This Burns My Heart Page 0,37

“Why did you have to flirt with Na-yeong’s suitor? If you’re not satisfied with me, why don’t you go after the milkman, or the gardener’s son?”

Soo-Ja felt the frustration tighten around her neck. “Because I’m not you, Min. I don’t believe in sleeping with the help.”

Min made his hand into a fist and he held it above Soo-Ja’s face. He glared at her, trembling a little, as if trying to gather the courage to hit her.

“You lay a hand on me, Min, and I will kill you. I will take a knife from the kitchen and I will stick it in your heart.”

Min’s eyes grew bigger, and he punched the wall instead. The thud was so loud it made Soo-Ja flinch. She waited to hear if Hana woke in the next room. The impact, however, had not been loud enough to disrupt her daughter’s slumber.

Min, as if tired from the punch, sat down on the floor next to Soo-Ja. He looked like a man ill with fever.

“I’m not going to hit you, Soo-Ja. I’m not my father.”

Soo-Ja looked at him sideways, cautiously, her words prodding him like a stick. “Your father used to hit your mother?”

Min laughed. “He had a room especially for that.” Min rested his head against the wall. “He had us empty it out, take out the furniture. Then he’d put Mother in there and he’d beat her. He’d chase after her in a circle, and she’d try to get away. When he caught up with her, he’d hit her. She’d fall, then get up, and keep running in the circle, until Father’s knuckles gave out. Even when I stayed away from the room, I could still hear them, and I could see their shadows on the paper doors.”

“Is that what you wanted to do to me tonight?” asked Soo-Ja. Outside their door, she could hear the wind howling as the snow dove onto the ground. By morning, they’d all be buried in layers of crystals and powder. “Trust me, I didn’t flirt with Iseul.”

“No, you did something much worse.” Min’s voice gained a sureness that bothered Soo-Ja. She wondered if something else had happened.

“If you’d met Iseul, you wouldn’t be saying that.”

“I met Iseul,” said Min, cutting her off. “I ran into him as he was leaving. He pulled me to the side and told me to take better care of you.”

“Why would he say that?” asked Soo-Ja, confused, turning to him.

Min met her gaze. “He said he saw you pulling fish out of our pond. He said it looked like your hands were freezing.”

Soo-Ja placed her hand on her forehead and squeezed her temples. So the suitor hadn’t been late, after all. He’d been at the gate, watching her that entire time. Soo-Ja wondered why he hadn’t come to help her.

“Why do you do things like that? To make people feel sorry for you?” asked Min.

“I didn’t know he was there.”

“He said that you must have married badly. Did you, Soo-Ja? Did you marry badly?” asked Min.

In his voice, Soo-Ja heard a kind of desperation she had never thought him capable of feeling. She figured he wanted her to say Yes, I did, so he could continue to fight with her, and yell at her, and accuse her of being ungrateful. In his words, Soo-Ja heard a bottomless guilt, frustration the size of an ocean. He did not provide for her, and did not take care of her. He did not know how to.

Soo-Ja felt the tears form in her eyes. She closed her eyelids, trying to trap them inside. “My life is good, Min. Don’t worry about me.”

It had not been so bad in the beginning. During the first week of the marriage, Soo-Ja’s in-laws bragged about their new daughter-in-law, whose enterprising father, they liked to remind others, had started one of Korea’s first modern shoe factories. Mother-in-law took Soo-Ja to the market with her and introduced her to all the shopkeepers she did business with. When she met them, Soo-Ja saw that her mother-in-law had already spoken to them about her, and brought her because they’d asked so often to meet her.

But even then, Min’s mother would give her daughter-in-law a hard time. She’d comment on Soo-Ja, saying, “Your hips are very narrow. That is not good for birthing babies.” Or she’d sneer, “Your hands are so smooth. Have you ever done a day’s work in your life?” Like other women of her generation, Mother-in-law did not welcome a comely daughter-in-law. Beauty meant