Blog

Chapter 14: The Withdrawal – September 4 – 12, 2024

Myeong experienced the dream again.  Only this time, Mrs. Wang had replaced his wife.  He woke up greatly disturbed.  No one could ever replace Dahui.  He was concerned.  His daughter seemed to be getting pretty attached to Mrs. Wang.  He needed to nip that relationship in the bud before Dahui got hurt.

So when Dahui asked him after school – in front of Mrs. Wang – if she could come over and make a different apple crisp recipe with her tonight, he grappled for an excuse to say no. 

Haewon sensed that he didn’t want her company, so she smiled at the girl and responded, “It’s okay, Dahui.  I can’t tonight.  I have a lot of things to prepare for class tomorrow.  Maybe some other time.” 

But she no longer held out any hope of being invited to their apartment again.  She sensed a cold wind blowing from Mr. Kang’s heart today.  She wondered if she had done something to offend him.  Even contemplating such a possibility made her want to burst into tears suddenly.  She turned quickly away from them and busied herself helping another student.

As he walked out of her classroom, Myeong couldn’t resist looking back at Mrs. Wang.  Her head was bent over a child’s desk, but at the last possible moment, she glanced up, directly into his eyes.  The pain in her gaze stole his breath right before he stepped into the hallway.  Had he hurt her feelings?

He pushed the thought away and went home to bury himself in work.  He succeeded for over a week.  He also successfully resisted every one of Dahui’s attempts to invite her teacher over each night that week.  But the following Thursday, he would find Mrs. Wang to be irresistible.

––

Haewon had passed a horrible week.  No, that wasn’t entirely true.  It had been a mediocre week, at worst.  But the loneliness had increased ten-fold since the two evenings she’d spent with Mr. Kang and his daughter.  Haewon didn’t know what she had done to offend the man.  But, clearly, he was upset with her.  He didn’t meet her eyes anymore.  He hadn’t for the past week.  Not since last Wednesday when she’d caught his eye right before he walked out of her classroom.  For the last few days, he’d dropped his daughter at the door and left immediately.  In the afternoons, he always seemed to arrive when Haewon was speaking with another parent; he would usher Dahui out the door as quickly as possible. 

But Thursday dawned dark and cold.  Rain was descending in sheets.  Haewon groaned.  She had to walk to the bus stop, about a block away, carrying a huge book bag full of supplies for her class.  She hated walking in the rain.  She took her umbrella, but the wind was unbelievable today.  It snapped her umbrella backwards as though it wished to be a cup to catch the rain instead of an upside-down bowl to redirect it.  She fought with it to get it to bend back the other way.  While she did so, she got drenched.  She was standing on the corner wrestling with her recalcitrant umbrella when Mr. Kang drove past her.

“Appa!” Dahui shouted.  “There’s Mrs. Wang!  She’s soaking wet!”

He glanced out the window and felt the woman’s misery.  Was it his imagination, or were tears streaming down her cheeks?  He shook his head.  What a fanciful thought!  Surely, those were just raindrops!

But her forlorn figure tugged at his heart anyway.  He found a parking space and pulled over.  The only reason he was in her part of the neighborhood so early in the morning was because he had decided to take Dahui out for breakfast before school. 

“Get her attention, Dahui. Wave her over.”

Dahui rolled down her window and yelled at her teacher.  But the winds were too fierce.  Her voice was drowned out by the combination of that violent gale and the pouring rain.  

“Roll up your window,” her father instructed her.  “I’ll go get her.”

He grabbed his umbrella and opened it as he pushed his door open.  He avoided the oncoming traffic and slipped around his car.  He rushed off towards poor Mrs. Wang, who looked like she was having one of the worst days of her life.  And he knew that, given the battles she’d already faced, it would take a lot to defeat her.  So he felt his heart tumbling towards her as he ran her way.

She saw his rushing movement out of the corner of her eye, so she glanced up at him just as her umbrella decided to cooperate.  It hit him in the face as it snapped back.  He recoiled, and she immediately apologized and sought after his welfare.

“I’m fine.  Come get in my car!  I’ll drive you to work!” he shouted in her face in an effort to communicate over the vociferous wind.

She stared up at him with an achingly vulnerable expression on her face.  She shook her head.  “It’s okay.  My bus stop is right there.”  She pointed down the street.

