“Even though Lee Jonghyung did not raise you, he is still connected to you by blood. I could not doom your future by not honoring his death. That is why I paid for his funeral and placed him here in this place of peace. In the next life, we will pray that he will have a better life so that he does not wrong another you. I have brought my family here as well.” She points to the rectangular niche next to Lee Jonghyung. “These are my parents. They died before I married Choi Yujun’s father. We were dating at the time and he paid for their funeral, sat three days with me, and after asked me to marry him. He said I had lived with the burden of being alone for so long and would I allow him to take care of me.”
He sounds like Yujun. That’s something he would say. Would you allow me to do this small thing for you, Hara?
“And I said yes. I did love him—do love him—” she corrects herself. “Before I said yes, I told him about you, about my past. I did not want those secrets to unravel later. He said we should look for you and he would place his entire fortune in my hands to do so.”
I suck in a breath at this. Wansu had mentioned this at Chuseok, but I never asked her about it further. I wanted to put that whole awful memory behind me.
Wansu hardly notices my response. She is lost in her past. “I accepted both the offer of marriage and the offer of aid. We found you after a long search. It is only because the police recorded your discovery. We traced you from the police to the agency that took you in. If I had left you anywhere else, you would have been lost to me forever.” Wansu doesn’t cry, but her voice is thick with emotion. “The investigators sent me photos of you and Ellen, and you were happy, Hara. You were very happy, and I did not believe I had a right to that happiness. I did not believe I had the right to hurt another woman by taking her child. What you are going through now is because of my decisions, and they have not been good. If it is Yujun you want, I will not stand in your way, but the path for the two of you will not be easy. “
Yujun said that his mother would come around with time, and maybe that’s true or maybe in this, the valley of remembrance, she is recalling all that she has lost in her life. Her parents, her first love, her only child. She has had gains in her life, but sometimes it is the absence of things that sits heavy in your heart for far too long.
“Why did you not have another child?” I ask, a question that’s been weighing on me for some time.
“I could not have another. We tried, but the seed never bore fruit. I think it is because I gave you up. The gods decided that I did not deserve another child, but I did receive Yujun and I am content. It did not matter to Choi Yusuk that I could not bear more children.”
“He had Yujun.”
She nods. “I am not the best mother or best wife. If Choi Yusuk were sitting at the chairman’s desk, the company would not be the same, but there are women out there who cannot get jobs because they do not go to the right school or they are single mothers or they have made mistakes in the past. If I can help one of them, then maybe those sins in my past can be forgiven and my next life will be different.”
My throat is hot with emotion and the space behind my eyes burns. I used to never cry, and then I came here and it’s like the plug in the dam has been popped loose. I will never stop drinking that stupid wheatgrass smoothie, and if she wants to use forks and spoons at her Korean table, that’s what we’re going to use. Chopsticks can go to hell.
I reach for Wansu’s hand, my eomeo-nim. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“You should come whenever you feel like it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
One of Ellen’s best dishes is pork sandwiches. She’d put the pork in the slow cooker in the morning, and by the time I got home, the meat would be falling apart in a bed of fragrant juices. She’d toast big sesame buns while I forked the tender meat into smaller bits. Ellen liked her sandwich with relish and would spoon a giant portion from a store-bought jar. I’m in Korea and the best kind of relish here has to be made with gochujang, the ubiquitous red pepper paste with its twin pleasures of sweet and hot.
Mrs. Ji watches with interest as I set a heavy steel pot on the gas stove in the back kitchen. I go through the routine of double washing my hands before gloving up. I’ve two cuts of meat: the shoulder and the loin. Pulled pork, the kind that Ellen made, comes from the shoulder. I don’t have a slow cooker, so I put water in the base of the pot and make a bed of crumpled foil for the shoulder to rest on. Along with the garlic, I add Korean apple pears, a handful of black peppercorns, brown sugar, cloves, gochujang, and thyme. It already smells good and it’s not even begun to cook.
The loin gets a different treatment. It needs to be crispy on the outside. I do a simple salt-and-pepper rub, sear all four sides, and then wrap it in foil and bake in the oven at a low heat.
Now I need the toppings. The kimchi fridge has four different kinds of kimchi: cubed radish, white radish, cabbage, and perilla leaves. I take all of it out. Mrs. Ji helps me and then adds a small bowl of chive kimchi she had in a different part of the refrigerator. I finely chop all of them, putting them in different bowls, and then I start to add other ingredients, like tiny bits of apple pear, vinegar, and salt-soaked cucumbers, lemon zest, caramelized onions, mustard, ketchup, peppers. Some of it is terrible. Mrs. Ji ends up spitting the one with lemon, onion, and vinegary cucumbers into the sink, but she gives me a thumbs-up for the apple pear and cubed radish version with hot peppers and gochujang paste.
As I cook, Mrs. Ji tidies up, putting things away, washing dishes. I try to stop her but she insists. The clutter was getting to her. “What will you do with all this food?” she asks.
“Have a party.”
I send out a group text. Ahn Sangki sends a happy dancing bear emoji, Jules a thumbs-up, but Bomi wants an engraved invitation.
BOMI: to Sajang-nim’s home? Is this okay with her?
I text Wansu.
ME: Im making dinner and invited friends. One of them is Bomi but she wont come unless you say that its okay. Please tell her its okay.
I then text Yujun.
ME: Im making dinner. I invited Bomi Jules Sangki
YUJUN: Sangki beat you by five seconds
ME: He lives on his phone. Im elbow deep in kimchi relish
YUJUN: Kimchi relish?
ME: Trust me
YUJUN: I do
Those two words settle around my shoulders like a warm blanket. I toast a baguette, slice off some of the pork tenderloin, and pair it with provolone cheese and the napa cabbage kimchi cut finely and mixed with pineapple. Mrs. Ji downs her small portion in about three bites. When the last bit is swallowed, she gives me the thumbs-up. “Jal meokkesseumnida.”