to thrive in this arrangement, Soo-Ja found the lack of privacy and solitude unbearable. It was too cold to stay outside for very long, and in other rooms, Soo-Ja felt like she got in her uncle’s way. So she had to be in the same space with Father-in-law and Mother-in-law for hours on end, and she found herself unable to hide her irritation at them. This tableau would be her life if something, God forbid, she thought, happened to Min.
As Soo-Ja played with Hana on her lap, she watched her family. In one corner, the boys played a game of baduk. In another, Mother-in-law clipped Na-yeong’s fingernails. Across from them, Father-in-law sat by himself under a window. Soo-Ja noticed that he had a strange ability to be doing nothing but making himself look busy, in the same way emperors and kings—who were just sitting most of the time—managed to as well.
“It would be a waste to come all the way here and not do some sightseeing. Tomorrow we’ll go to the Haundae Tourist Hotel. We’ll pretend to be guests, and bathe in some of their medicinal hot spring water,” said Father-in-law.
Soo-Ja looked at him in disbelief. “What about your son? You should go visit him while you’re here.”
Father-in-law waved his backscratcher at her. “Don’t tell me what I should do.”
“What you should do is go to the police and tell them what you did,” said Soo-Ja. “Tell them how you let him take the blame for you.”
“Min’s lucky he never got arrested for something or other before,” said Father-in-law. “He’s been getting in trouble since he was seven years old. I had to grease a lot of palms to keep him out of jail.”
Soo-Ja could see how much he wanted to yell at her, but something held him back. She realized then that he still had hopes that she would get her father’s money for him.
“He’s your son. You can’t put him through this,” Soo-Ja said, directing this to the others, hoping to elicit their rebellion.
“You’re trying to undo something that already happened. I go to the police and turn myself in, things would turn out ugly very quick. Why do you think the police have been so lackadaisical looking for Min? Why do you think Min is still free? They know, Soo-Ja. They know because sons have sacrificed themselves for their fathers for centuries. If anyone’s at fault here, it isn’t me, for exercising my parental privileges, but Min, for not offering himself first.”
The world, as explained by her father-in-law, felt like the narrow mazelike streets near her house that Soo-Ja used to run through as a child. You had to know where to turn, or you could get lost for days, steeped in their unspoken secrets.
“Then I will stay here with Min,” said Soo-Ja. “It’s not fair for him to endure this alone. He needs Hana and me.”
“No. You’re coming back to Daegu with us,” said Father-in-law. “And you’re going to get your father to help us.”
Soo-Ja noticed that Mother-in-law had been silent through this. She had stopped dyeing her hair with henna, and the gray now crowded out the black. Her eyes—usually knowing and canny—seemed foggy and distant. So she missed Min after all, thought Soo-Ja. In her fantasies, Soo-Ja could see Min’s mother making Father-in-law magically disappear, trading him for the son she loved.
“Be sensible, Soo-Ja,” said Father-in-law gently, almost kindly. “Go talk to your father.” She finally understood his pull. After all his angry and harsh words, the mere hint of his approval could be irresistible. For all her mistrust of him, it was amazing how much she still wanted him to like her.
Nevertheless, Soo-Ja decided to stand firm. “No, I won’t bring my father into this. You’ll have to find some other way.”
Pusan reminded Soo-Ja of the years during the war, when her family had fled there to escape the communists. It also made her think of Yul, who had moved there a few months after his graduation from medical school. They hadn’t seen each other in almost four years, but for a while, he had sent her letters—not to her house, but to her parents’ house. An investor had agreed to back Yul’s medical facility, and he’d opened an office, along with another partner, in the ever-growing port city. Soo-Ja pictured him practicing medicine behind a window in a square box of a room, with a wooden plaque the size of a mailbox out front, his name carved and colored in black ink.
Soo-Ja