Chapter 3: A Cut Above the Rest – March 1 – September 23, 2022
Over the coming months, Heejin hid herself away from her family. With the exception of her mother. They continued to meet once a week for dinner. Ahin kept these meetings a secret from her husband.
She also kept her daughter abreast of all the developments within their family. Heejin was aware of Eunho and Haewon’s return to Korea and of the downhill state of her sister-in-law’s health. Heejin was concerned about Haewon, but she stayed away from her because she didn’t wish to run into Eunho.
For her own part, Heejin was happy with her Seok. But she was becoming increasingly unhappy working in the business world.
One night in June at the end of a particularly trying workday, she jumped into the car and greeted Yunseok with, “I am quitting this job. I hate it! I must have been out of my mind to become a business major!” Then she captured his eyes with her own and stated vehemently, “You were right! I want to be a chef! So I’m going to apply for a job at a restaurant.”
“Don’t,” he responded. “Let me pay for you to attend culinary school first. Then you can start out with a better job.”
She gazed at her knight in shining armor. “Seok,” her voice was a caress, “do we have enough money saved for me to do that?”
He nodded. “More than enough.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “I’ve been putting money away for that purpose every month since February.”
“What?” She stared at him in astonishment.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Ever since I noticed your love of cooking, I could see this day coming. At least, I hoped it would come.”
“Seok, I love you! You are so good to me!”
“Well, it’s about time somebody was!”
—
Heejin stood at her chopping station waiting for her teacher to begin class. Outside, the autumn sunlight was already painting the leaves of the trees dark crimson, burnt orange, and mellow gold. She couldn’t believe that three months had already flown by since Seok had talked her into enrolling in this program. She’d begun her classes only three weeks ago, but she knew already that being a chef was a talent with which she’d been born. She was loving her classes, and she was the top student in every single one of them.
As she glanced at her phone, she smiled at Seok’s face. It was plastered on her wallpaper. As her eyes traced the familiar planes of that beloved face, she reflected on her life. She found herself quite contented for the very first time.
Heejin had clearly met her match in Seok. He was the first man who had loved her selflessly. He was so much better for her than even her dear Hobi had been. Seok had entered all of her nightmares and gently coaxed her out of the darkness and back into the light of day with him. He had never left her alone. He had faithfully come for her…every single time she cried out in her fitful sleep.
In the daylight, he had encouraged her to talk to him about the traumas that had scarred her heart. When her brother died, and she found herself inexplicably damaged by his loss, Seok was the one who held her hand and walked her through that period of grief. She had no idea how she would have weathered that storm without him. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to.
Why was her mind going back to that day now?
Haewon had called her that fateful morning from the hospital to inform her that Eunho had been stabbed. But Heejin hadn’t had an opportunity to see her sister-in-law before the doctor had whisked Haewon off to surgery. Heejin had made a beeline for the hospital. Only to discover that her brother had not made it.
She had been overcome by a very painful grief as those words had infiltrated her heart. She couldn’t understand it. She hadn’t had the best memories of him. In fact, most of the memories she did carry around in her heart were tinged by his abuse.
But for one.
The week before he died, Eunho called her and left her a message requesting a meeting with her. She hadn’t wanted to tell him where she lived. She hadn’t desired to see him at all. But Seok, aware that Eunho had apologized to Yuni, had encouraged Heejin to meet with him. Seok had also offered to go with her. However, Eunho had been alarmed when Seok had shown up at the restaurant with her. They’d decided on a neutral location. A tiny bistro at which none of them enjoyed eating.
“Heej, I need to speak to you about some events that occurred when we were children. I was hoping for some privacy,” Eunho had murmured stiffly as she approached him.
He had been seated, but he stood up when she arrived. She was pleasantly surprised to see that he didn’t tower over Seok. She hadn’t realized just how tall Seok was until that moment in time. He had never intimidated her. He had, in fact, always seemed happily unimposing. Heejin had been imposed upon by too many men in her life already. She needed someone gentle and serene. Seok had certainly been those things to her.
But as she observed her husband standing a few feet from her intimidating brother, she realized that, in a contest, Seok would most likely win. He was strongly built and a couple inches over six feet tall. His strength was a shield around her. She felt immensely comforted by this realization. And suddenly – for the first time in her life – perfectly safe in her brother’s presence. As long as Seok was standing next to her.
“Seok can hear whatever you need to say to me, Eunho. He already knows everything that has passed between us.”
