Ho Nam was eating his bread and glared coldly at Chae Rim.
“You’re going to ruin your life by prolonging the situation. He’s an idiot. You’re still very young and have lots to live for. Let’s see the result of this divorce and prepare for a new beginning. After you get divorced, I will introduce you to a man who is a hundred times better than Seok Chun.”
Ho Nam threw his bread at Chae Rim’s feet. Some of the pieces crumbled upon impact and spread across the floor. Chae Rim was startled by Ho Nam’s actions and momentarily forgot what he had been saying.
Ho Nam wiped the crumbs off his mouth and shouted at Chae Rim. “Don’t talk about my dad like that! My dad’s not a bad man!”
Chae Rim’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment, but then he chuckled to lighten the awkward moment.
“You’re quite a kid!” Chae Rim said, dusting off the crumbs. “What an insolent child.”
“Honey, you shouldn’t do things like that,” admonished Sun Hee.
She felt sorry for Chae Rim, so she grabbed Ho Nam’s wrist, but Ho Nam pulled away effortlessly.
“Go home! Take your bread with you,” shouted Ho Nam.
“Have you no respect for family?”
“If you’re family, then why are you telling my mom to leave my dad?”
“Well, that’s because your mom and dad fight all the time,” rationalized Chae Rim.
Ho Nam did not know what to say. Perhaps it was because he was frustrated or furious, but his eyes welled up with tears as he darted sullen and ferocious glances at Chae Rim. Ho Nam clenched his fists as if he were prepared to fight.
Chae Rim thought that he should not upset a child from a dysfunctional family, so he stood up slowly.
Sun Hee began to sob in front of her child, who had defended his father with all his might. She felt terrified at the thought of separating Ho Nam from his father after the divorce.
There will be no one to take Ho Nam fishing by the river, and no one to make him a rubber-band gun. When the neighborhood kids tease him for not having a father, he will surely blame her. The more Ho Nam becomes aware of not having a father around the house, the more he will become intimidated and introverted. It will alienate him from the other kids. A daughter would open herself up to her mother, but a son has problems talking to his mother about everything on his mind. Once the divorce is settled, she and her husband will become strangers, but there is no way to break the bond between father and son. No matter how much a mother cares for her son, she will never be a substitute for the child’s father. This is because maternal love and paternal love serve different needs for the child.
That was last night.
Sun Hee heaved a sorrowful sigh. Seok Chun was a wretch to her, but he was a wonderful father to Ho Nam. She could not deny that fact.
Sun Hee wiped the tears off her face. She shook her head to cast away any doubts about the divorce. At the same time, she could not easily dispel the misfortune encroaching on her son. She brushed her hair behind her shoulders and touched up her face.
It took some time for her emotions to settle down. Sun Hee began to rebuke herself.
How did you file for divorce with such a weak heart? Did you not anticipate this kind of heartache? Surely there’s bound to be someone out there who will love Ho Nam like his own son?
Sun Hee still did not see Ho Nam playing on the grassy area with the other kids. She began to worry as she had the day it had rained, when she had been looking everywhere for Ho Nam before she was told that he was at Judge Jeong Jin Wu’s apartment. Sun Hee heard her comrades practicing on the second floor of the theater. They were preparing to perform in Seong Gan District this coming weekend, a tour that would carry on without her. She felt alienated from the music and the theater. She decided to leave.
Sun Hee calmly turned around at the sound of high heels running down the stairs. It was Eun Mi. She ran toward Sun Hee, who was on her way out of the theater.
“I’ve been looking for you. Had I known you’d be here…” said Eun Mi.
Sun Hee did not understand Eun Mi’s statement.
“The deputy director is looking for you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know. But why aren’t you rehearsing with the other vocalists?”
“Uh… I needed to take a break, and… I… I decided to practice on my own.”
“Or is it because you’re avoiding them?”
“Eun Mi, please, not you, too.”
“They need you.”
“You know perfectly well that those comrades don’t like me.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. You’ve really become sensitive these days, haven’t you? Ok Hee says that you’ve been avoiding them, not coming to rehearsals, and when you do come, you don’t sing like you used to.”
Sun Hee listened indifferently.
“You know you shouldn’t act like this.”
Sun Hee was irritated with Eun Mi’s admonitions, despite her good intentions.
“Your personal issues should not interfere with your work,” Eun Mi continued. “You shouldn’t give your comrades the cold shoulder. What will happen to our troupe if you don’t do your job?”
Sun Hee hissed, “Stop it!” unable to contain her frustration any longer. She did not want others to hear her, so she kept her voice to an angry whisper. “That’s enough! You sound just like the deputy director. I thought that you, of all people, would understand.”
Sun Hee glared at Eun Mi with tears welling up in her eyes, tears from feeling betrayed by the only true friend she had at the performing arts company. She walked past Eun Mi, who seemed to be nailed to the floor, rendered speechless by Sun Hee’s violent reaction.
The deputy director was standing at the top of the stairs looking down on the two. In a fit of urgency, he slammed his hands on the handrail and shouted, “Comrade Sun Hee, how dare you leave without my permission! Get back here.”
Sun Hee turned her head away. The deputy director descended the stairs and confronted her forcefully. Eun Mi, anticipating an upsetting altercation, refrained from interfering with the two and kept her distance.
“You’re an embarrassment to the company—an embarrassment!” The deputy director tsk-tsked and shook his head in disdain.
Sun Hee bit her lip to suppress her irritation.
The deputy director pointed at her and said, “You better get your act together, or else I’m going to have to—”
“Fine!” Sun Hee said boldly. “If you feel that I’m an embarrassment to the company, then I’ll quit.”
“What? You’re going to quit?” the deputy director retorted, aghast. “Is giving up your answer to everything? You only care about yourself!”
Sun Hee had nothing further to say.
“I have an appointment at the courthouse now, but when I return, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
The deputy director raced past Sun Hee, grunting and mumbling indecisively. She stood resolutely, to give the impression that she was really determined to quit, but then she began to lose courage and felt the terrifying weight of regret on her shoulders. She felt her soul was being wrung out of her body, and numbness started spreading up her legs. Dizzy, short of breath, and on the verge of collapsing, she held on to the handrail.
Fear gripped her. She felt that her best friend, her company, and her only son—all that was precious to her—were abandoning her. No, she was certain that they had abandoned her. She realized that divorce was not simply a legal process concluded in the privacy of the courtroom but a public matter with her entire community involved. She felt as if she were being weighed on an ethics scale, naked and vulnerable in the critical eyes of the disapproving public.