But, for the life of him, he couldn’t see any bus stop.

“Mrs. Wang, please,” he begged her, “you’re getting soaked out here.”

“I’ll be fine now.  I’ve got this umbrella.”  She shook it then to demonstrate, and that perverse wind grabbed it and twisted it the wrong way again.  Haewon grunted with disgust.  She burst into tears then.  She fervently prayed that the pouring rain was disguising her grief. 

This was all too much.  That she’d had to face him today, knowing he had decided against liking her for some reason.  She had no desire to ever see him again.  Her heart was hurting so badly.  That she had made herself vulnerable to him and poured all her private grief into his ears, and then he had pulled away from her.  She hadn’t trusted anyone.  Ever.  Not with her inner turmoil. 

She had finally let her guard down and inundated a stranger with it.  The dam had burst, and her agony had overflowed.  She must have overwhelmed him.  She must have disgusted him.  What a fool she had been to believe he really cared.

The pain in her chest today was worse than it had been after she’d woken up from her heart transplant.  She turned her face away and began to walk through the rain towards the bus stop.  She was doing her best to ignore him.  Briefly, she wondered why he was here.  How he had come to find her this early in the morning.

“Mrs. Wang!” he shouted.

She glanced back at him.  “It’s fine, Mr. Kang.  I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than to rescue me.” 

He watched as she bowed her head and plowed on in the rain.  She had opened her umbrella to hang over her book bag so, at least, that item and all it contained would stay dry.  But she was now being pummeled by the angry streams of water falling from the sky.  She looked so miserable.  She was hurting his heart.

He followed her.  He reached out and grabbed her arm gently.  “Please, Mrs. Wang, come with me.  Dahui will be distressed if you don’t.”

He had finally found the magic words.  She stopped and glanced back at him.

“All right,” she sighed and turned to follow him. 

A few moments later, she piled into his back seat.  Highly irritated by both her current circumstance and her stubborn umbrella, which had landed her in this present predicament.  She averted her gaze and fastened her seat belt. 

“Hi, Mrs. Wang!” Dahui greeted her as soon as Mr. Kang slammed her door shut.

She glanced up to smile at the kind girl.  “Good morning, Dahui.”

“Are you going to breakfast with us before school?” she asked as her father slid into his seat.

Haewon steeled herself to resist looking at him.  “No, Dahui.  I believe your appa is just going to drop me at the bus stop.”

“I most certainly am not.  Why would I leave you to stand out in the pouring rain again?  And then you must walk at least a quarter mile from the final bus stop to the school.  You’d get drenched again.”

“It matters little.  I’m already drenched.”

“It’s cold outside.  I don’t want you catching a chill.”

This time she did meet his gaze.  The cast of her countenance seemed to say, “And what business of yours is it if I do?”

Her expression disconcerted him.  Immensely.  He didn’t dislike her.  The truth was he found himself far too attracted to her.  His heart felt threatened.  But as the look in her eyes mellowed, and the irritation leaked out of her face, he recognized two things in her gaze.  Fear.  And hurt.

He had hurt her.

Of course, he had.  She’d poured her whole heart out to him a little over a week ago, and he had ignored her since.  He had, in fact, avoided her.  And she knew it.  Obviously.

“Please come to breakfast with us.”

She sighed.  He was being polite. 

“I’ll just wait in your car for you.  I have things I need to work on.  I had planned on using my time on the bus to get a couple of things done.”  It was mostly true.

She was avoiding his gaze.  He was staring into his rearview mirror in an attempt to catch her eye.  To no avail.  Once again, Dahui came to his rescue.

“Miss Wang?  Please come eat with us.  Have you had breakfast?”

She wasn’t going to lie to the sweet girl.  “No, I overslept.  I didn’t have time to eat this morning before I had to catch the bus.”

“Then you must come.  We won’t accept ‘no’ for an answer.  You can’t go to school on an empty stomach,” he teased her. 

At least, he tried to tease her.  But she wasn’t biting today. 

“My treat,” he murmured.

That got her goat.  She glanced up into his bright blue eyes as he turned his head towards her.

“You don’t need to pay for my meal.  I am fully capable of buying myself breakfast.”