She’d had the satisfaction of seeing her brother pale at those words. If anything, he’d become stiffer after that. He had indicated two empty chairs at the table. Heejin had taken one. As far away from Eunho as possible. Yunseok had ignored the other and taken a third, on the other side of Heejin. Placing himself between her and her brother at the square table that usually seated four people.
Eunho understood Yunseok’s message and then attempted to ignore her husband. Her brother didn’t meet her eye either for several seconds. He appeared to be studying the tablecloth under his hand. But when he finally began speaking, Eunho gazed up into her eyes.
“I still remember when you were born. You were so perfect. So beautiful. So tiny.” His mouth quirked into a humorless smile. “So defenseless. I wanted to wrap myself around you and protect you. From everyone. From him. And his belt.”
A glint of steel entered his eye, and a sudden sob shook his voice, but he choked it off and continued speaking.
“But then, a few months later, your eomma began to turn her anger on me, and the easiest way to defend myself was to attack you. I’m so sorry, Heej, that I took my fear out on you. I’m deeply ashamed of the way I treated you when we were children. And,” his eye caught hers, “when I was a teenager.”
She knew what he wasn’t saying. So did Yunseok. Eunho was apologizing for the night he had molested her.
“I suspect there are a hundred other things I should apologize to you for. I’m sorry, Heejin, that I’ve been such a pitiful brother.”
She had sat in shock, simply gaping at him. It had been too much to take in. She had never expected Eunho to ever recognize that he had committed any wrong. Let alone apologize to her. His attitude had floored her.
He had cleared his throat before she could say anything. Then he had spoken again. “I’m sure you have no real desire to eat with me. Especially not here.” He’d glanced around the dingy, little restaurant. “Thank you for meeting with me. I just wanted to apologize. I don’t expect anything from you.”
He had stood up abruptly. His eyes had connected with Yunseok’s then.
“Please,” Eunho had spoken one more time, “take good care of my sister. She’s a gem.” His eyes had fallen to caress the rings on her finger. “I’m glad to see you’ve married her. I’m glad she has someone now.”
Again, one corner of his mouth had twitched upward. His eyes had met hers one last time.
Then he was gone. Striding towards the front door.
Heejin’s mind simply hadn’t moved quickly enough. She’d felt stuck in quicksand, her reaction time eons slower than she needed it to be. Finally, her eyes had connected with Seok’s.
“I didn’t even say anything,” she murmured.
“It’s all right.”
“Is it? Shouldn’t I have said something? ‘I forgive you?’ ‘It’s all right’?”
“Is it?”
“No,” she paused. “I don’t know. I never expected him to say any of those things. He loved me? Seok, did he say he loved me when I was born?” A sob had bubbled up from the depths of her spirit then, and Yunseok had stood up to pull her up into his arms. “He wanted to protect me. That’s akin to love, isn’t it? Does anyone ever want to protect someone they don’t love?”
Then she had sobbed against his shirt. She’d been so thankful that he had gone with her that day. She had needed to lean on his quiet strength. Life had prepared her for loss. But it had never taught her how to navigate through the realms of repentance and forgiveness.
Over the course of the next few days, she had considered calling her brother. Several times. But every time, something stopped her. Now it was too late to ever have the conversation that she had contemplated having with him.
“Eunho, I forgive you,” she had whispered the words over his coffin when the onlookers had all melted away at his funeral. A funeral his wife had missed. She’d still been in the hospital. Carrying his heart around in her chest.
But, of course, Heejin’s appa had been there. Looking absolutely devastated. That had shocked Heejin. She had never envisioned her father’s countenance embracing such an expression.
She and Yunseok had slipped into the back of the funeral parlor for the service. She hadn’t seen her appa in six months. She’d had no desire to see him ever again. Truthfully, she’d been terrified of what he would do if he saw her with Yunseok again.
But her appa had glanced up in the middle of the service and spied her and Yunseok on the back row. Her father had shocked her by smiling at her. She had shuddered, imagining him to be ignorant of her marriage. She’d feared his coming anger when he realized the truth. But she had given him a tremulous smile of her own before returning her attention to the speaker.
Then she’d glanced around to note the number of people missing from this funeral. All of Eunho’s buddies, the ones with whom he’d caused so much trouble, were missing today. The only people in attendance were family members and business associates of her appa. She felt a crushing sorrow for her brother then. To be so unloved. To leave such a legacy.
