Over the next few weeks, he came daily to visit Sam Sook and her children. As promised. He would sit at the dinner table with her, her mother, and her daughters. Chatting about this and that. Quizzing Se Ri about her school subjects. And teasing Se Yeon about her dollies. And he would make them all laugh. Especially Sam Sook. The man had a delightful sense of humor.
After dinner, he would play with those dollies and with her younger daughter. He also offered both girls piggyback rides. And he played games with Se Ri. Sometimes they played rhyming games. And memory games. And through these activities, her older daughter discovered his love of songs. She even coaxed him to sing to her one night a few days into their new routine.
“Please, Uncle Yeo Wool, please sing for me,” the girl begged him.
He glanced at Sam Sook, and she shrugged. “You have the talent. Why don’t you let the girl hear your beautiful voice?”
“You do not know that my voice is beautiful. It has changed since we were children.”
She stared at him pointedly. “You are wrong. I do know that your voice is beautiful.” Her words were weighty as she whispered so that only he could hear, “Your voice is the most beautiful voice in the world to me. Second only to my daughters.”
He gazed at her longingly for several eternal seconds.
Until Se Ri interrupted their trance. “Please, Uncle Yeo Wool! I want to hear your voice!”
“All right,” he sighed, glancing at the girl, “but if it is bad, you must tell me. And allow me to stop singing.”
“Agreed.” She bobbed her head definitively. Absolutely certain that his voice was going to be amazing.
Everything about Uncle Yeo Wool was amazing. How could his voice be any less than he himself was?
Uncle Yeo Wool was her hero. He had saved her from the evil man. He had befriended her mother. And made her smile again. He’d made her laugh too.
Se Ri had missed her mother’s laughter. After her father had died – no, really, long before that, her mother’s laughter had died. It hadn’t revived again until they’d moved in with her grandmother. But over the last few weeks, it had come truly alive under Uncle Yeo Wool’s careful attention.
Se Ri simply adored the man. And she fervently prayed every night that her mother would marry him someday.
“What shall I sing?” he quizzed the young girl.
Sam Sook decided to challenge him. “Write her a song,” she murmured.
He glanced her way. “I told you once…your wish is my command.”
He bowed to the pretty woman. Before turning towards her daughter with a big smile lighting up his face. He began to sing in a deep, rich voice that was even more beautiful than that of the little boy in his grandmother’s garden long ago.
“Beautiful girl
You light up my whole world.
A smile as bright
As the moon in my night.
“Your eyes alight
With good hope for this life.
You give me joy,
All my smiles employ.”
“Ah, bravo!” Lady Yang exclaimed.
Se Ri beamed up at her poet. “Uncle Yeo Wool, your voice is lovely,” she whispered.
His eyes found Sam Sook’s. Hers was the only opinion that he truly cared about.
She nodded and echoed her daughter’s sentiments. “Se Ri is right. Your voice is even more beautiful than it was back then.”
He shrugged. But she saw him flush with pleasure at her compliment.
“Sing more!” Se Yeon hollered as she grabbed his hand and bounced up and down on her feet.
He glanced down at her before bending to scoop her up in his arms. “You want me to sing some more, button? What song?”
She named a famous song straight from the nursery. He grinned as he began to sing it to her.
And Sam Sook had the comforting feeling that she was watching a doting appa and his tiny daughter. Did she have the courage to make his dreams come true? And to give her daughters the father that they deserved?
