Chapter 6: The Whole Story – February 16 – 19, 2021
Naru showed up bright and early the next morning with breakfast and Jungju in tow. As they entered the house, Ajin appeared before them. She was suddenly shy. She was hiding behind her eomma’s legs.
“Ajin,” Naru spoke, “this is my nephew, Jungju.”
She peeked out at the little boy who wasn’t much bigger than her. They eyed each other curiously.
“Jungju, this is Ajin, Miss Choi’s —“
“Friend,” Minha suddenly interposed as her eyes searched his frantically.
He frowned. Then he remembered. He rushed to cover his blunder. If his nephew accidentally mentioned her daughter at school, she could get fired.
“Say hi to Ajin, Jungju.”
“Hi.”
“Ajin, why don’t you show Jungju the toys in your room while we get breakfast ready?”
The little girl shrugged and ran towards her room. “Come on!” she hollered at Jungju over her shoulder.
The tiny boy followed her.
Minha’s eyes met Naru’s. Then she glanced away.
“Um. Did you carry me to my bed last night?” she asked sheepishly.
“Mmhmm,” he purred. “I most definitely did. We spent a blissful time there,” he teased her. “I went home with some wonderful memories.” He sobered as her eyes locked with his again.
Something shifted between them. There was a weightiness to his gaze that tied her stomach in knots. She swallowed.
“I love being here,” he murmured. “With you. In your house. It’s a home.”
Suddenly, her heart bent. She heard the sorrow – the wistfulness – in his tone. She wanted to tell him that it could be his home too. Always. That he had only to claim it. But she kept her lips sealed.
He cleared his throat. “We need to eat, or you’re going to be late.”
She nodded, and they headed towards the kitchen.
A nearly identical scene played itself out on Friday. Except that the children had become fast friends by then. And Naru didn’t tease Minha about entertaining him in her bed. But he had brought the boy and their breakfast again. A half hour later, as they were all finishing breakfast, Ajin suddenly flew out of her seat and ran for the bathroom. They all heard the sound of vomiting. Minha jumped up and followed her.
“Ajin! Are you all right?” she asked her daughter who was leaning over the toilet.
“No. Eomma, my tummy hurts,” the tiny girl whined.
“Oh, no.”
Minha felt conflicted. She was supposed to be at work in an hour.
“I’ll stay with her,” came a deep and deeply comforting voice from behind her.
Minha turned towards Naru.
“I’ll drive you and Jungju to school, and then I’ll come back and attend to her while you work.”
She grimaced. “Something keeps interfering with our dates,” she murmured.
“It’s okay. I’ve had a million dates. You give me some entirely novel experiences.”
Her lips quirked upward as she visualized him carrying her unconscious body into the emergency room. Then she imagined him holding her daughter’s limp body as she puked into a bowl. Her heart shifted violently in her chest as she saw that image.
“Are you sure you want to stay with a sick child?”
“Hey, if I’m signing up for the role of stepfather, I’d best get used to days like this, right?”
She couldn’t breathe anymore. She simply stared at him as he grinned crookedly at her.
“Eomma?” croaked Ajin.
“What is it, baby?” Minha turned back towards her daughter.
“My tummy hurts,” she echoed.
“I know, baby. Would you like Uncle Naru to stay with you today while I go to work?”
“No, Eomma. I want you.”
Minha’s heart lifted at her daughter’s words.
“You do?” she asked, surprised.
The little girl nodded. “Yes,” she responded petulantly.
Right before she barfed into the toilet again.
“I know you’d like your eomma to stay home with you, but she needs to go to work. Would you let me take care of you today, princess?”
Ajin eyeballed him. “Can we watch Pororo?”
“Absolutely!” His face split into a wide grin.
“As long as you keep the big bowl in your lap while you sit on the couch,” her mother reminded her.
“She won’t be sitting on the couch,” Naru countered.
Minha narrowed her eyes at him in confusion.
“She’ll be sitting on my lap,” he murmured. “I’ll go find this big bowl you speak of,” he added a moment later, then he turned to go.
“Baby, is it all right if I leave you home with Uncle Naru today?”
The tiny girl nodded. “I’m feeling better now.”
“Okay. Let’s wash your hands and face and you can brush your teeth to make your mouth taste better.”
Ajin was settled on the couch with her bowl and her great-grandmother when Naru, Minha, and Jungju all exited the house. An hour later, Naru returned. With some Gatorade for a certain little cutie pie.
She was sound asleep on the couch. Naru’s heart turned over in his chest as he gazed down at her.
“You really love them, don’t you, Naru?” Maeum’s quiet voice broke into his reverie.
His eyes collided with hers, and he nodded. “But Minha is scared.” A pause. “With good reason.”
“You mean, because you used to be a ladies’ man?”
He looked up at her in surprise. “Minha told you,” he muttered.
“No. You told me. In so many words the first day you stopped here to help me. Also, you’re not the first charming man I’ve met. But you are definitely a recovering one.”
“Recovering?” He didn’t follow her.
“Recovering from the pitfall that is charm. I’ve never liked charm in a man. But the first day I met you, when I saw the way you looked at Ajin, I knew there was more to you than charm. In fact, charm was a mask you wore to keep the world at bay. So none would know what’s in your heart. But I think that has changed. So…what’s in your heart, Naru?”
He glanced back down at the little darling asleep on the couch. His little darling. She had two brightly burning roses in her cheeks today. And her lips were chapping because her mouth was parted, and her breath kept passing over those pretty, red lips of hers. It hurt him to see her suffering.
