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Ga-yeong didn’t know what to do with the box. She smoothed her hand over the jacket, her finger catching over the dried blood. She was sure it was blood; it didn’t have the tacky feel of paint.
And then there was a credit card that Ga-yeong shoved into her pocket. For some reason she didn’t want her parents to see it. But she didn’t know what to do with it. Some of her friends already had credit cards but not her. Her father said she was too young. She wouldn’t be able to use it even if she wanted to.
She closed the box and smoothed her finger over the pink circle, triangle and square. What did they mean?
“Jenny!” Claire yelled from Ga-yeong’s room.
Ga-yeong swallowed. She’d forgotten her friend was here. She briefly considered leaving the box on the table but quickly decided against it.
She went to her room and shoved the box under her bed.
“What’s that?” Claire asked. She was sitting on Ga-yeong’s bed, skimming a magazine.
Claire had been the first friend Ga-yeong had made when she came to America. They had three classes together. Claire had long brown hair and brown eyes. Ga-yeong liked that Claire always did the talking. She’d helped Ga-yeong pick out her English name.
“Jenny!” She had said. “Like the idol, because you’re Korean! But you can spell it with a Y to be different.” Then her face had fallen. “But I like your real name.”
“Everyone thinks it’s weird,” Ga-yeong said. “And no one pronounces it right. My parents say I need to pick one. I like Jenny.”
“Some old clothes,” Ga-yeong lied.
Claire smiled. “Can I see?”
Ga-yeong struggled for an excuse. “They’re all from when I was little,” she said. “They’re super ugly.”
“Oh,” Claire’s face fell. “Who was the guy at the door? Where’s the pizza?”
“He had the wrong house,” Ga-yeong said. “I just gave him directions.”
Claire shrugged, believing her. “Is it hot outside?” she asked. “We should put our bikini’s on and tan.”
Claire was staying for dinner and then for a slumber party. The earliest that Ga-yeong could dissect everything in the box was tomorrow. She nodded. “It’s pretty warm out.”
The next day Ga-yeong and Claire walked to the Asian supermarket together. Claire’s pleated skirt swung a little with her hips when she walked.
Ga-yeong’s parents had given her some money and a list of stuff to buy. They walked up and down the aisles picking up soy sauce, nashi, inoki and dumpling skins.
“I wish my mom made Korean food,” Claire said.
“You’re not Korean,” Ga-yeong pointed out.
Claire made a face, “Yeah but I can still eat it, right? My mom only cooks for Christmas and Thanksgiving.” She turned to look over at Ga-yeong. “Do your parents celebrate Thanksgiving?”
“Not really,” Ga-yeong said. She’d always gone to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving. Her parents treated it like any other day.
“Weird,” Claire said.
Ga-yeong tried to push down her hurt. She loved Claire and loved being friends with her but occasionally she’d say something that pricked at Ga-yeong like a vaccination. She grabbed a box of pepero to distract herself. She looked around the aisle to avoid looking at Claire. She hated herself for being so sensitive but she couldn’t help it.
A few meters down was a man in a very fancy suit. He didn’t have a basket or anything in his hands. He just stared at the shelves listlessly.
Ga-yeong stared. She recognized the man. He was the one who had delivered her father’s things.
Before she could stop herself she ran over to him. “Excuse me!” she said in Korean.
The man started, actually stepped back like he was afraid.
“Can I help you?” he asked in English.
“Jenny?” Claire bounded up to them. “You okay?”
“It’s okay, Claire,” Ga-yeong said quickly. “He’s my uncle. Give me five minutes.”
Claire looked hesitant, but she walked a few meters away and crossed her arms, waiting.
Ga-yeong refocused on the man in front of him. “You’re him,” she said quietly in Korean. “You’re the man who delivered my father’s things.”
The man looked around like he was trying to figure out the most polite way to extricate himself from the conversation. He answered in English, “I think you have the wrong person.”
“Speak Korean,” Ga-yeong said angrily. “I know who you are.”
The man’s shoulders seemed to droop a little. He looked like he was around her dad’s age, but more tired. From the suit Ga-yeong guessed he was probably a businessman. Maybe he was having a hard time at work. “I’m sorry, Ga-yeong,” he said finally. It was nice to hear someone speak her language. Her parents tried to avoid it at home so they would improve, and there weren’t many other Korean students at her school.
“You knew him,” she said. “You said you were his friend.”
