“Sohla, eat with Yoonha tonight. I have plans.” Mother meets me in the lounge when I arrive home from work, passing by in the process of me coming in and her going, and I paste on my bright smile. She’s oblivious to what day of the week it is, let alone the date, so she’s at least one person who won’t acknowledge today. Thankfully.
“Something fun?” I ask and stop to adjust the coat's collar she’s pulling on, admiring her beauty even at her age. She’s not aged a day in the last decade and is still as pulled together as she was when I was a girl when she’s dressed up like this. It’s easy to forget everything and bask in how happy she seems.
“Bridge with the girls. I shouldn’t be home too late. Yoonha is in the dining room already.” She pats me on the cheek with a loving smile. Elegantly dressed and poised as the picture of class and grace at all times, I find it hard to sometimes associate her with the woman she is when no one’s looking.
She gets through her life by popping happy pills and avoiding reality as much as she can, much as I do. The only difference is that she has nothing to distract her from long days except us kids. She doesn’t work anymore as she retired so long ago, so her life of leisure means she spends her time yoyoing from manic bouts of activity and going out, with days endlessly in bed in a dark room and refusing to get up. She’s on a high lately, which means a succession of social dates and coming home drunk after spending a fortune at whatever club or game she’s gone to.
I linger to watch her leave before turning on my heel and wandering slowly through our open plan and luxurious home to the formal dining area. Spotting Yoonie already set up with an array of dishes before him. He’s picking at his food absentmindedly and seems too serious and immersed in thought, and I ready myself for what I expect to be coming—bracing myself and pulling on the mask of indifference.
“Are you sulking or problem-solving?” I jest as I slide into the seat opposite him and watch his face brighten up like a new dawning day with my presence. A complete change in his persona when I come home, as opposed to how he seems when I view him from afar. Yoonha has never really been the same since his father passed away. He carries so many sad emotions, which are too obvious at times.
“Neither, just thinking….. How are you feeling?” he cautiously asks, and I tense, knowing that of all the people in this house, he’s the only one who would ask me that today of all days. Sometimes I feel like Yoonie is more of a walking diary of the disasters of my life than I am. He remembers everything and carelessly tries to pull it out of me.
“Same as every day. Why would today be any different?” I brightly answer and lean back as Emily, the housekeeper comes and lays my dishes in front of me, the same as his, and ignore the way his eyes linger on my face as he tries to read me. I smile my thanks her way as she moves off.
“It’s okay not to be okay, you know. That’s what’s wrong with this goddamn family. We all act like we’re fine, yet none of us are. We’re dysfunctional as fuck.” I ignore his intense gaze and pick up my cutlery, eyeballing my food and making appropriate motions as though I’m hungry. The smell alone makes me realize I have no appetite.
“What’s with you today? Did your deal fall through? Work getting to you?” I dodge the conversation and adjust my fork to dig into my creamy pasta dish, ignoring what I know he’s dying to talk about. The wall goes up, and he’ll never penetrate it. This is how I tackle all things.
“Sohla…?”
I know the tone. The underlying quiver of emotion and the almost yearning need to talk about feelings. I know him too well, and if I let him, he’ll probe at things I don’t want to open up about and ruin my mood.
“So, today, I gave Jyeon the approval file from accounting. It looks like his investment in Biotech might become a reality. He has a good eye. We’ll see a long-term return in them and bring funding to take OLO to another level.” I put the food in my mouth even though it tastes like ash when I feel this way. My heart is beating faster than usual because I want him to drop it and know he’s more persistent than that.
“Did you go?” He disappoints me by being exactly that dog with a bone that I know he is.
“To Jyeon’s office? Of course, he’s been waiting four days for the risk report. I took it right away.” I feign ignorance and swallow even though it feels like razor blades in my throat. Unable to look his way and instead stare at my plate.
“The grave, Sohla.” Yoonha dives right to the sore point, and I pause with my fork midway to my mouth, unable to control the punch to my gut but refusing to look him in the eye, hating him for being like this. He’s always the same. Same as his stupid brother - always living in the past and unable to stop. He can’t just let it go and let me move on.
“Hmmmmm. Did you get your out-of-office work done today? I passed by around mid-morning, and you were out.” I push it on again towards my mouth and eat it slowly, keeping my face calm and my mannerisms precise, knowing he’s looking for any slight reaction. My tone level and my voice clear of anything but upbeat nonchalance. Never show a hint of weakness to anyone.