“They are,” he whispered. “I love them. Both of them. So much. I really do. I’d…I’d give anything for them. But I’m terrified…”
“Of what, son?”
“That Minha is going to push me away.”
“Why?”
“Out of fear.”
“Has she ever told you what happened between her and Beopdung?”
“I think so. I mean, the essential points.”
“It was New Year’s Eve. 2015. She was living with him. I didn’t like it. Neither did her appa. But she used to be a bit of a stubborn thing.”
“Used to be?” he asked sarcastically.
Her grandmother chuckled. “Anyway, she believed herself to be in love with him. She went to the New Year’s Eve party he was throwing in his ‘mansion,’ as she used to call it. She’d known for a week that she was pregnant. She’d discovered it on Christmas when she was visiting family with us. She’d decided to wait until January first to tell him. She thought it would be a New Year’s surprise. It was a surprise, all right.”
Her lips twisted bitterly. “I never liked that boy. His eyes strayed too much. But I knew better than to say anything. Girls at that age who think they’re in love are often so blind. And she was going through a hard phase. If I or her appa suggested a direction, she’d fly as fast as she could the opposite way. So I kept my lips tightly sealed shut.
“That night she went to look for him right before midnight. But she couldn’t find him. She searched the bedrooms. She found his best friend in the second one, and he kissed her. And attempted to do other things to her. She got away from him, but I could tell she was scared of him. She thought he was going to rape her.
“When she went downstairs, she saw Beopdung kissing another girl. A few minutes later, when she told him she was pregnant – in front of all his friends – he laughed at her and told her to get rid of—,” she stopped and glanced at the precious child lying on the couch.
“She was horrified and ran out of there. She walked a mile at midnight in the freezing cold to catch a bus home. She was a mess by the time I found her the next morning. She did not have an easy pregnancy either. She nearly lost her twice. She had to spend some weeks on bed rest. Which wasn’t easy. Thankfully, most of those weeks were during her college break. Still, she missed some days.
“Somehow, she still completed her sophomore year in college. I honestly do not know how she passed. But she was a determined little thing. She kept saying that the responsibility lay on her shoulders to take care of her baby, and she needed an education to do so. She was always brilliant, and she had earned scholarships to college. She didn’t want to lose them by putting school off.
“She delivered her baby early due to complications. Ajin was born three weeks before her due date but was, thankfully, quite perfect. It worked in Minha’s favor. She was able to start college on time in the fall. But it was rough. She insisted on nursing her for as long as possible. She spent the money to buy a pump. She dragged it, a cooler, and her school books to the university each day.
“I took care of Ajin for her during the day, but I had to sleep at night. Sometimes, I think that Minha spent that first six months running on two hours of sleep a night. She was a superhero, for sure.
“Did you know that she graduated with high honors in elementary education and special needs? I couldn’t be prouder of her. But the greatest achievement she’s ever accomplished is lying right there. Minha is the best eomma I have ever known. She would do absolutely anything for that child. She has done absolutely everything for her.”
Didn’t he know it?
He was forcibly reminded of their failed date. And what she had expected to happen that night. What she had been willing to sacrifice for love of her daughter.
“I’m telling you all this, Naru, because I’m entrusting my two most precious treasures to you. Please guard them with your whole heart. Minha can’t take another loss. Honestly, it’s a miracle that she opened her heart to you at all.”
Her eyes were sad as they looked upon the child. “I don’t have many years left. I would like to know that they are secure before I leave this planet.”
“Harmony…” he began to argue with her.
But suddenly as he turned to look at her, she seemed to have aged over the past few minutes. A lot.
“I’m tired. I don’t let Minha see it. But I am. I’m always in bed by eight o’clock these days. I rise before the sun. But I just – my heart cannot take another loss. Nor can hers.
“She’s lost them all, you know? Everyone but me and Ajin. Her eomma, her appa, the boy she loved. She’s buried every hope she ever had too. She lives for that little girl.
“But even she is not enough to live for. Someday, she’ll grow up, and she, too, will leave. I, of course, will be long gone by then. If Minha hasn’t found someone committed to her by then, she’ll be all alone.”
He stared at her. Then her eagle eyes speared him.
“If you’re not serious about her – about them – when this day is over, leave them. And don’t come back. Ever again.” She stifled a sob. “They have both fallen madly in love with you.
“I’m sorry, I had to say all that. I think you love them with all your heart. But just in case I’m wrong, I had to appeal to your sense of right and wrong.”
Naru stared at her. Speechless.
“One more thing.” She glanced at the child. “Come with me.”
She crooked her finger at him and led him to Ajin’s bedroom. “Minha saw him once. When Ajin was six months old. She ran into him at a restaurant. He was walking by her table. His eyes flicked over her and her baby. He asked her one question.
“‘Did you have a boy?’
“When Minha shook her head, he laughed and said, ‘I told you you should have gotten rid of it.’
“Then he left the restaurant. Thank God. We haven’t seen or heard from him since. And I pray we never will.”
Naru’s heart was crushed. He was having trouble breathing. The pain his precious Minha had endured. That a man could so disparage his own daughter! A baby who meant so much to Minha. The child for whom she had sacrificed so much. Now the words she had spoken to him made so much more sense.
Just then, Ajin cried out in her sleep. Naru ran for the living room. But not before Maeum saw the look on his face. She was satisfied. Beopdung might have deserted Minha and Ajin. But Naru was made of sterner stuff. This boy wasn’t going anywhere.
