Chapter Five #3
“I know you long for the days of slave labor, Sue, but he’s on his breakfast break. Where the fuck else would he be?”
Wow, is that what I sounded like whenever I talked to Sue?
Like a moody bitch.
“Fair enough.” I slowly closed the distance between us, even though his entire demeanor screamed, fuck off! so loudly, it was deafening.
Let it deafen me. The last time I was this close to him, and he wasn’t putting on a show for a cop, was ten years ago.
It was crazy how one look at my old crushes activated that deep longing in my soul like no time had passed at all.
Alexander Montgomery used to walk the halls of Titan Prep with a smile for everyone, and a kind word for everyone else. He was just one of those people you couldn’t help but like. And it wasn’t just because he was pretty.
Which he very much still is.
I raked him up and down, unable to stop myself. The years had been good to him—again Alex went from a handsome young man to a gorgeous grown one. All of the parts of him that still needed filling out took to the task with his valedictorian gusto.
His shoulders were wider and thicker. His youthful plumpness shed away, leaving behind a hard, ropey body. And the bulge straining his running shorts was bulgier.
He even smelled more delicious than that time in high school when I pretended to accidentally bump into him. Back then he smelled like apples and erasers. Now, he smelled like cinnamon, pine, and the salty spray of the ocean—a combination that didn’t make sense, but scrambled my head all the same.
“So...” I ran a finger down his chest, tensing him up tighter than a bowstring. “Do you take over his nursing duties when he’s off on break? Or are you some kind of pervert with a geriatric kink that gets off on watching old ladies sleep?”
“What the hell did you just—!” Alex caught sight of my grin.
Slicing his rant off, he sighed—flicking his shiny, brown locks out of his eyes.
“Fucking hell, all right. You caught me. I decided to end our six-month dry spell by climbing atop the drooling, nearly vegetative woman who called me a wet, limp sock of a man.”
I choked on a laugh, slapping my hand over my mouth.
“Oh my gosh, Omma said that? Wow. She was never nice to any guy I brought home, but that’s particularly cutting.
And incredibly untrue.” I dropped my hand, folding it safely behind my back.
“Only have to look at you to know there’s nothing limp about you. ”
A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. “Hmm. Well, that’s Ha-eun Kim. She’s the master of reducing a man down to nothing in seven words or less.
“Or at least she was”—Alex sidestepped me and walked out—“until you took over.”
I let him go. What would I even say to stop him? His words were for Sue, not me. The marriage between the four of them had clearly gone sour, and the last place I should be is in the middle of it... right?
I mean, my fourteen-year-old crushes couldn’t compete with my sister’s marriage to these men, or the very real child she had with them.
“No,” I whispered, silently closing the door. The only thing for me to do was make peace with my mother, find a way to keep her happy and comfortable for the rest of her short time, and then leave with the inheritance Sue stole from me, and the one my mother wanted to give me.
Micah, Rhodes, and Alex straight up told me to my face that they wanted Sue gone. It’s not like they’ll miss her.
But Nari will, another voice whispered through my mind. And she’ll spend every day of the rest of her life believing her mother ran out on her.
Her mother did leave her, sense returned. For better or worse, the true Sue is gone, and I don’t have the right to trick that poor child into believing anything else.
Shaking my head, I tossed all the whispering voices out of it—focusing on my mother. Somehow, she was still asleep. The mother I knew never went to bed before me, or woke up after me. If I ever wanted to catch her asleep, I lurked around in the wee hours like I was stalking Santa Claus.
“Omma?” I perched on the edge of the mattress and took her hand. “Omma, can you hear me?”
Looking upon her then, still and frail in sleep, one truth struck me through the chest.
Sue did not lie to me. My mother was dying.
Her thick, salt-and-pepper strands were gone, leaving only a silk bonnet wrapped around her scalp where her hair used to be. Everyone I knew used to remark on how young Omma looked for her age. That they couldn’t believe she gave birth to us at forty.
I doubt she’d heard such platitudes in a while.
The cancer leeched away the deceptive smoothness and natural color to her complexion, leaving a washed-out, wrinkled version of my mother. Her eyebrows were gone. Lips dry and chapped. Eyes sunken in, and her frame bereft of nearly twenty pounds at least.
“Omma?”
She stirred, one eye peeling open.
“Good morning, Omma.”
When we were little, our parents adopted the “one language for each” method to make sure we grew up fluent in both English and Korean.
Up until around ten, our father only spoke to us in English, and our mother only spoke to us in Korean.
And if we wanted to speak to her, we’d better respond in Korean.
As a result, I’d spent the first ten years of my life addressing this woman as Omma. Even after she relaxed the rule and allowed us to speak to her in English, calling her Mom, or Hera forbid Mommy, was just weird.