“Divorce him and start over, Sohla. This isn’t a life. He’s never there for you, and now, today of all days, where the fuck is he?”
My cutlery clammers to my plate as I angrily drop it and throw a glare at Yoonie. Hating that he does this from time to time and never lets it go. I'm trying to count to ten before I say anything because I don’t want to fight with him, of all people, but I don’t get why he makes this his problem every day of the week. He used to love and idolize his brother, but now he barely spends time with him and is the first to criticize his life and choices.
“I don’t want to divorce him. We’re fine how we are, and I saw him today. I don’t need him here. He’s busy with our company, and it’s no more a special day than any other. Stay out of it, Yoonie; you don’t understand our relationship.”
“Pfft.” He lets it out in aggravation, pulling a face that displays his anger and disbelief at my words. “Don’t I? I have lived here watching it all from my corner. You think I don’t see how miserable you are, and he never does anything to try and fix things between you. It’s always been him who pulled away and kept you at arm’s length. Are you going to waste your life on a husband who neither shares a bed nor a single meal with you? How is that an existence?”
“I’m not hungry anymore. Eat, you look thinner these days, and you’re pale. I have a headache, and I’m going to bed early.” I cut him off, deciding that the best way to tackle Yoonie when he’s this way is to follow Jyeon’s example and leave. There’s a faint smell of whisky on his breath, even at this distance, and I know he’s not thinking clearly. He’s biased, so it’s always Jyeon who is in the wrong.
He does this a lot too, just like his father did. When he can’t handle what’s going on in his head, he turns to booze and makes stupid mistakes. As a brother, I love Yoonie wholeheartedly, but I can’t deal with him these days. He’s not that sweet puppy who used to listen to me anymore, and I don’t want to mother him. I don’t have it to care about others as deeply as I once did. I don’t need all the weight and stress when I’m barely treading water myself.
“I’ll start over with you. We can make it work. We were always closer than you and Jyeon…he doesn’t love you, but I do. I’m not a kid anymore.” His words stop me in my tracks, and I mentally count to five and try and reel in my internal reaction. Breathing slowly as my hands start to tremble, I stop the impulse to yell at him that he still behaves like one.
This isn’t the first time he’s said these words to me, and it angers me that despite telling him not to say it anymore, here we are again. The wounding pain of knowing that, no, Jyeon doesn’t love me, and I’ve known it since forever, but I still don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to listen to them; I don’t want the burden of his feelings on top of me along with everything else I carry every day, and I don’t need his reminder that his brother married me out of duty and never once felt more than resentment for it.
“You’re drunk. Go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning. Let it go.” I don’t wait for his response or give him time to follow me and march out of the room and through our lounge to head for the main winding staircase. I pass by Emily on the way and snap a command to release the pressure.
“I’m going to bed with a migraine, don’t disturb me. See to Yoonha; he’s drunk.”
“Yes, Miss.” She nods, seemingly wary of my dark mood, and bows as I swing up the stairs and head straight for my room without pausing to take a breath. Not even hungry despite not really eating and bubbling up inside with so many emotions that lean more toward anger than upset. Keeping my mind off the obvious was hard enough, and Yoonie goes and makes it worse. Today has been shit from start to finish, and I pull my cell phone from my pocket and check the time as I get to the upper landing.
Eight Pm. This day is needlessly dragging, and I hate that I have to endure four more hours before I can chalk it up to another year gone by. I thrust it back into my pocket and shove my bedroom door open, stopping with a startled pause as I see Jyeon’s clothes discarded on the bed. The ones he was wearing at the office earlier and have a mild moment of panic and a flash of hope he came home after all.
Looking towards the bathroom door, I see it sat open with no lights on, so I know he’s not in there. I turn to the study where he sleeps. The door is closed tight, so I walk over and push it open, heart in my mouth, and nerves jangled even though this is his bedroom too, but such is the impulse to always have more from him than I get. The room is silent, pitch black, but he’s definitely been here to change. I turn around and head for the walk-in closet along the other wall, finding it too in darkness and no signs of him at all.
His aftershave lingers in the air here as he must have refreshed it, and it knocks me off guard for a moment, reminding me of his smell. His past closeness because he’s never switched it out in all these years, and my throat closes up with a sudden surge of pain.