“Aren’t you prickly today?” he asked.  Then his tone softened.  “Let me buy.  It’s my way of thanking you for the apple crisp,” he wheedled.

“But the apple crisp was my thank you for dinner,” she retorted.

Before he could think better of it, the words simply slipped through his lips.  “But Dahui led me to believe there will be more apple crisp at your apartment.  Consider breakfast an early thank you.”

“Oh?  She did?” Haewon breathed.

She couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his.  And her heart had begun to pick up speed again. 

Stop it, foolish heart!  You may not be attracted to this man!  He has no use for me. 

She dragged her eyes away from his as she felt them filling with stupid tears again.  She gazed out the window as he pulled his car into traffic.  She tried to blink back those stubborn tears, but they slid down her face.  A moment later, as Myeong glanced up into his rearview mirror, he caught sight of her hand brushing them away, and his heart bent towards her.  He had made her cry.  Now he was angry with himself.

––

Haewon stared out the window.  She couldn’t get her heart to stop pounding.  She was beginning to feel lightheaded.  She leaned back and closed her eyes.  Two years ago, such a reaction would have scared her.  She would have feared that her body was rejecting Eunho’s heart.  But she had made it safely through the first two years.  Safely through the first year of monthly tests and heart catheterizations.  Safely through the anti-rejection medications.  Which she still had to take.

No.  Her heart wasn’t pounding from rejection.  Not the rejection of her own body anyway.  It was stressed by the abandonment of the man in the front seat.  

Abandonment?

That was what his attitude of the last week had felt like.  As though, after she’d poured her heart out to him, he was now snubbing her.  Clearly, she made him uncomfortable, so why was he insisting she go to breakfast with them?  Just for Dahui’s sake?

Haewon decided she would suffer through it to make the little girl happy.  The young teacher stared through the windowpane as she thought of how much she already loved that girl with the raven curls.  She knew she ought to be protecting her own heart from more pain, but Dahui was just so lovable.

Haewon would love to be close to her.  Like a mother with her daughter.  She felt another pang.  The doctor had said that it was possible for her to get pregnant and carry a baby to full-term.  But there was an increased chance of complications and organ failure.  She wasn’t yet sure that it was worth the risk.  

She desperately wanted a family, but as she had spent time with Dahui and had seen how negatively affected the girl had been by the death of her mother, Haewon had begun to doubt that she could actually risk leaving her own child behind.  The last thing she wanted was to take all the risks to have a baby and then die delivering her.

Of course, all of these scenarios were first dependent upon her convincing a man to fall in love with her and take a chance on her.  And right now, that seemed like a very big if.  

She had told Mr. Kang all of her secrets.  How she had been used and tossed aside by Gyeoul.  How she had married Eunho fully expecting to depart this earth a short time later.  How that expectation had been thwarted by a knife wielded by their enemy and plunged into Eunho’s soft flesh.  How Eunho had given her the one thing she had always desperately needed.  But in the process, he had left her alone.  And now, after spilling that sad story into Mr. Kang’s ears, she was still alone.

This man hadn’t even wanted to speak to her over the last week.  Let alone marry her and father her child.  She couldn’t go through it again.  Baring her soul to a man, only to be rejected by him in the end.  Was she always to be abandoned then?  

She sighed and leaned her head against the cold windowpane.  She closed her eyes.  And began to take several deep breaths.  In an attempt to calm her wounded heart.

“Mrs. Wang, are you all right?” Mr. Kang’s sharp voice sounded suddenly.

She continued to lean against the glass with her eyes closed.

“Mmhmm,” she murmured, “I’m fine.”

He frowned.  She wasn’t all right.  Something was clearly distressing her.  The thing was – he was concerned about her physically.  Had she gotten too wet and cold before he’d convinced her to climb into his car?

“Is your heart all right?”

Her lips twitched as she considered the irony of that question.

“My physical heart is fine,” she whispered.

He glanced back up into the rearview mirror.  Was she implying that her soul was hurting?

He put his attention back on the road where it belonged for a couple more minutes.  Then he pulled into a parking space in front of the little diner he and Dahui enjoyed.  

“We’re here.  It’s time for breakfast, Mrs. Wang.”