But then, she’d remembered Haewon. His darling wife. With whom he had left his heart. In that moment, Heejin had realized that Eunho had left a beautiful legacy to the one person he had loved most in the world. He had purchased a new life for his wife with his own death. What more beautiful gift could a man give to his beloved?
Heejin had begun to weep then. She had cried uncontrollably for several long minutes. Cried for all that she and Eunho had never enjoyed together. And never would experience now. Yunseok had finally escorted her out into the lobby to avoid her making a scene.
As she had bawled against his strong chest, she had reflected on the shared life of a broken, little boy who had taken out his fear on his baby sister. Then she imagined their life the way it had been meant to be. A happy, little boy greeting his newborn sister with joy. Cradling her in his arms. Protecting her from all the harsh elements of life. Helping her to take her first steps. Teaching her her first word. Teasing her and loving on her as she grew up. Delighting in her presence.
She imagined her part in that scenario. The younger sister who adored her beloved, elder brother. Tagging along with him on his adventures. Begging him to include her in all his greatest escapades. Expecting him to rescue her when they found themselves in trouble.
She saw him growing up as a kind, young man. Falling in love with Haewon and marrying her without all the strife and horror she had endured. Heejin even pictured herself falling in love with one of his best friends, perhaps a boy named Seok. She saw these two couples proceeding to marry and raise their children together. And she wept some more. For all she had lost. For all she had never experienced. For all she never would.
Yunseok had been at a loss. He had greatly desired to comfort her. But for those few moments, she had been inconsolable. Then her appa had appeared behind her in that foyer. Yunseok had seen the man enter the room, followed by his wife. Yunseok had been prepared for a fight. But he didn’t get one. Not even when the broken man had caught sight of the rings on his daughter’s finger.
Instead, his devastated gaze had drunk in his daughter’s grief over the loss of her brother.
“I thought you didn’t like Eunho,” her appa had breathed.
“I didn’t,” she’d whispered. “He hurt me so many times. He threatened me so many more.”
“But you’re sorry he’s gone?”
She nodded. “I think he’d finally found himself. His true self. But I found him too late. I’ll never enjoy his presence now.”
Her appa had just stared at her while a tear had slid down his cheek. Then he had turned and walked back into the funeral. But his wife had stayed with their daughter. The death of her stepson had shaken her.
Ahin had spent the last three months watching Eunho with his wife. She’d seen him tenderly care for the fading girl with a gentleness that had baffled her. She would never – not in a million years – have believed he was capable of such kindness. Even seeing it with her own eyes, she’d still found it hard to digest.
The way he had looked at Haewon had shaken Ahin. And made her regret all the things she’d done to him as a child. For she had seen that he was capable of great love. And amazing sacrifice. She had also seen the haunted expression in his eyes when he had gazed at his wife while she slept. He had known that she was slipping away from him, and it had terrified him.
Ahin had understood. He had been afraid of living without Haewon. He had believed that his newfound kindness was just an anomaly. Something he’d perhaps gained as an extension of his wife’s own gentleness. He had feared that when she died, his new strength of character would die with her. He would again find himself to be the monster he had always been afraid of becoming. Eunho hadn’t wanted to go back to his old life of brutality. But he had feared he would find himself falling back in with his old friends. And taking up again with his old ways.
He hadn’t wanted to breathe anymore if he couldn’t share that breath with Haewon. She was the light of his life. What would he become when he was once more plunged into darkness with her passing?
Ahin had felt her heart bending towards him in those moments. She had wanted to comfort him and lend him her faith in him. But she had found that she didn’t really have any. She too was afraid he would revert to his old patterns upon Haewon’s death.
But then a strange thing had happened. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t so unexpected. Eunho had reaped the consequences of his bad choices. Of his deplorable behavior. Of his horrendous deeds. Maybe the odd part was that, in his reaping what he had sown, a way had been made for him to save the one he loved. Out of his death was born Haewon’s new life. A life so much more colorful than the one she had lived when her own heart had beat within her breast.
As Ahin had stood in the foyer and gazed upon her heartbroken daughter, she’d found her own heart breaking. For Heejin. How different her life might have been if Ahin had simply relinquished her fears as a young woman and held those two tiny children within the circle of her arms, seeking to protect both of them from their appa’s anger. But, instead, Ahin had fought only for her own survival.
It made her sick to realize it now. Perhaps she was no better than Eunho. But she felt the resolve of steel infusing her backbone in that moment. She would be. In the future, she would put her daughter before herself. And Ahin would stop fearing her own husband. Life was too long to spend it bound up by fear.
