Chapter 16
“Here, mum.” I passed her the steaming mug before I sat down next to her.
For a while, we sat in companionable silence, drinking our coffees, watching Dad quietly prune the roses growing along the fence. They’d gotten a bit frisky as of late.
Mum had been out here all morning. She was like a flower, the way she constantly sought out the sun, though she couldn’t tolerate much of it at the moment.
The brightness bothered her, and her skin was sensitive, much to her annoyance.
She was confined to sitting in the shade under the garden umbrella.
She had also taken to wearing beautiful, silk head wraps now that she’d shaved off her hair. It had taken a while to fall out, but then it had gotten to the point where it had been so straggly that she’d gotten fed up and instructed Dad to get the clippers.
We’d all had a good laugh when she’d tried, briefly, to wear wigs.
It wasn’t that they’d looked bad – they’d actually been quite convincing – but they had apparently made her scalp itch.
We had constantly found her with her hand jammed up underneath, scratching at her head, leaving the wigs all askew, until one day she had pulled it off her head, flung it across the room and declared, “my scalp needs to breathe!”
Mum’s birthday had been a couple of weeks ago, and unexpectedly, Jihoon had sent her a gift. Even I hadn’t known about it, so I’d watched with surprise as Mum had unwrapped a beautiful, vibrantly coloured square of silk from a tissue-padded Hermès box.
She’d played it down, but I could see how much she loved it.
So now it was head wraps. Not only were they quite lovely, but they also protected her delicate, pale skin. All it had taken was one, mild dose of sunburn on her freshly shorn scalp and she’d never gone without one since.
“So,” she said. “Have you decided?”
I sighed, long and hard, feeling the pinch between my brows.
“What the fuck do I know about journalism?”
“First of all,” Mum said, “Language. Second of all, I bet there’s courses you can do online. People are doing all sorts these days. Did you see that big university who put half their courses online for free?”
I scoffed, “I don’t think a degree in classical studies will get me far, Mum.”
“Where did you learn to be such a smartarse?”
“I’m looking at my teacher.” I batted my eyelashes at her as she gave me a droll look.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’m just saying. You could probably take a course online. Everyone’s learning something these days. It’s not all just sourdough starters anymore.”
“Yeah, sometimes it’s viral dance trends.” I hid my grin behind my coffee mug.
I’d recently walked in on my folks in the kitchen trying to learn a handful of steps to some dance craze that was sweeping social media. My, how I had howled. My stomach had hurt for ages afterwards.
Mum looked at me sternly, which only turned my grin into a giggle.
Mum sighed. “It’s like trying to have a serious conversation with a hyena.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I conceded. “Carry on.”
“I’m just saying, there are things you can learn. And anyway, this editor chap, he offered you the job without you having any qualifications, didn’t he? It sounds like you’re trying to find reasons not to do it.”
Offering me a ‘job’ wasn’t quite how I would have put it.
Eventually, I had responded to the editor.
We’d emailed back and forth a few times to discuss how it would work, but it was pretty cut and dry.
I send them a piece of writing, they decided if it’s good enough to publish, and if it was, I’d get paid.
“It’s not a job, Mum. It’s freelance work. I’d write an article-” I kept stumbling over that word. It made it sound too real, too professional for the occasional tangent I put into words. “And they’d pay me for it. As long as it doesn’t suck.”
Mum rolled her eyes. “There you go again.”
“What?”
“Downplaying this. Downplaying yourself.” She sighed. “I wish you’d give yourself more credit.”
I sniffed. “Can’t help it. It’s my terribly British nature to beat myself up.”
“Yes well, bloody stop it. You’re good at this. I read your blog thingy, and it was good. You’re good. This could be something, Ky. What’s holding you back from doing it? It’s not like you’ve got much else going on at the moment,” she said pointedly.
“Ouch.”
Mum shrugged. “Am I wrong?”
She wasn’t. Most days I had to motivate myself to change out of my pyjamas.
In the silence that followed, I considered her question.
What was holding me back? After all, if I turned in a blo- no, an article, the worst that could happen was that it would be rejected and I wouldn’t be paid.
The terms the editor – James – had laid out in our brief video call had had made it clear that I would not be employed by The Loop.
I would be strictly freelance, getting paid per article, providing it met their standards and the brief they set.
I thought for a moment. “I think it’s the pressure of the audience. All the people who might read it and hate it. Think I’m a total idiot.”
“What about all the people who might enjoy it?” Mum said, tipping her head to the side. “It seems to me that folk often avoid doing something because they think of all the potential, negative outcomes. They don’t always consider the good that could come out of it.”