She opened her eyes and picked up her purse.  She left her book bag on the seat.  She climbed out of the car and ran for the door of the restaurant.  He was there before her, already opening that door for her.  She sailed past him into the toasty diner.  She and Dahui settled themselves in a booth while he picked up some menus.  He handed her one a moment later.  She didn’t meet his eyes as she murmured her thanks.

After a little while, a waitress appeared, and breakfast was ordered.  Haewon kept her eyes firmly on the tabletop.  Until Dahui addressed her.

“Mrs. Wang, are you okay?  You’ve seemed kind of sad lately.”

For just a moment, her eyes fluttered shut.  Then, Haewon opened them to smile at the child.

“I’m fine.  Just busy with it being the beginning of the school year.”

She was lying.  He could feel it.  His eyes riveted to her face, he sought for a way to distract his daughter.

“Dahui, run to the bathroom and wash your hands.”

“Huh?” she looked at him like he was insane.  “Appa, I’m not a little kid.  My hands are clean.”

“Dahui.  Please do as I say.”

She noticed that, despite speaking to her, he was still staring at her teacher.  

Hmm.  Something was up.

“Okay, Appa.”  

She slid out of the booth and headed for the bathroom.  She slipped around the corner of the restaurant and then stopped to peek around it to watch them.  She recalled the night Mrs. Wang came to dinner at their apartment.  The three of them had cooked together.  They had felt like a family.  Mrs. Wang had felt like her mother.  Appa had seemed to feel it too.  He had talked to Mrs. Wang and joked around with her like they were old friends.

Dahui was absolutely positive that her appa liked Mrs. Wang.  And she was just as sure that her teacher liked her appa.  So why weren’t they talking these days?  They didn’t even look at each other anymore.  Something was wrong, but Dahui had no idea what it was.  She stood watching as her appa began to speak to her teacher.

“Mrs. Wang, what’s troubling you?”

“Look,” Haewon responded, “you don’t have to be nice to me. I realize that I overstepped so many boundaries last week with you.  I apologize.”  She wasn’t meeting his eyes.  “I have made you uncomfortable in my presence.  I truly regret this.  It isn’t necessary for you to put on this act for me.  I don’t expect you to speak to me anymore.  Beyond what is necessary as the appa of one of my students.”

Her words angered him.  “So Dahui is just one of your students now?”  He had seen the way she looked at his daughter.  And heard the tender tone of her voice when she called her name.  “I thought she was special to you.” 

That got to her.  She raised her eyes to meet his gaze.  He was amazed by the fire leaping in them.  

“Of course, Dahui is special to me!” she hissed.  “She is a very special girl!”  She glanced away then and lowered her voice.  “I do not wish to see her hurt.  I don’t want to give her,” or myself, “false hope.”

He furrowed his brow.  “False hope?”

“Mmm.”  But she had already said too much.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, I think she…she was hoping that I might…fill in for her eomma.”

He stared at her.  At least, she hadn’t said, “Take her place.”

“You can’t take her place.  It’s impossible.”

She heard the steel in his voice.  It shocked her into meeting his eyes again.  “Of course not!  I would never expect to take your wife’s place.  Not in your life.  Or in Dahui’s.”  

But her voice was laced with such sorrow that he began to wonder if that was exactly what she had hoped for a little while.  It stunned him.  Was Mrs. Wang as attracted to him as he was to her?

She was speaking again.  “I know I’m no prize.  But your daughter does deserve an eomma.  So I hope that at some point you find yourself in a place where you can find love again.”  Now she did meet his eyes.  “You are too good of a man to grow old alone.  Somewhere out there is a wonderful lady who would make you both happy.  I hope you find her.”  Then she stood up.  “Excuse me.  I need to use the bathroom.”

So I can cry my eyes out in solitude.

She fled from him then.  He stared at her departing back while her words washed over him.

I know I’m no prize.

Those words had hurt his heart.  Why on earth would she think such a horrible thing about herself?  Had he reinforced that belief with his coldness of the past week?  Had she noticed him withdrawing?  Apparently, she had.  Because she had felt the need to apologize for crying in his arms the other night.  Now he was just plain embarrassed.  He had made her feel self-conscious.  That was the last thing he had wanted to do. 