She stood hopelessly off to the side watching Yunseok comfort her daughter in her unexpected grief. Ahin wondered if Heejin was also picturing life the way it should have been instead of being mired in its horrifying reality. The three of them stayed in the foyer until the service was over. Then they filed back into the funeral parlor by a side door so that Heejin could visit her brother’s coffin alone before it was removed for burial. That was when she had spoken the words she had once believed could never pass her lips.
“Eunho, I forgive you. I am so sorry that your repentance and my forgiveness came too late for us to be friends. But I will, at least, now be able to remember you fondly in one of my memories.”
Then she had turned away from his still form to bury her face in Seok’s chest one more time before they headed to the cemetery.
—
Heejin had gone to see Haewon a month after Eunho died. She’d looked her old acquaintance in the eye and tearfully spoken the words burning in her heart.
“I never forgave him when he stood before me. I know he’s not here. But you have his heart. It’s the only part of him I can reach now. So I need to say something to it.”
Then she had glanced at Haewon’s left breast and uttered, “I forgive you, Eunho. Rest in peace now. I think you were trying to tell me that you loved me. I just want to thank you for saying those words to me before you died.”
Her voice had cracked on the last word, and then she had burst into tears. She had glanced up into Haewon’s face to see those tears streaming down her cheeks too. Then the two girls had embraced like they never had as children.
“I am so sorry, Haewon, that you lost him. But I think that you changed him. He was not a good person when I was a child. But the last time I saw him, he apologized for all the evil he did to me back then. I believe he meant it.”
“He did,” Haewon had whispered. “He told me so.”
Heejin had unleashed another flood over Eunho’s heart then, and his precious wife had cradled her in her arms until the deluge had passed.
—
“Minha. Have a seat,” Naru spoke gently.
She glanced up at him. “What is it?”
“I heard something today. Something upsetting from my eomma when I visited her.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Eunho.”
“Eunho? The Eunho that…”
He nodded.
“What about him?”
“He died.”
She gasped. “What?”
“Apparently, his sins came home to roost. He was stabbed to death by the man who raped his wife.”
Minha simply stared at him. It was too horrifying to take in.
“What happened?”
“The man visited his house and pulled a knife on Eunho. He was trying to kill Eunho’s wife, but Eunho stepped between her and the blade. He took it in the gut.”
She gaped at her husband. “He saved her life?”
Naru nodded. “Twice over.”
Her brow wrinkled. “What do you mean?”
“She herself was a few days from dying. She had always been frail; she had a bad heart. But he asked the paramedics to give her his heart if it was a match. It was. He gave her a new lease on life. The doctors expect her to make a full recovery.”
Minha began to cry. “That’s wonderful. That’s a wonderful ending to a horrid story.” She sobbed. “But I can’t help but feel horribly sad. He had begun to change.”
“It’s true. But if he hadn’t died, his wife would have. And I think he truly loved her. I get the feeling that he would be happy with the outcome. That he would have chosen to die for her if he had known that his death would mean she could go on living. Actually, for the first time in her life, she is truly living. It’s all because Eunho gave her his heart.”
“What happened to the man who killed him?”
“He was arrested. Eunho’s wife is going to testify against him. She witnessed the whole thing. He’s going away for a long time. Justice will be done.”
Minha’s tender heart couldn’t take it. Tears streamed down her face. “If Eunho had still been the cold-hearted guy who ripped my dress, I wouldn’t find this so hard to swallow.”
“I know, love,” Naru pulled her up into his arms. “But I’m glad he changed. I think he experienced the transforming power of love. Much in the same way that I have. And I can say from experience that there is no greater gift than that.”
He pulled her close and rested his chin on her head as she spilled her grief out on his shirt.
“I love you, Naru,” she breathed a few moments later. “And I’m so thankful that you allowed yourself to love me. And to receive my love. I’m glad you didn’t meet a bitter end like Eunho did.”
“Me too,” he responded heartily.
He shuddered as he remembered Minsu. And thought of the path he could have taken in life. But hadn’t. All because of one choice. One different step might have decided him upon a horrendous path. As had Eunho’s one terrible choice.
At least, in his sad end, Eunho had been given a second chance to sow something good into someone’s life. He had grabbed that opportunity with both hands. And left his heart to beat in the chest of the one woman he had loved above himself.