If his plans were business-related, he wouldn’t have changed his entire suit to go out. He keeps spare shirts at the office with ties to suit all his outfits and would only come here to pick out casual clothing. He avoids coming home at all costs. He would never meet a client dressed that way either, and my head goes into overdrive at where he might be and what he might be doing.
He casually dresses once in a blue moon since becoming President of OLO. Jyeon is a workaholic who spends his entire life dealing with the company and dedicating his time there. His friends rarely see him; when they do, it’s never a weekday like this, so he’s always in work mode. So much so that he owns so little nonformal clothing.
I turn back into the walk-in wardrobe and head right to the back, where the security screens are located—Type in the passcode and select the garage camera to show where our cars are parked. My driver dropped me off at the front door today as I never took my own this morning, so I didn’t see if Jyeon had taken his.
I press the control panel to have the camera scan the downstairs underground parking, and his spot for his Range rover is occupied with his navy four-by-four. That can only mean he switched out his car for the Bugatti Centodieci.
He only owns two vehicles and always drives himself. It’s his pride and joy and his toy that rarely leaves the garage except on special occasions when Jyeon deems it fit.
My stomach flips over, and I try not to overthink the unusual actions of his behavior this evening. Coming home before eight to change, and taking that car on a Wednesday night, when I know he’s up to his eyeballs in work this week. It’s not like him.
“He’s gone to let off steam because of what today is….” I say it out loud, choked up with this weird ache in my gut that tells me he’s doing something I would hate and refusing to ponder or guess at it as it will only hurt me more. As much as I pretend I don’t care and don’t intervene in his life, I depend on the fact he’s always working and rarely does anything else. It’s my stable safe where I can keep tabs on him and know he’s not doing anything to bring shame to our shambles of a marriage.
It’s how I can continue living like this even if he never touches me or shows me a fraction of care or affection because he’s not giving it to anyone else. There’s been no scandals, rumors, or signs of him doing anything that would out us as a fake couple in the last four years, but this feels off tonight.
Sixth sense, a woman’s intuition, maybe, but my heart pounds through my chest, and my stomach aches as it twists inside of me. My legs go weak like they’re made of putty, and my hands shake uncontrollably.
I know he wouldn’t go to the grave with that car, I know that much, and he’s not been there once since the first year, to my knowledge. He might have arranged to blow off steam with Bryant, but I hope not because that eternal bachelor only knows how to party himself into a stupor while surrounded by loose women who don’t see a wedding ring as a reason to keep their hands to themselves. Jyeon usually only sees him for lunch dates or sports time, never evening meet-ups when Bryant is always on the hookup.
“Stop thinking and go to bed.” I chastise myself loudly, wavering, and push it all back down. I take slow, deep breaths and remind myself that I feel this way from time to time. I get scared and momentarily think the worst, yet he’s never done anything. He’s too upright and solid to hurt his family name or OLO with something dirty.
Impulsively I pull out my cell and dial his number before I can stop myself; otherwise, I might go crazy and imagine the worst and rip my brain to shreds with the fear of the unknown. It rings three times, and he picks it up. Something that, despite our years of strained interaction that he’ll always do. He never ignores my rare calls. No matter how mad he is at me. Texts, calls, emails… Jyeon always replies to me within minutes.
“What is it, Sohla?” he sounds pissed off, his tone low and husky, and I can tell he’s had a drink or two by the slight laziness of his speech. He has a low tolerance for alcohol because he rarely touches it, and it winds my nerves tighter, creating anxiety inside me.
“Where are you?” I ask bluntly, knowing I have no right but don’t care.
“I told you, I have plans. I’m out.” There’s noise around him as though he’s sat somewhere busy with lots of other people, and there’s soft music playing, but it doesn’t sound like a club or party. More like a restaurant or somewhere similar.
“You left your clothes on the bed, and your sports car is gone; I was worried you might be having a hard time today.” My mask slips, and the softer me shows my face without meaning to. A slightly gentler tone and the way I say it is alien to how I talk now. There’s a noise like a breathy ‘hah’ of disbelief at my nerve for calling him this way and a small dry chuckle.
“Four years too late, baby. Sohla, hang up before I say something I might regret. I’m not in the mood tonight. I’m out; I’m staying out. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. I’m fine, just like always.” He has no warmth in his tone, and I’m guessing whoever he is with knows well what kind of relationship we have if he’s talking normally and not trying to put on an act or be quiet about it. It has to be Bryant or maybe Avery. I hope it’s Avery because he’ll take good care of him no matter how much he drinks.
