This Burns My Heart Page 0,51

in the back of the room, as if hiding, Na-yeong ate from a bowl of rice by herself, without Hana. Trying to keep her rising panic in check, Soo-Ja walked slowly toward her.

“Where’s Hana?” Soo-Ja asked, hearing the dread in her own voice.

Na-yeong made no answer, using her chopsticks instead to hide part of her face.

Soo-Ja did not see Mother-in-law appear behind her.

“Na-yeong, go to your uncle’s room and wait there.”

“No, stay here,” said Soo-Ja. “Tell me. Where. Is. Hana?” She knew by then something bad had happened.

“I don’t know!” Na-yeong blurted out. “I lost her!”

“What do you mean, lost her?” yelled Soo-Ja.

Mother-in-law grabbed Soo-Ja by the arm. “There’s no sense in getting hysterical. She didn’t do it on purpose.”

Soo-Ja shook her arm away from her. “What happened, Na-yeong? Where did you leave Hana?”

“Outside,” said Na-yeong, quivering, the chopsticks in her hand beating against the sides of the bowl of rice.

Turning her back on all of them, Soo-Ja ran outside, calling out her daughter’s name. “Hana! Hana! Where are you?” she screamed into the twilight. Almost immediately, Na-yeong followed, her little body shaking with fear. Soo-Ja looked at her with a madwoman’s eyes and began to squeeze her sister-in-law’s arms. “Tell me exactly where you left her. Tell me exactly.”

“I…. I followed you,” said Na-yeong, trembling, looking back toward the house, as if to make sure no one could hear them. “Today… I took Hana with me and I followed you. I knew you weren’t going to the seamstress. I wanted to know if you were doing something bad, so I could tell on you. Oh, if I’d known you were just going to the doctor I never would’ve—”

“You followed me? You followed me all the way to the marketplace? You mean, you didn’t lose Hana here, you lost her in the busy marketplace?”

Na-yeong nodded. “I wanted to make sure it was a doctor’s office, and I had to cross the street to read the sign properly. I told Hana to stay quiet, and away from the curb. I thought it’d be all right if I left her there for just a few seconds. I was coming right back! So I went over to get closer, and tried to peek in through the window glass. I saw the back of your head in the waiting room, and knew for sure it was you. When I saw you, I got this panicked feeling that maybe you’d turn around and see me, so I hid, and ran back to Hana, as fast as I could. But when I got there, she was gone. I kept calling her name and looked for her everywhere, but it was like she was never there in the first place! I did this for a while, until a policeman came to me and I got scared. I told him I wasn’t looking for anything and I ran back home. I was so afraid he was going to put me in jail if he knew what I’d done.”

Soo-Ja grabbed Na-yeong by her bone-thin arm; it reminded her of a wooden ladle, almost slipping away from her. Soo-Ja made her walk with her, and as she did so, she could see her own Fury-like gaze reflected back in the girl’s eyes.

“What are you doing?” asked Na-yeong, whimpering. “Let me go, eonni.”

“We’re going back to the marketplace. You’re going to show me exactly where you left her.”

“Eonni, it’s getting dark now. It’s not safe. We can’t go back there.”

“Yes, we can. And we are,” said Soo-Ja. Soo-Ja grasped harder at Na-yeong’s arm, almost snapping it in half. If it bruised, fine. Let it be a reminder of what she’d done.

Soo-Ja had to block out her fears for Hana, otherwise her heart would stop beating. All she could hear was her own voice inside her calling out for her child, Wait for me, Hana. I’m coming for you. She needed her daughter more than she needed any of her own limbs. She had only one thought, running through her head in a single loop: Bring Hana back. Bring Hana back. If somebody had told her that her child was in Mongolia, she would not have stopped to pack a bag or change clothes, but simply started walking in the direction of Mongolia.

Na-yeong looked back toward the house. “I should tell appa. They don’t really know what happened. Appa!” Na-yeong called out, hoping to alert her father. But Soo-Ja pulled her forward as she bent her body back like a rag doll.