The man swallowed then started walking away.
“Hey!” Ga-yeong grabbed his jacket and pulled him back. Then she pulled her hand away, mortified.
The man looked equally as shocked that someone had dared to touch him so callously.
“I have questions!” Ga-yeong moved past it; who cared if this guy thought it was an affront to his pride? “I have things I need to know!” she said. “He was my father.”
“I’m sorry, Ga-yeong,” he repeated.
Ga-yeong racked her brain for a way to keep him there. She looked over at where Claire was pretending to not stare. “Can we talk sometime? About him?” She asked. “Please?” when he didn’t show any response. She sounded desperate. It would have been pathetic if she didn’t want to know so badly. “I don’t know any of his friends. I didn’t even know he was dead!” Her voice was rising. She was so glad they weren’t speaking English. “Please!”
“Okay,” he said, though Ga-yeong suspected it was just so she would stop yelling. “I will arrange a meeting.”
Ga-yeong’s mind felt like it was racing. “How?” She asked. “You can’t tell my mom,” she said quickly. “She doesn’t want me to have anything to do with dad.”
The man thought about it. “I’ll send a letter,” he said finally.
“Jenny!” Claire called. “Come on!”
“Go back to your friend,” the man said.
“Wait,” Ga-yeong said, the question bursting from her mouth. “What’s your name?”
The man hesitated, like the information was somehow classified. “I am Hwang In-ho,” he said finally. He patted Ga-yeong’s shoulders and then he walked away. He turned the corner and disappeared.
Ga-yeong went back to Claire. “Sorry about that,” she said.
“You okay?” Claire asked. “You looked kind of upset.”
Ga-yeong nodded. She hoped she didn’t look as rattled as she felt. “I’m fine,” she said.
“Was that guy really your uncle?” Claire asked. She looked back, straining her neck to try and get a glimpse of the man again.
“Yeah,” Ga-yeong said.
Claire shrugged. “He’s kinda hot.”
Ga-yeong checked her mailbox once every three hours. In the mornings she’d wake up early to run and check. Anything to stop her parents from finding it first.
Finally she saw a tiny black envelope with a pink bow in the centre. She ripped it open.
Inside was a small card, a business card, Ga-yeong was pretty sure. One side was marked with a circle, triangle and square. On the other side was a phone number.
Carefully Ga-yeong dialed it.
“Hello?”
Ga-yeong recognized the man's voice. Hwang In-ho, she reminded herself.
“It’s Seong Ga-yeong,” she said. “Is this your number?”
“For work,” the man answered. “There is a Korean restaurant called The Purple Rabbit. It is very open, surrounded by people so you can leave at any time if you feel uncomfortable. I have emailed you the address.”
It was all so matter of fact. Ga-yeong checked her email and saw that there was indeed an address there. She looked it up quickly. It was a seventeen minute walk away from school. “How did you get my email?” she asked.
There was a pause. “It was on your father’s phone.”
“I can walk there after school tomorrow,” Ga-yeong said. “So maybe three-thirty?”
“That sounds appropriate.”
Click. He hung up.
Ga-yeong stared at her phone. Then at the business card on her desk.
Quickly, she ripped it in two and threw the pieces into the trash.
Ga-yeong changed in the school bathroom after school. She put on a dress and ballet flats. The restaurant had looked fancy and both times she’d seen In-ho he had been wearing a suit.
She walked quickly to the restaurant, worried that she wouldn’t be able to find it. She texted Claire that she had to help her mom cook, then she texted her mom that she was with Claire.
When she finally found the restaurant she stalled outside for a few minutes. It looked fancier in person.
“Can I help you, young lady?” one of the waitstaff asked.
Ga-yeong swallowed. “Yes, I’m waiting for… For my uncle.” At that moment she saw In-ho walking up towards them. “That’s him,” she said, pointing.
The waiter turned to him. “Is this your niece, sir?”
“Yes,” In-ho said. “Thank you.”
Ga-yeong followed him back to their seat. It was a small booth in the center of all the tables. If Ga-yeong made a fuss, everyone would see it.
Food was already laid out on the table, oysters and rice with pretty flowers nestled inside.
In-ho pushed a plate towards her. “Eat,” he said. “It’s for you.”