He had sought to comfort her.  But then she’d gotten too close for his own comfort.  She’d made a better apple crisp than his wife.  Mrs. Wang had invaded his dreams and usurped his memories of her too.  Now when he closed his eyes and saw that golden autumn day, it wasn’t Dahui who filled his mind.  It was a tiny mite of a woman with long, raven tresses and wide, obsidian eyes.  A china doll was sitting under that tree with him, her face tilted towards the sun as her words teased him into rhyming.  No matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the image out of his head.  And it disturbed him.  How was he to keep his wife’s memory alive when another woman had begun to invade nearly all of his thoughts? 

––

Mrs. Wang returned to the table five minutes later.  She frowned as she glanced at her empty side of the booth.  Then she met Mr. Kang’s gaze.

“Where’s Dahui?”

He sat up straight.  Alarmed.  “Wasn’t she in the bathroom with you?”

She shook her head.  “The bathroom was empty.”

“What?”  He glanced around.  Then he stood up.  Fear was snaking through him.

“Are there any shops nearby that she’s familiar with?  Would she have gone anywhere to pass the time while we talked?” Haewon asked him.

“No.  She’s a good girl.  She never wanders.”

“I’ll go check the restroom again.  Maybe I was mistaken.”  But she was sure she wasn’t.

He followed her.  They searched every table in the little restaurant.  And both bathrooms.  A moment later, they met in front of their table again.  But Dahui wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Haewon’s heart had begun to beat a rapid tattoo.  So had Myeong’s.  His face was revealing his panic.

“Where could she be?  She knows not to run off alone.”

All sorts of horrors were entering Haewon’s mind.  She knew only too well the evil that could befall a naïve girl.

Myeong glanced down at their table. Their food had been delivered.  But no one was going to eat it now. 

“What do we do?”  Haewon asked.  “Should we search the nearby shops?  Call the police?”  She looked up at him and noticed the fear invading his countenance.  She followed her impulse and reached out to slip her hand into his own.  “She’ll be all right.  She’s a smart girl.  I bet something colorful just caught her eye across the way.” 

She squeezed his hand.  He glanced down at their joined hands.  If he just hadn’t insisted that she come to breakfast with them, they wouldn’t be in this predicament.  He had made Dahui leave the table so he could speak with Mrs. Wang.  He pulled his hand roughly out of her grasp. 

Startled, Haewon glanced up into his angry face.

“I need to pay the bill so we can go search for her.”

Dahui’s heart rent in half as she watched how her appa treated Mrs. Wang.  Her plan had backfired.  What was meant to draw them together had torn them apart.  Dahui rushed into the restaurant through the front door.  She’d seen the panic on her appa’s face.  Too late did she realize her error in judgement.  She had misjudged his reaction.  She had simply believed the two adults would work together to try to figure out where she was hiding.  She hadn’t realized that they wouldn’t know that she wasn’t in danger.

“Appa!  I’m right here!” she rushed to reassure him.

But as she gazed at Mrs. Wang, Dahui realized the damage was already done.  Her heart sank.  How on earth would she ever get her appa together with her teacher now?

––

Haewon ate her breakfast in silence while Mr. Kang gave his daughter a stern lecture.  It was completely born of fear.  Had his reaction to Haewon been born of that same fear?  He had broken her heart when he’d pulled away from her comforting hand.  She had known in that moment that he blamed her for his missing daughter.  Haewon knew exactly what he was thinking.  If he just hadn’t stopped for her this morning, or insisted she come to breakfast with them, then he wouldn’t have sent his daughter to the bathroom alone, and she wouldn’t have been missing.  Clearly, it was all Haewon’s fault.

Except…it wasn’t.  It was his fault.  He was the one who had stopped for her.  He was the one who had insisted she get into his car.  He was the one who had pressed her to join them for breakfast.  And he was the one who had sent Dahui to the restroom because he wished to speak with Mrs. Wang alone.  None of this was her fault.  And she was becoming angry that he had blamed her.

But, of course, it was understandable.  People made stupid decisions when they were scared.  And the man had lost his wife.  Unexpectedly.  Haewon knew only too well the kind of damage such a trauma could inflict upon one’s soul.

She sighed.  She had to get away from this broken man.  He was nearly as messed up as she was.  The last thing he needed was more trouble.  Or another heart that needed healing.  The last thing he needed was her.