You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

Auntie was standing in front of the washer-dryer, craning her neck to look inside. The buttons on the machine were all unlit. It would have finished its cycle a long time ago. I stopped behind her, my hands resting behind my back. It was hard to watch as she opened the door and rummaged around inside. She grabbed a corner of the blanket and yanked it out of the machine, and my heels itched. I wanted to kick her in the back and shove her in the machine, then slam the door behind her.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

Auntie stopped and I thought I saw her shiver.

‘You’re washing blankets?’ she said, turning around slowly, as though she’d known I was behind her all along. The corner of the blanket she’d dragged out fell limply to the ground like a dead person’s arm. ‘Did you wet your bed?’ I could almost detect a merry smile spreading across her face.

I smiled too. ‘Have you come to take care of us while Mum’s away?’

‘I heard the machine beep.’ Her gaze went to the blanket and returned to me. ‘Looks like it’s done.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I can take care of it.’ I turned and stood to the side, trying to usher her away. Hurry up and get out, you stupid bitch, I thought.

‘Okay.’ She went back into the kitchen.

We looked at each other in front of the balcony. Auntie glanced at my all-black outfit as I looked down at her wrinkled neck, remembering.

Last year, at New Year, we’d spent the holiday in Kusatsu, Japan, enjoying the hot springs. We had all gone: Mother, me, Hae-jin and Auntie. We’d bumped into a woman whose child was a patient of Auntie’s. She was a little clueless about the rules of confidentiality; she went on and on even though Auntie looked visibly annoyed. She said they were on a family trip too; that her child was calmer thanks to Auntie, and all he needed to do now was study hard. She should have stopped there, but then she glanced at Mother and began to praise her dramatically. Oh, Doctor, your younger sister is so beautiful, she looks like a young actress! Mother corrected her in embarrassment, saying she was actually the older sister, and the woman kept saying, My goodness, I thought you were the baby! What do you do to look so young? Auntie’s face had contorted, her forehead wrinkling deeply. I remembered how she’d muttered after the woman left, ‘What a bitch.’

She broke the silence. ‘When did Hae-jin say he was coming home?’

I answered by asking a question of my own. ‘Didn’t you ask him that yesterday, when you saw him?’

She cocked her head. ‘What makes you think I saw him yesterday?’

‘How else did you get in?’

‘Oh, I know the code to your front door. And I followed someone into the building. Why, is something the matter?’ Auntie flashed a smile, revealing her teeth and her gums, as though she’d just realised something. ‘You’re upset because I went into your room, huh?’

She was being fake; I should have rummaged through her bag when I had the chance. Then I could have shoved the evidence in her face.

‘I even brought a cake to celebrate your exam results,’ she said, going over to the island and showing me the cake box.

‘You didn’t have to. It’s not like I passed the bar.’

Auntie raised her eyebrows. ‘Getting into law school is a big deal. If your mother knew, she’d have thrown you a big party. Don’t you think so?’

Would she have thrown me a party? Mother was pretty indifferent to my studying law; all she wanted was for me to follow the life she had laid out, in which I would graduate college, go to grad school, get a degree and spend my days in an office. Now I knew where that blueprint came from: this woman standing before me, this woman holding up that pathetic cake, asking, ‘Don’t you think so?’

The two of them had devised an invisible prison to contain this psychopath for the rest of his life, so that he could live unscathed and harmlessly, among people but not with them. The result of this plotting meant that I remained a child, having to return home by nine every night and not being allowed to travel by myself.

‘So should we wait until Hae-jin comes home?’ Auntie asked.

I didn’t reply.

‘It’ll be more fun when he’s here, right?’ She answered herself, then took the cake box towards the fridge. She was going to stay here until Hae-jin got home. ‘Your mother hasn’t called yet, has she?’ She put the cake in the fridge.

‘No.’ I sat on a chair by the island, from where I could see Auntie’s movements without having to turn my head.

‘Still nothing, huh?’ She pretended to look in the fridge. She asked casually, ‘Did she take her car?’

Mother’s car would still be parked in the garage. Auntie would have seen that when she parked there herself. I decided to head her off. ‘I checked yesterday and her car’s still here.’

‘Your mum left her car?’ she said, sounding incredulous.

Mother rarely went anywhere without her car. I decided to continue along this track, now that I was committed to it. ‘Maybe she went in someone else’s car, someone she was going with.’

‘Who?’

‘If I knew that, wouldn’t I have already called them?’

Auntie closed the fridge door and came towards me, a calm, gentle expression on her face. What kind of face would she make if I became angry or agitated? ‘But Yu-jin,’ she said kindly, ‘why is her door locked? Does she lock it every time she goes out?

I was about to say yes but remembered arguing with Hae-jin through the door. I doubted Hae-jin would have told her that but I had to be consistent. ‘I locked it.’

‘You did?’ She was watching me.

‘The police came yesterday.’

‘The police?’ She pursed her mouth and her eyes grew wide, the way people typically conveyed surprise. She’d look more convincing if she tried a bit harder.

‘Someone seems to have called in a false report that there was a burglar.’

‘Really! Who would do that?’ She would be interested in the conversation I’d had with the police. I decided to put some pressure on her.

‘Apparently the caller used a pay phone near Inhang Street. The police said they’d be able to see who it was when they checked the CCTV footage. I asked them to let me know when they found out.’

Auntie was about to say something, but stopped herself.

‘I wonder who it was,’ I added for extra effect.

We stared at each other. It was clear that Auntie realised that I knew who’d called the police. The conversation was basically over.

‘So what made you lock the door?’

‘I went to get my ID and they barged into her room. I locked it so they couldn’t do that again, just in case they returned when Hae-jin was here and I wasn’t at home. You know what Mother is like about her things. She wouldn’t want anyone touching them.’

Auntie squinted suspiciously at me. ‘Do you have the key?’

I glanced over at the key cabinet in the corner. It was almost a reflex reaction. Auntie’s gaze followed mine.

‘Can you open it?’ she asked.

‘Why?’

‘I want to have a wash. I came here as soon as I had a moment, and I didn’t even have time to wash my face.’

But apparently she’d had enough time to put on a necklace and a pair of earrings. I gestured to the hallway bathroom. ‘You can use that one.’

‘That’s Hae-jin’s,’ Auntie protested. ‘Do I need your permission for every little thing? Aren’t you being a little possessive just because your mother’s not home?’ Her tone was light but her eyes were steely.

I wanted to ask her what she was if not a guest in our house. She picked up her bag and coat and looked at me, silently ordering me to open the door. She seemed certain that there was something to see in the bedroom. ‘Yu-jin,’ she prodded.