Ga-yeong stared at the food. Since her family had moved they’d gotten more money. They’d ascended to the category of ‘comfortable.’ But she’d never eaten like this. Hwang In-ho, whoever he was, was rich. It suited him. He wore it like it was comfortable. Ga-yeong guessed that was just what happened when people were born rich. “Thank you for talking to me,” she said finally. She picked up the chopsticks and ate one of the rice flowers.
“It’s no trouble,” In-ho said stiffly. “Are you happy in America?”
Ga-yeong nodded. “I’m used to it now. I never met any of my dad’s friends. My mom said he didn’t want me to because they were all gambling addicts. But you don’t gamble, do you?”
In-ho seemed to think about the question. “No, I try not to,” he said. He straightened his collar and cleared his throat. “So what questions do you have?”
Ga-yeong reviewed the list in her head. “How did you know my dad?”
“We were friends. Once.”
It didn’t feel like enough. Still, Ga-yeong moved past it. “His jacket,” she said. “Why did it have blood on it?”
In-ho’s lip trembled a little. “That was what he wore when… When he passed.”
“How did he die?” Ga-yeong asked the question she hadn’t stopped thinking about since she’d found out the news. She couldn’t imagine her father dead even if he hadn’t spoken to her in seven years. She just imagined him very far away. Which he was now.
In-ho was quiet for a long time. He hadn’t even picked up his chopsticks. “Do you prefer we speak English or Korean?” he asked finally. “We are in America.”
“Korean,” Ga-yeong said immediately. They were already speaking it, plus she didn’t want anyone else understanding their conversation. She wondered briefly if the staff spoke Korean. She hoped not.
“Do you prefer I call you Ga-yeong or Jenny?” In-ho asked.
Ga-yeong blinked. She hadn’t thought he had picked up on that. She thought about it. Everyone called her Jenny now, even her parents. “Ga-yeong,” she decided. “Do you live here in America?”
“No,” he answered. “I came to deliver Gi-hun’s things to you.”
“Thank you,” Ga-yeong said quietly.
“You’re welcome.”
There was silence when they both picked at their food. It was painfully awkward. “Do you have a kid back home?” she asked finally.
There was another pause. Every question, Ga-yeong thought angrily. It felt wrong that this man she had never met was clearly more torn-up about her father’s death than she was.
“Yes,” In-ho said.
Ga-yeong waited for him to elaborate but In-ho just stared. “Boy or girl?” she asked
“Girl.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jae-hee,” In-ho answered. “After my wife.”
Ga-yeong smiled. “That’s nice. How old is she?”
“Six months old.”
“Wow, just a baby. Do you have a picture?”
Surprisingly, In-ho nodded. He didn’t strike Ga-yeong as the kind of guy who would even own a phone. He took out his wallet and took out a small piece of paper, a Polaroid, and handed it to her. “They’re mostly just of her sleeping,” he said, sort of bashfully. It was kind of sweet.
“She’s really cute,” Ga-yeong said. She tugged at her sleeve. She didn’t often wear dresses and it was cold. “Did my dad ever meet her?”
In-ho froze. He coughed, he swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “He loved her very much.”
The information hit Ga-yeong like a ton of bricks. “Oh,” she said quietly, trying very hard not to cry. “Is that what he was doing? Is that what he was doing all this time? Taking care of another baby?”
“Of course not-”
There was a pounding in the left side of Ga-yeong’s forehead. “It’s not even his daughter!” She yelled. A few hot tears escaped her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “I’m his daughter! He never called or wrote! He said he was coming and then he didn’t! And then he died, and I had to find out from you!”
Again, In-ho’s lip trembled, the only sign that he was in any way affected by their conversation. When he spoke his voice was even more measured, like he was trying very hard to stop it from breaking. “I’m sorry, Ga-yeong,” he said. “I think that he thought it was too late with you. I think he thought that you had moved on, that he wasn’t worth it to you. I think he saw Jae-hee as a second chance. A way to make things right with you.”
“Well it didn’t,” Ga-yeong said petulantly.
“I’m sorry.” In-ho said again, like she wasn’t sick of hearing it.
There was more silence. Neither of them ate. Ga-yeong suspected that they’d both lost their appetite.
“I guess she’s back in Korea,” Ga-yeong said. “Your daughter, I mean. Do you miss her a lot?”
“More than anything.” He sounded so sure.
“That’s nice. I wish my dad felt that way about me.”
In-ho’s face fell. “He did, Ga-yeong!” In-ho reached over the table and grabbed Ga-yeong’s hand. She flinched. He flinched too, and immediately pulled his hand back. “He loved you so much.”