I grunted, not an answer, and we lapsed into silence for a while.
“When did you get to be so wise?” I asked, watching as Dad carefully tied up a particularly floppy rose stalk.
“Born that way, love.” Her lips quirked at the side. She went silent for so long, I thought she was done talking. But then she said something I couldn’t have expected.
“When I fell pregnant with you, the first thing anyone said about it – the very first thing, not “congratulations” or “how are you?” – was some gumph about how this would be the worst decision for me. How getting pregnant was a bad thing.”
I was silent, stunned into speechlessness so solid it was like I’d forgotten how to form words. So, I just listened. I could count on one hand the amount of times Mum had talked about that period in her life.
“No one ever stopped to tell me about the joy I’d have raising you.
How watching you grow would be the best thing in the world.
They only ever talked about my life changing, like it was a bad thing.
I was young – your age – and…” She swallowed hard.
“Alone. My whole life did change. But, then there was you, and it was just… better. Life was better because I chose you over the life I’d had before.
I could have chosen to carry on as I was, but my life still would have been changed because taking something away doesn’t erase the fact that it happened.
It wouldn’t have reset me to where I was before.
I just would have been a different person in the same place. ”
Mum reached over to grab my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“You can’t stay static, love. The world moves on, you have to move with it.”
She gave my hand one last squeeze before letting go, and we both turned back to watch my dad pottering around, looking for errant bits to prune, or floppy stems to tie up.
I bit my lip, debating for a second, before asking something I’ve only asked aloud in my head.
“What was his name?” It sounded like such a simple question, the nonchalant way it came out, like I was asking for the time.
Mum simply does not talk about that time in her life.
I understood now that it must have been traumatic for her, and honestly my dad – the one currently swearing because he had tripped over the rake hiding in the tall grass – has been my ‘Dad’ for so much of my life that I rarely felt the need to think about the man who helped create me.
So, when Mum did answer, I wasn’t prepared. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the way I felt the urge to burst into tears.
“Ryo.”
I inhaled sharply, letting it settle around me.
Hearing the name of my biological father… I almost expected it to have some sort of profound meaning, but it was just a name.
It took me a moment to realise that the reason for my sudden burst of emotion was not because of the name, or the person it was attached to. It was for the woman sitting next to me who’d carried it with her for all these years.
She took a sip of her drink and said, “I reckon we’ll have more tomatoes this year than we’ll know what to do with.”
Together, we looked over to where Dad had now moved on to the tomato pots, and I saw she was right, and done with the conversation.
By mid afternoon I’d made my decision, because Mum was right. Moving forward didn’t change who you were, it made room for the person you could be, and… and I think I wanted to meet that person.
I sent an acceptance email to the editor.
He responded promptly with documents of the terms of the freelance arrangement.
It was brief, and the most important parts pertained to the pay, and exclusivity they would have to the articles I submitted.
I was otherwise free to publish whatever I wanted on either my blog or other media groups – if I were ever in such a position to do so.
James had also included a line of personal advice which had made me pause.
Since you’re new to this, I would also recommend going through your social media accounts to ensure there is nothing on there you wouldn’t want others to see.
Your name being attached to articles will open you up to the court of public opinion.
Some people might see this as an invitation to pass judgement on you and your life.
It made me remember all the times Joon and I had had the tenuous conversation about how people might view our relationship.
Had we ever gone public, everything about my life, including my social media would have been scrutinised with an intense level of detail.
For a time, it had made me paranoid enough that I’d gone back through years of my accounts, deleting anything even remotely questionable – from pictures of drunken nights out with friends, to opinions expressed on pretty much anything.
I went through my social media now, excitedly adding ‘Freelance Journalist’ to my bio, and then feeling like a fool, I removed it twice before leaving it up.
While I was there, I flipped through the last few photos I’d uploaded. There weren’t too many, just a few from Korea. Views from the banks along the Han river during the light show, selfies from walking around Gangnam and so many pictures of food.
Then there was the picture I’d taken in the bathroom where Jihoon’s skincare was side-by-side with mine. Symbolic of a shared life.
I smiled, remembering the day we’d moved in.
It was still early enough in Korea to call Joon. I dialled his number, wanting to hear his voice and tell him all about The Loop.
He didn’t answer. I tried again, but got the same result. He was working so hard, I hoped he was taking care of himself.
I sighed, putting my phone away. I filled out the documents and sent them back.
Later, when I was lying in bed, room dark except for the light of my phone screen, I let curiosity get the better of me.
I searched for online journalism courses.
Just out of interest.