I’d been a widow for twenty-three years, but I considered myself to be a fortunate woman. I squeezed the twins, they squealed, but no one seemed to mind the noise. Everyone was too focused on the shoot-out happening on the screen.
The next day, our diving was good. I was the last to leave the bulteok and was just crossing the beach toward my house when a motorcycle came bumping along the shore road and pulled to a stop. A man wearing a black leather jacket and a helmet that hid his face sat in front. Joon-lee sat behind him, holding his waist. She waved and called, “Mother! It’s me! I’m home!” She jumped off the bike and ran down the steps and across the beach to me. Her long black hair flew behind her. Her short shirt fluttered in the wind. When she reached me, she bowed.
“I thought you weren’t coming until later,” I said. “The bus—”
“We rented the bike.” With that, her initial burst of enthusiasm ebbed, and she stood with such stillness that I was immediately concerned.
“We?”
She took my hand. “Come, Mother. I couldn’t wait to tell you. I’m just so happy.” Her hand was soft and warm in mine, but her voice was far too somber to be expressing anything close to joy.
I kept my eyes on the man with the motorcycle. He didn’t have to take off the helmet for me to know who he was, because he was in nearly the same spot where he’d been perched on his new bicycle many years ago to see what was happening on the beach with Dr. Park and his team. When I said his name in my mind—Yo-chan—my stomach fell so hard and fast that for a second the world went black. I blinked a few times, trying to bring back light. Up on the roadway, Yo-chan set the kickstand, took off his helmet and hung it on one of the handlebars, and watched us approach. He put his palms on his thighs and bowed deeply when we reached him. As he rose, he offered no greetings or small talk. Instead, he said, “We’ve come to tell you that we’re going to get married.”
The inevitability of this moment seemed obvious and predictable, and yet it was still agonizing. I hesitated awhile, too long, really, before I asked, “What does your mother say?”
“You can ask her yourself,” he answered. “She’s coming in a taxi.”
I felt as though I were suspended in gelatin, watching as he turned to the bike and pushed it the last few meters to my house, with Joon-lee following behind him.
We aligned in two pairs: my daughter next to me facing Yo-chan, who sat next to his mother, who faced me. Teacups sat on a small tray on the floor between us. I could hear my granddaughters crying across the courtyard in the little house, where Min-lee had taken them so I could have this meeting in the big house. I hadn’t seen Mi-ja in eleven years. When she’d entered, I saw that her limp was much worse, and she used a cane. She looked far older than I did, even though her life had to be easier than mine. Her clothes were loose. Her hair had gone completely gray. Looking into her eyes, I sensed a deep well of unhappiness. That was not my problem, however.
“We have not consulted a geomancer to determine if this is a good match,” I said, keeping my sentences and attitude as formal as possible. “We haven’t brought in an intermediary. No one has asked if our family gives permission—”
“Oh, Mother, no one does those things anymore—”
I spoke right over my daughter. “No one has set an engagement meeting or—”
“Let us consider this the engagement meeting,” Mi-ja said.
I addressed my daughter. “I did not know your thoughts had turned to marriage.”
“Yo-chan and I are in love.”
I barely knew where to start. “Four years ago, I asked you to promise you wouldn’t see him again. Then you kept this”—I searched for the right word and settled on—“affiliation a secret from me, your mother.”
“I knew how you’d react,” Joon-lee admitted. “But I also wanted to make sure in my own heart. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“This cannot happen.”
“We’re happy,” she said. “We love each other.”
She could be stubborn, but I would never back down. I could have dredged up the nasty gossip about Yo-chan and Wan-soon, but even I didn’t believe it, so I went straight to my deepest argument. “For you to show such disrespect to the memory of your father—”
“I’m sorry, but I have no memory of my father.”
This was too painful. I closed my eyes as the horrifying images came flooding back. No matter how much I fought against them, the details were as vivid and brutal as in the moments they’d happened: Mi-ja touching her husband’s arm… Yo-chan in his little uniform… My husband when the bullet hit his head… Yu-ri’s screams… My little boy being snatched away… I would never heal or forget.
Mi-ja quietly cleared her throat, and I opened my eyes. “There was a time when you and I wished for this day.” She allowed herself a small smile. “Although we thought it would be Min-lee and Yo-chan. Still, this day has come. A son-in-law is a guest for one hundred years, meaning forever. It is time for you to put aside your anger, so these two, who have no responsibility for the past, can be wed. May you accept my son as part of your family for one hundred years.”
“I—”
She held up a hand to keep me from speaking. “As your daughter said, they do not need our permission any longer. We can only give them what they want. I had no desire to return to Jeju, but I did because Joon-lee wants to be surrounded by her family on her wedding day. I’ve made arrangements for them to be married in the Catholic church in Jeju City.”
I gasped. Christianity had grown on the island, and those people were even more fanatical than our government when it came to Shamanism. Joon-lee lowered her head as her hand went to finger the small cross hanging from her neck, which I’d been too stunned by Yo-chan’s presence and Mi-ja’s arrival to notice until now. That she was not just hurting me but also abandoning the traditions of our haenyeo family was more than I could absorb.
Mi-ja went on, unfazed. “The ceremony will be followed by a banquet and party here in Hado.”
Resentment bubbled to the surface. “You’ve taken so much from me,” I said to her. “Why do you have to take Joon-lee too?”
“Mother!”
In response to my daughter’s outburst, Mi-ja said, “Perhaps it would be best if the two mothers speak alone.”
“We want to stay,” Yo-chan said. “I want to make her understand.”
“Believe me,” Mi-ja said mildly. “This will be best.”
Yo-chan and Joon-lee were barely out the door before Mi-ja said, “You’ve never understood a single thing. You’ve carried your blame and hatred without ever asking me what really happened.”
“I didn’t have to ask you. I saw with my own eyes. That soldier picked up my son—”
“Do you think I don’t see that in my mind every single day? That moment is burned in my memory.”
She looked tortured, but what did that mean? I waited to see what she would say next.
“After my cowardice, I needed to atone,” she said at last. “When my husband began to travel and I knew he wouldn’t miss me”—an emotion flitted across her face, but she buried it before I could read it—“I moved back to Hado. I wanted to see if I could help you.”
“I saw no help from you.”
“I had to wait a long time. I thought there was no hope for me. Then Wan-soon died.”