even though you refuse to accept it, I’ve tried to make amends to you in every way I can. When Joon-lee won the competition, Teacher Oh came to me—”
“No, he didn’t—”
“Yes, he did. He explained that she’d been offered a place at a fine school in Jeju City but that the guilt-by-association system had tainted her. I took a ferry to the mainland and met with my husband. I told him I was willing to do whatever he wanted if he would see that she got her place. I reminded him how you and your family had helped bring him back to health after he escaped from the north. He still had those scars, you know, inside and out.”
“But he did nothing that terrible day to stop—”
“He didn’t know you were there, and then it was too late. When he found out . . . He’d beaten me before, but not like that. I ended up in the hospital. I stayed there for weeks, which is why I couldn’t come to you right away. Most of my injuries healed, but my hip has never been the same.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
The corners of her mouth turned up into the barest smile. “All that matters is that Sang-mun said he’d have Joon-lee erased from the guilt-by-association records so she could go to school. In exchange, I’d have to move to Seoul and live with him again. He told me that this was the only way he could remove the stain of my actions from his face. I accepted Sang-mun’s terms, which meant I would also have to accept the way he’d treated me from the day we met on the dock. Of course, I didn’t trust him, so I stayed in Hado until Teacher Oh confirmed Joon-lee was settled at her school.”
I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to feel. Pity? Maybe I did pity her in my own way, but what she’d told me made her sound even worse than I’d thought. For her own husband to blame her . . .
“So,” she said, breaking another long silence, “I did what I could for Joon-lee. Yo-chan and I visited her in Jeju City when we came to the island to see Sang-mun’s parents. When she arrived in Seoul—”
“You had Yo-chan hunt her down.”
“Hyng! It was far from that! They bumped into each other on the campus. I never expected them to fall in love, but they did. I saw it on their faces the first time he brought her to the apartment. It was fate, don’t you see?”
“Do Catholics believe in fate?” I asked.
She blinked rapidly. She could accept my hatred, but she wouldn’t allow me to mock her faith. Interesting.
“Joon-lee’s been on her own a very long time,” she said. “I’ve tried, when possible, to be a second mother to her. I love Joon-lee, and I’ve done my best to help her.”
“You mean you tried to steal her from me.”
Mi-ja’s cheeks colored, and she shook a finger in front of my face. “No, no, no.”
Good, I’d finally gotten to her. Maybe now she’d speak truthfully. But then she took a breath, her cheeks paled, and she returned to the unnerving calm she seemed to have perfected.
“There’s no point in trying to share my heart with you,” she said. “Your anger has poisoned you. You’ve become like Halmang Juseung. You touch everything with the flower of demolition. You’re killing all that is beautiful—our friendship, your love for Joon-lee, the happiness of a young couple.” She rose and padded across the floor. When she reached the door, she turned back to me. “Joon-lee told me that you’ve been taking care of my house. Why?”