There’s a long pause as my eyes glaze over, and the urge to cry hits me hard. I miss him. Maybe because of what today is, but the aching longing inside of me to break down and beg him to come home overwhelms me, and suddenly I want to be that little kid again who used to hide in his arms when she was scared of the world.
The Jyeon that cared, the Jyeon that was present in our first four months of marriage before we started fighting all the time. The Jyeon who held me at my parent’s funeral and took care of me for days after when I couldn’t get out of bed. I miss Jyeon, the eight-year-old who taught me how to ride a bike and gave me my first taste of candy floss when he took me to the children’s circus when I was ten. He was my best friend.
“If you’re not hanging up, then I am. Goodnight.”
“Wait!” It’s a desperate snap of words as I panic to keep him there, clinging to memories and feelings I always try to fight, and his loud sigh makes me bite my lip and give myself a mental slap for being this way. He hates me acting like this.
“Can we not? Please. Just for once. I know what today is; I didn’t forget. Do you think I can easily stop caring about her because she only lived a week? She was my daughter, my baby. Sohla, she was our kid…. I wanted her.” His words slur more than before, and I realize he’s drunker than I thought. He’s never this way. He never opens up and talks to anyone, let alone me, especially not about her. Not like this, never like this. He avoids drinking for this exact reason. Because he doesn’t want to and can’t face us bringing her up. A tear fills one eye, making my vision blurry, so I have to bite my lip hard to stop myself from sobbing.
“We never even gave her a name. Sohla. How could we not name her? She was a real little person, even if it was only for a short while. She was your daughter; you were her mother. Why didn’t you come when she needed you? She held on for you for six days…. I held on for you too. If you’d come… maybe…….” Jyeon’s voice breaks, soft breathiness that tells me he’s crying, and the mental picture of him doing so rips my soul in two. Shame is washing over me, guilt eating me raw, numbing my heart painfully, and I try to blot it out. Shaking all over because I know I did wrong, and I can never turn back time to change it no matter what I say or do.
I lay in my hospital bed, recovering from blood loss, and used it as an excuse never to venture to her ward because I couldn’t accept what I had let happen. I was selfish and afraid of seeing her when she was so tiny and helpless. Knowing I did that. Knowing she was dying. I hid from her because I couldn’t take another loss after my parents, after Mr. Park.
I know he blames me for her letting go and leaving us, and I, too, blame myself for not being there when she needed me most. Maybe she might have found the fight to hang on and survived if I did. Perhaps we would have gotten through it differently and been something else right now. It’s the one thing Yoonha has never understood, but I do.
Jyeon hates me for not just hurting her and causing an early birth with my negligence but for abandoning her and leaving her to die without me. Her death is on my head, no matter how I tell the story or what excuse I make, and I have to live with it for the rest of my life.
“I shouldn’t have called you.” My voice sobers up, empty and sour, and the cold and icy part of me that takes over when I mentally can’t handle anything anymore pushes in to save me from harm—cutting him off. Locking him out once more and hating myself that I’ve become so accustomed to doing this that it's like autopilot against my will.
It isn’t just Jyeon that keeps me far away and unable to love; it’s a two-way street where I can’t allow him to love me either. I don’t deserve his love after what I did. We both put an invisible barrier there, and neither ever tries to take it down. Lack of talking about important things and our willingness to play pretend and carry on every day without getting to the root of where we started to go wrong.
“And there she is, right back to bitch. You’re right; you shouldn’t have called. I forgot for a second that you’re never going to be how you were again, and I deluded myself for ever thinking you’re still in there somewhere. I’m hanging up, Sohla. Go to bed.” His voice returns to cold and icy, and all hints of emotion evaporate. His wall comes up as high as mine until we’re separated by ten feet of solid steel on each side, and I sink onto the floor while cradling it close despite my behavior. My insides are aching and throbbing, and my body is weak and vibrating. While my face is blank, and my heart slowly turns to a block of ice.
“Enjoy your night.” It’s an emotionless farewell, and I red button his call before saying anything else. Sat in the dark of the closet and staring blankly at the wall in front of me. I don’t move for a long time, losing count of the minutes with no will to do anything else but stop and wait.
And yet I don’t think, feel, or do anything else except sit here. Turning off my brain and zoning out to allow a numbness to take over. I do it until the clock passes midnight, and the chimes stop ringing in the house below, fading out to a low hum of past echo until it’s no longer the day I let my baby die.