This Burns My Heart Page 0,122

that, don’t I? After all that we went through together.”

“Do you really think the decision is yours alone to make?”

“I’m sorry, Yul.”

“Well, I have something to tell you, too,” said Yul. Soo-Ja could see his face rearranging itself, lines forming in odd places. He looked like a dam about to explode.

“I don’t want to—”

“I can’t just remain on hold forever,” said Yul, speaking over her. “I’m not an object that you can keep on a shelf and pick up only when you feel like it. You’ve said no to me many times, and this is one time too many. So think about this before you leave the car: I cannot wait for you anymore. So when you say this is the end, make sure that you know what the end means.” Yul stopped and waited for Soo-Ja’s reaction. “What do you have to say to that?”

Soo-Ja shook her head slightly and looked away, reaching again for the door handle. The rain hit the windshield hard, and Soo-Ja felt that it lashed her own face. “Good-bye, Yul.”

“She left with her father,” said Yul, and for a moment his voice sounded like that of a stranger speaking to another stranger on the street. “Have you considered that maybe—you might have to accept that you’re not getting her back this time?”

Soo-Ja turned back around and glanced at him, taking a deep breath. “Of course I have.”

“Can’t you see it? Either way you lose someone—me or your daughter. Or maybe both—maybe you’ll manage to lose everyone. Amazing how much you lose when you play for high stakes, isn’t it? Your high-mindedness and your virtue sure paid off—look at all the dead bodies on the road behind you.”

“Yul! Stop!” Soo-Ja yelled, unable to stand the weight of his words.

“I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Min was right all along,” said Yul rapidly. He looked as if he would regret his words, but he did not seem able to contain himself. “Maybe I’ve been in love with the wrong person and not known it.”

“That’s not fair,” said Soo-Ja.

“What’s not fair is that I spent the last ten years of my life pining for a woman who never intended to be mine!”

“That’s not true,” cried out Soo-Ja.

“Get out. Get out of my car. I don’t want to see you again.”

Soo-Ja felt the words push her out of the car, and she walked toward the terminal with her suitcase, the sliding glass doors beckoning her. She let the rain drench her clothes. It fell into her ears, her mouth, the spaces between her fingers. From the corner of her eye, she watched as the back-and-forth of the windshield wiper sliced Yul’s face into slivers. His car pulled from the curb and slowly drove away, the tires skidding on the road, water splashing. In a matter of seconds, he was gone.

That meant Soo-Ja could stop walking, and finally let her pain show. Bending her knees, Soo-Ja rested her arms over her suitcase and let out the cry that had been bursting inside her heart. She freed a noise savage and broken, gasping madly for air, and let the raindrops pelt her body. Yul had been right. She had lost everything she could lose, an entire constellation. She watched the automated sliding doors a few yards away, smoothly opening and closing. Those glass doors led to the future, and to America.

So this is how it ends, thought Soo-Ja. Min wins, Father-in-law wins; Yul loses, Soo-Ja loses. She had thought there was nothing more they could take from her, until she found herself with no bones, no skin to cover her. They had taken away everything—even the air inside her lungs.

chapter eighteen

In Seoul, it’s said that once you breathe American air, migug baram, you don’t wish to come back. Soo-Ja could see why Min and Hana, like the children in fairy tales, might have been enchanted by the sweet, clean aroma of that country. As the taxi driver drove her from the airport to her in-laws’ house in Palos Verdes, California, she, too, felt herself lulled by the wide-open spaces, the heaven-sized quiet, and the orderly merging of the cars on the road. God may not live in Los Angeles, she thought, but he must come here for vacations.

Riding in the car, Soo-Ja was amazed by the distance between buildings—all that empty space! Such luxuries—big parking lots, generous curbs, the mere existence of walkways. As the car drove on, she had the feeling they were standing still, so smooth was the