You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

It took five hours to get to the harbour at Mokpo. We caught the ferry that went to Tan Island. Summer had already arrived and hot, damp wind blew from the brown ocean that had swallowed my family. Thunderstorms were forming along the horizon and the forest was turning greener. The trees were growing apples from the places where the flowers had fallen. Everything looked so peaceful that it made me want to weep.

I pulled up to the lodge and the manager came out. He showed us to the cabin we’d stayed in, the one with the two clean rooms, the long living room, the picture of the sunset hanging on the wall, and the terrace from which you could see the bell tower. It all looked the same but it was much quieter now. I couldn’t hear the sound of the bell in the wind.

We unpacked and left the house. Yu-jin carried a bouquet of chrysanthemums and I took a box of their clothes. We walked along the path lined with trees, which had felt so long before but now brought us to our destination quickly. We walked slowly but it didn’t even take twenty minutes. When we arrived at the cliff, the sun was sinking behind the horizon.

I opened the box and took out my husband and son’s clothes. I’d picked them out a few days ago. Yu-min’s favourite red jacket and the navy suit Min-seok wore the most often. I lit them with a lighter. The flames blazed in the westward wind. I sat next to the fire, thinking about that summer day ten years ago, the day when I discovered I had a remarkable knack for making children. Exactly three months after I had Yu-min, I’d become pregnant with Yu-jin. So Yu-min was the child I conceived the first night I spent with Min-seok before we even married, and Yu-jin was the child that came from the first time we were together after I gave birth. I hadn’t been careful enough.

It was awful. It was worse than that; I felt as though I’d become a raging beast. Min-seok was an only child so he was thrilled, but I didn’t feel the same way. He’d begun his business importing furniture and I was working hard as an editor. I thought I might need to give up work. I didn’t like what I saw when I imagined growing old and being responsible for two kids. For a few days, I even wondered whether to keep it or not.

This pregnancy was as different as the boys’ personalities. Yu-min had been boisterous in utero , kicking, punching, making me jump. I was so nauseated that I couldn’t eat much of anything until I was about to deliver. He was two weeks late and had to be induced; maybe he preferred being inside.

By contrast, Yu-jin was so calm. He was quiet and watchful, but he came into the world impatiently; prematurely by C-section due to placental abruption. I went into shock after losing a tremendous amount of blood, and they had to perform a hysterectomy to save my life. He had nearly killed me in the process of his own birth.

They grew up to be even more different. Other than their looks, everything about them was a contrast – their interests, their personalities, their behaviour. Yu-min was outgoing and charming, loved by everyone. Yu-jin was quiet and reserved, yet he was the one who drew the most attention. Quite a few people would stop suddenly in the street and stare, drawn by a strange magnetism that couldn’t be put into words. Although he didn’t mix with others or react, he made you aware of him.

Hye-won always said the biggest difference between Yu-min and Yu-jin was the way they interacted with other people. Yu-min was interested in relationships with everyone he met, while Yu-jin focused all of his attention on himself, assessing people through one method only – is that person useful or harmful to me?

There were only a few pages left, but I needed a break. I went downstairs and took the clothes out of the washer-dryer, then loaded the sheets and blankets in and set it going again. I went into the kitchen, suddenly hungry, and put the clothes on the counter. I’d only eaten a sugar pancake from Yongi’s last night. Hae-jin’s seaweed soup was still on the stove. While I waited for it to heat up, I set the table with chopsticks and rummaged in the fridge for side dishes. My head was ringing with the words Auntie had supposedly said sixteen years ago.

It would take something special to make Yu-jin’s pulse quicken. I’m afraid because I don’t know what that might be.

Auntie’s words didn’t leave my head even when I went into the shower, toothbrush in my mouth. Something special. How did she know that when even I hadn’t known it until just now? Did she medicate me to suppress my nature, which craved that special something? Then that meant Mother knew before Auntie did, since she was the one who took me to her in the first place. Why did she take me there? Nothing I’d read so far had offered a clue.

I came out of my bathroom and sat at the desk without putting any clothes on. I felt hot and feverish, like I was burning up. I opened my phone and searched online for any additional news about the body that was discovered last night.

There it was. An article suggested that the killer was a young, strong, clean-cut man. What did clean-cut mean, anyway? That he looked innocent enough that women wouldn’t be wary of him? Or did it mean good-looking? And what was the standard of ‘young’? Forties was young relative to fifties, but thirties was younger than forties, while teens and twenties even more so. But it probably meant the killer was in his twenties. The strong part I understood, since he’d have to be strong to subdue the girl and kill her.

I searched ‘population of Gundo, Incheon’. Twenty-four thousand three hundred and forty-three, combining Districts One and Two. How many of them were strong, clean-cut men in their twenties? Whether the number was a hundred or a thousand, I would likely become a focus of their investigation. The police might return tomorrow morning, since both Hae-jin and I fitted the profile and lived nearby. And I wouldn’t be able to stop them. The only thing I could do was to wait for them while I did what I needed to. I turned to the next page of the journal.

Friday 12 May

I went to see my sister at the Future Paediatric Clinic in Incheon. It was larger than I expected. Six departments and six specialists. Of them, Hye-won is the most popular. When I asked to see her, I was told I would have to wait for a long time. I ignored the nurse, who recommended a different doctor, and waited.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stand that I would be facing her. Not because of pride, but fear. I was afraid that the warning she had given me three years ago was right.

That summer, I was still at the publishing company and Yu-jin was six. Hye-won was a resident specialising in youth behavioural disorders at Yonsei University Hospital. One Friday, we were supposed to meet up in the evening. Something came up at work right before I was going to leave, and I was running late. Then a downpour created a traffic jam. Hye-won got out on time for once. She picked the boys up from the art studio and they were waiting for me in the restaurant.

I rushed inside and saw Hye-won sitting at a table by herself, looking at something. The kids were in the playroom, Yu-min diving into a pool of balls with other kids and Yu-jin sitting against the wall, playing with his Rubik’s cube. I sat across from Hye-won, and she showed me what she’d been looking at. A piece of paper ripped out of a notebook. It was crumpled, so I smoothed it out and saw what had been drawn with coloured pencil. A girl’s head, topped with a crown, was pierced on the tip of an open umbrella. She had a dark grey face, the mouth drawn with an X, two circles for eyes and long black hair that trickled down onto the umbrella-like strands of seaweed. Water was dripping down the handle, and above the umbrella was a storm cloud.