“Then why didn’t he call?”
Ga-yeong heard the sound of fabric being scratched, like In-Ho was smoothing his hand under his trousers underneath the table. “He was just scared,” he said. “Being a parent is scary. My wife… My wife died many years ago...”
Ga-yeong’s head shot up. “Then how did you…”
In-ho smiled, “The child isn't ours. Both of her parents died so I took her in. My brother is taking care of her now. I imagined that maybe Gi-hun and I could raise her together but then…” his voice had changed. His face changed too, to an expression that Ga-yeong had never seen before; something wistful, and longing, and sad. It almost looked like regret.
“How did he die?” Ga-yeong asked. “Please, sir, you have to tell me!”
“It was suicide,” In-ho said sharply.
Ga-yeong stared, her mouth dropping open. It was so decisive, so cutting. “Did you see his body?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he do it?”
In-ho thought about the question. “He felt like he didn’t have another choice,” he said finally.
Ga-yeong wanted to scream. Why was he so detached? “Why didn’t you stop him?” She yelled. “I thought you were his friend!”
In-ho looked appropriately ashamed. His hands splayed out like he didn’t have anywhere to put all the energy. “I’m sorry, Ga-yeong,” he repeated. “I wish I did more.” He looked down at the tablecloth.
Ga-yeong kept staring at him. It sounded sincere. “How did he have all that money?” She asked softly, thinking of the gold credit card that she’d hidden in her desk. “Did he gamble? Mom said he would do it all the time and that’s why she didn’t love him anymore.”
“He worked hard to get the money.” He sounded almost angry.
Ga-yeong threw her hands in the air, frustrated. She was tired of the one sentence answers. “God, doing what? How? Tell me, please!”
“Helping people!” In-ho yelled. His eyes looked like they were burning. Ga-yeong cowered back in her seat. She couldn’t tell if he was going to slap her or burst into tears. He seemed to realize that he had scared her. In-ho straighted his suit, smoothed down his shirt. “He was good at that.”
“You could have helped him,” she said spitefully. Dimly, she knew that she wasn’t being fair. She didn’t know anything about her father and the man in front of her’s relationship. Maybe he had done everything he could to help.
“I should have,” In-ho admitted. “Ga-yeong, I want you to know that he was a good man. The best.” He sounded so sure. “No one else could do the things he did.”
He was the exact opposite of her mother. Ga-yeong’s mother never talked about her father. If Ga-yeong ever brought it up she was immediately shut down. Ga-yeong wondered how they had fallen in love. And especially how they had gotten married.
“You said you wanted to raise your daughter with him,” Ga-yeong heard her timid voice before she realized what she was going to say. “Were… Were you and my dad more than friends?”
The second the question fell out of her mouth, she was mortified. What was wrong with her? Why would she say that?
In-ho’s face switched back to impassive. Stoic. It was almost impressive. “No,” he said, his voice hard. “We weren’t.” But something slipped in his voice and Ga-yeong knew immediately that he was lying.
She bit her lip to avoid saying anything. She could tell that he knew that she knew.
“But I wanted to be,” he said quietly, looking away from her. He pushed a plate towards her. “Eat your food.”
“I’m not hungry.” It sounded meaner than she intended.
In-ho looked hurt. He swallowed like that would stop her from seeing his sad wet eyes. “Then I’ll drive you home,” he said. “Or arrange someone else to do it if you’re not comfortable with that,” he added.
The last detail stuck out to her. Why wouldn’t she be comfortable? She’d just had dinner with him, hadn’t she?
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”
The car was a black limousine because of course it was. Ga-yeong sat in the back instead of the unoccupied passenger seat.
This man had loved her father. And he’d told her. Ga-yeong couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
In-ho dropped her off at the end of the street in case Ga-yeong’s parents were looking out the window at that particular moment.
“Thank you,” Ga-yeong said quietly, going up to his window. “I appreciate it.”
“Of course,” In-ho said stiffly. Then he turned his head to look at her. “You’re a very nice girl, Ga-yeong. Gi-hun would be so proud of you.” He looked forward again, “Have I answered all your questions?”
No! Of course not!
“Yes,” she said anyway.
The window closed and the car drove away. He didn’t even say goodbye.
The throbbing in her forehead was back.
Ga-yeong sat on the curb and cried.