Jin looks increasingly bewildered as he tells this story, as if he still doesn’t understand why Mae would want to leave.
“I made my mistakes a long time ago. Almost twenty years ago. And I did everything I could to be a better husband after that. I even went to church, and she sat right next to me every damn week, nodding while the reverend talked about forgiveness and compassion, as if she even understood what those things were.” Jin waves his glass in the air, dousing the rug with his drink. “You know what she actually said to me that day? She said she never forgave me for any of it. Never.”
“So you heard that and just went back to doing the exact same thing she couldn’t forgive in the first place? Do you even understand what happened because of you?”
Jin exhales, and his face collapses like an old jack-o’-lantern. Tears squeeze out from his eyes as he shakes his head. “I never meant … those men…”
He’s only seen his father cry once before, on the night that Reverend Sung came to their house. He felt no more pity for him then than he does now. Kyung’s hands are about to break, clenched purple at the thought of what’s missing from all of this.
“What about me?” he asks. “You never tried to make it up to me. Not once did you ever try. All this time, I’ve been watching you with Ethan, wondering why you seem like a completely different person with him.”
“You know what it’s like spending your entire life trying to make up for something you can’t take back?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I was different with Ethan because he let me be.”
“I would have let you.”
“You.” Jin swats the air with his hand. “You were a lost cause. I saw the way you looked at me. You were never going to forgive me for any of it. You had hate in your eyes when you were a boy, and you still have hate in your eyes now.” He slams his glass on the table and gets down on his knees, stretching his arms out to the sides. “So just do it already. Do what you came here to do. Hit me. Kill me. I don’t care anymore.” He strikes himself on the side of the head. “Make this go away.” He strikes himself again, harder this time. “Make me stop seeing it. Make me stop seeing what they did to her.”
Kyung gets out of his chair as Jin reaches for his leg. He stands in front of the fireplace, his hands shaking as he scans the objects on the mantel. There was once a globe on the left, a heavy marble globe attached to an iron pedestal. He studied it so often as a teenager that he eventually forgot to look for it, assuming his weapon of choice would be there when the time finally came. He didn’t notice it was gone until now, replaced by an antique clock.
“Please make it stop.”
In the mirror above the mantel, he sees Jin kneeling on the rug behind him, still begging to be hit. Kyung sizes up the clock, estimating the weight of its metal guts and case. As he reaches for it, he imagines what it would feel like to release all of his rage at once. It would only take one swing, one perfect swing, to end this. He inches his fingers closer, steeling himself to do what he came here to do, what his father keeps screaming at him to do. But as he touches the edge of the clock, he hears it again. The crack of the jar as it lands on the back of Connie’s head. He flinches at the sound of it, like the sharp thwack of a bat connecting with a ball. The act of raising a hand to someone, it’s the worst thing Kyung has ever done, the worst thing he’s ever felt. And the power that surged through him in that moment—it made him feel like he had some semblance of control, but it lasted no longer than an instant before he lost it again. What if he hits his father and the rage inside him doesn’t go away? Or what if it does go, only to be replaced by something else he can’t live with?
“Why are you just standing there?” Jin shouts, hitting himself again. “This is what you want to do, so just do it already.”
He came here because of a promise, a choice to make good on a promise that altered the entire trajectory of his life. But not once did Kyung stop to think about his life in the seconds and hours, the days and years afterward. All of that comes rushing at him now. With both of his parents gone, he knows he’ll inherit their hopelessness, the same hopelessness that sent his mother headfirst into a tree, that has his father kneeling on the floor, begging for his own life to end. He’ll never experience another moment in which change seems possible. He’ll never have a reason to believe in his capacity to be better than what he is. Kyung looks at the mantel again, and he understands there’s a different choice to be made. Pick up the clock, and he’ll never escape this darkness. Leave it, and he still has a chance.