Kyung-sook Shin - Please Look After Mom

Once, you told me, “I feel like I buy a lot of stuff when I go to the market, but everything goes so quickly. I have to buy three Yoplaits if I want to give one to each kid. If I want to buy enough for three days, that’s nine, Mom! It’s scary. I buy this much, and then it’s all gone.” You held your arms out to show me how much. Of course, it’s only normal, since you have three children.

Your eldest, his cheeks red from the cold, is about to lean his bicycle outside the gate when he is startled by something. He pushes through the gate, calling, “Mom!” Here you are, coming out the front door, wearing a gray cardigan and holding the baby.

“Mom! The bird!”

“The bird?”

“Yeah, in front of the gate!”

“What bird?”

The eldest is pointing at the gate without saying anything. You pull the hood of the baby’s jacket over his head in case he gets cold and come out to the gate. A gray bird is on the ground in front of the gate. It has dark spots from its head to its wings.

The wings look completely frozen, don’t they? I can see you thinking about me as you look at the bird. By the way, honey, there are so many birds around your house. How can there be so many birds? These winter birds are circling your house, and they’re not making a peep.

A few days ago, you watched a magpie shivering under your quince tree and, thinking that it was hungry, you went inside and crumbled some bread your kids were eating and sprinkled it under the tree. You were thinking about me then, too. Thinking about how I used to bring a bowl of old rice and scatter the kernels under the persimmon tree for the birds sitting on the naked winter branches. In the evening, more than twenty birds landed under the quince tree, where you had sprinkled the breadcrumbs. One bird had wings as big as your palm. From then on, you spread breadcrumbs under the quince tree every day for the hungry winter birds. But this bird is in front of the gate, not under the quince tree. I know what this bird is. It’s a black-bellied plover. Strange-it’s not a bird that flies around alone, so why is it here? It’s a bird that has to be near the ocean. I saw this bird in Komso, where that man lived. I saw black-bellied plovers looking for something to eat on the mud flats at low tide.

You’re standing still, in front of your gate, and the eldest shakes your arm. “Mom!”

You’re silent.

“Is it dead?”

You don’t answer. You just look at the bird, your face dark.

“Mom! Is the bird dead?” your daughter asks, running outside at the commotion, but you don’t answer.

The phone is ringing.

“Mom, it’s Auntie!”

It must be Chi-hon. You take the phone from your daughter.

Your face clouds over. “What are we supposed to do if you’re leaving?”

Chi-hon must be taking a plane again. Tears well up. I think your lips are trembling, too. You suddenly yell into the phone, “You’re all too much… too much!” Honey, you’re not that kind of girl. Why are you yelling at your sister?

You even slam down the phone. That’s what your sister does to you and to me. The phone rings again. You look at the phone for a long time, and when it doesn’t stop, you pick it up.

“I’m sorry, sister.” Your voice has calmed down now. You listen quietly to what your sister is saying on the phone. And then your face gets red. You yell again: “What? Santiago? For a month?” Your face flushes even more.

“Are you asking me if you can go? Why are you even asking, when you’ve already decided you’re going? How can you do this?” Your hand holding the phone is shaking. “There was a dead bird in front of my gate today. I just have this bad feeling. I think something’s happened to Mom! Why haven’t we found her already? Why? And how can you go away? Why is everyone acting this way? Are you going to act like that, too? We don’t know where Mom is in this freezing cold, and you’re all doing whatever you feel like doing!”

Honey, calm down. You have to understand your sister. How can you say this to her when you know how she’s been for the past several months?

“What? You want me to take care of it? Me? What do you think I can do with three kids? You’re running away, right? Because it’s dragging you down. You were always like that.”

Honey, why are you doing this? You seemed to be doing fine. Now you’ve slammed down the phone, and you’re sobbing. The baby is crying with you. The baby’s nose gets red. Even his forehead. The girl is crying, too. The eldest comes out of his room and looks at the three of you crying. The phone rings again. You quickly pick up the phone.

“Sister…” Tears fall from your eyes. “Don’t go! Don’t go! Sister!”

In the end, she tries to soothe you. It’s not working, so now she says she will come over. You put down the phone and sit there silently, looking down. The baby climbs onto your lap. You hug him. The girl touches your cheek. You pat her on the back. The eldest crouches over his math homework in front of you, to make you happy. You stroke his hair.

Chi-hon comes in, pushing through the open gate. “Oh, little Yun!” Chi-hon says, and takes the baby from you. The baby, who is shy around other people, struggles to get back to you from his aunt’s embrace.

“Stay with me a little bit,” Chi-hon says, as she tries to cuddle with the baby, but he bursts into tears. Chi-hon hands you the baby. Once in his mom’s arms, the baby smiles at his aunt, tears still dangling from his eyelashes. Chi-hon shakes her head and strokes the baby’s cheek. You sisters are sitting quietly together. Chi-hon, who came running over in this snow because she couldn’t calm you over the phone, doesn’t say anything now. She looks awful: her face is swollen, her eyes are puffy. She looks like she hasn’t slept well in a while.

“Are you going to go?” you ask your sister after a long silence.

“I won’t.” Chi-hon lies on the sofa, facedown, as if she has just put down a heavy load. She’s so tired that she can’t control her body. Poor thing. She pretends she’s strong, but she’s all soft inside. What is she going to do, running herself into the ground like that?

“Sister! Are you sleeping?” You shake Chi-hon’s shoulder but then pat her. You gaze at your sleeping sister. Even when you fought as children, you two would settle down soon enough. When I came in to scold you, you would be sleeping, holding hands. You go into your bedroom for a blanket and cover her with it. Chi-hon frowns. That child, so careless. How could she drive all this way when she’s so tired?

“I’m sorry, sister…,” you murmur, and Chi-hon opens her eyes and looks at you.

Chi-hon says, as if she’s talking to herself, “I met his mother yesterday. The woman who would become my mother-in-law if we got married. She’s living with her daughter. Her daughter runs a small restaurant called Swiss. She’s single. Their mother’s very small and gentle. She follows her daughter around everywhere, calling her Sister. The daughter feeds her mother and gets her to bed and washes her and says, ‘What a good girl you are,’ and so the mother started calling her Sister. His sister said to me, ‘If it’s because of our mom that you haven’t gotten married yet, don’t worry about it.’ She told me that she was going to continue living with their mom, acting like her older sister. She’s going on vacation in January, but she arranged for their mom to stay at a nursing home. So that’s the only time I have to come and look in, when she’s not here. His sister said that, for the past twenty years, she’s taken a monthlong vacation in January, using the profits from the restaurant. She looked content, even though her own mom was calling her Sister. She just smiled and said, ‘My mom raised me until now, and all that’s happened is a role reversal-it’s only fair.’ ”