underestimated me. I took no notice and he took his bowl of kalguksu into the bedroom and ate it sitting at my vanity while staring at his phone. I had to wipe away the droplets of soup splatter later that night after he had gone to sleep.
* * *
—
THESE DAYS, the only time I feel vestiges of fondness for him is at work, whenever and wherever the inevitable husband bashing starts. It used to happen on occasions where there were only female co-workers about—at lunch, or coffee, or while waiting for meetings to start—but these days it’s beginning to trickle into regular work conversations even when the men are present.
“This is really the last straw,” Bora sunbae would say. “He came home at 3 A.M. last night and woke up Seung-yeon and this morning he asked me to make some hangover stew. And when I said that I have to, you know, go to work, he said he was going to ask his mom to make some next time so that he can freeze it and have it on hand. Can you believe it? My mother-in-law already thinks I’m such a neglectful wife and mother.”
And then Joo-eun sunbae would chime in. “That is nothing. Do you know how many times my mother-in-law has been in my house this year when we are not at home? Just because they bought us the apartment, my mother-in-law thinks it’s her house. Whenever she knows we’re away, she ‘pops by’ to put her son’s favorite food in the fridge and of course she’s snooping all over the place! She asked me accusingly if I am using birth control the other day because she must have seen it in the bathroom in my bedroom. I can’t even change the locks because that would cause an epic shitstorm that would probably leave me out on the street!”
And I would sit and nod in consternation and sympathy and think warmer thoughts about my husband with his conveniently dead mother.
But if I had known what our long-term housing prospects would be, I might have traded in a dead mother for a live one with cash. Before my husband and I married, I had a vague feeling of reassurance that, oh, this man has a steady job in a top ten conglomerate so our income is accounted for. We’d save up and buy an apartment in a few years—wasn’t that what everyone did?
I didn’t realize that his monthly salary was only three million won. Or to be more accurate, I did not know that three million won was so worthless. The longer we are married, the more our bankbook seems to shrivel every time I take it out of the drawer.
I know that buying an apartment is a dream in the sky. But each month, I have been scrimping every penny, scouring for opportunities to have someone treat us for meals. In addition to toilet paper, I’ve started taking home the sponges and dish soap from the office kitchen. I wish there was some way I could resell office supplies. Our cupboard has a stockpile of very nice pens.
* * *
—
HE’S RIGHT ABOUT one thing, though, as much as I hate to admit it. I do have to tell work soon if I am to apply for maternity leave. I am hoping for more than a year, although I have heard that if it goes more than a year, it becomes unpaid. But these are just rumors that I have to verify. Our HR department is notorious for leaks, however, and if my immediate boss finds out that I told HR before I told her…my knees actually buckle to think of this.
I have been worrying about how to tell her ever since I began to think there was a chance that this baby might make it. How does one talk to a bitter, unmarried, workaholic female boss about such a thing? I am scared that she will say it is ridiculous to have paid maternity leave, especially since we can all assume that she will never get one. “No. No. No. Why should you be paid for not working, when everyone else works twice as hard as you? So that you can play with a baby at home?