“S... S...” She strained to turn over.
“No, don’t.” I sprung forward, taking her hand. “Please, don’t strain yourself. I didn’t want to stress you out first thing, I just had to let you know I was here—”
“Sarang.”
Direct and clear as a bell, Omma saw through the clothes I dug out of Sue’s wardrobe, and straight to me. Of course, she did. No mother would ever confuse their child with someone else. Not even their biological copy.
“Sarang, dear, is... that you?”
“It’s me.” I moved closer, the hand in hers trembling.
I replayed this moment over and over in my head almost every day for ten years.
All the things I would say to her—scream at her.
How many apologies I’d extract from her in exchange for my forgiveness.
All the crow I’d shove down Sue’s throat as Omma finally saw through to who my sister was.
I built the fantasy up so much in my head—
—and now I didn’t care about any of it.
She’s dying in a broken-down manor with no money, no friends, no husband, and no Sue. Omma took my life, and life took her daughter.
I’d say we’ve both suffered enough.
“You look well,” she whispered. Her eyes were barely open. She looked seconds away from drifting back to sleep. “Have you... been eating?”
I cracked a smile. “Yes, I have been eating. Turns out that’s a requirement for living.”
A soft chuckle reached my ears, blowing my eyes wide. My mother did not laugh easily. I’d seen her sit through countless romantic comedies and not summon so much as a twitch of the lips.
Emboldened, I scooted closer, laying my other hand over hers. “I’ve even been making japchae the way you like. I can’t believe I ever said Korean food was yucky. That’s why you can’t trust the culinary opinion of a kid who thinks boogers are a delicacy.”
Omma laughed out loud—or the closest thing to it. A rough, whispery sound coughed up her lungs—weak and soft, but still, a laugh.
“Oh, my silly girl, what do you mean you made japchae? You know you’re not allowed in the kitchen.”
My brows snapped together. “What?”
“It’s not nice to take credit for Mrs. Prado’s work.”
“Mrs. Prado?”
Mrs. Prado was the manor’s head chef when I was a kid, and going by the current state of the kitchen, she hadn’t been around for a long time.
“Promise me you’ll stay out of the kitchen and out of Mrs. Prado’s way.” Omma closed her eyes, giving up the battle with her heavy lids. “Say it, Sarang.”
“I promise,” I blurted—surprised even at myself for how quickly I fell into old patterns with her.
“Sarang?”
I jumped, snapping up as Reynard pushed into the room.
“Did she just call you sarang?”
I seized up—wide eyes darting left to right for somewhere to hide. “I— I— She— She—”
“That means love, doesn’t it? That’s so sweet.”
“Um... sweet?”
“I’ve never heard her call you, or anyone, by a pet name before.
” He came in the rest of the way, carrying an empty water bottle and his lunch bag.
“Although, to be fair, she could be saying all sorts of things in Korean that would zip right over my head.” He laughed.
“That’s why I’ve started taking lessons. ”
“Lessons?” I couldn’t seem to stop repeating him like a moronic parrot.
“Yes,” he sighed. “You know how rough it’s been. How confused she’s getting. More and more she’s going whole days where she doesn’t say anything, and if she does, it’s all in Korean. I figured that’s my cue to fire up the language-learning apps.”
Reynard stopped his packing away to smile at me.
“But I’m very glad I learned enough to hear you two make up.
Last week, she screamed such awful things at you— Things she didn’t mean,” he rushed to say.
“But today she calls you love because that’s what you are, and how she truly feels.
She loves you, Mrs. Kim. Never forget it. ”
“Oh... uh... Thank you,” I finally got out. “That’s really nice of you to say.” I got to my feet. “And it’s nice of you to go above and beyond in caring for my mother. Makes me feel like less of a horrible daughter for hiring someone to do it for me.”
He busted up. “I hear that a lot, and I tell those families the same thing I’m telling you. Even your parents relied on teachers, babysitters, nannies, and relatives for help when they were raising you. So why should you feel guilty about needing help to care for them?”
“Huh.” I rocked back, blinking at him. “I never thought of it like that, but that’s an amazing point.
I wish I had that comeback ready when I was fourteen and Omma told me if I ever dared put her in a home, she’d write me out of the will.
I should’ve been like, this from the woman who never met a nanny she didn’t like! ”
Reynard laughed so hard he doubled over.
I liked him. He was a jovial man and he thought I was much funnier than most people did.
“She needs to rest,” I said. “I’ll be back later.”
Making for the door, I flicked to the opposite side of Omma’s bed to her nightstand—wondering what made the click that Alex was so desperate for me not to notice, he evaporated from the spot as quickly as he could.