8
Danbi
Clutching a pink stuffed rabbit in her arms, Danbi sat in the rocker watching Anna sleep—her chest, its width barely a handspan, rising and falling with each deep breath.
Her daughter’s nursery was painted a pale green, because the color was the only thing Danbi had liked about growing up in a farming town.
Born and raised on the outskirts of Sangju, Danbi had loathed almost everything about her rural hometown: the narrow-minded elderly villagers who clucked their tongues and gossiped about her profligate, drunken stepfather; the harsh sun that etched even young mothers with indelible wrinkles and frowns, capturing their too-early disappointments; the cheap nylon clothing saturated in gaudy colors and incongruous prints that covered squat country bodies; and the jet-black-dyed, permanent-waved hair of middle-aged women, including her weak-willed mother, who would not leave a terrible man no matter how much Danbi begged.
Through tremendous efforts at a competitive girls’ high school and two Suneung trials, Danbi was accepted into Korea University as a math major and graduated near the top of her class.
Always surrounded by men, she had refused countless romantic overtures from peers, graduate students, and young professors, developing the reputation of being an ice virgin.
Discreetly, far away from campus and under a different name, she’d dated a series of wealthy married businessmen who gave her money for school.
As soon as she was hired at HRI, Danbi threw away her second pager, broke up with all the older men, and moved to a small apartment closer to her office, where none of them could ever find her.
Contempt for her rural upbringing had made Danbi aspire for more, yet now, over nine thousand miles away, in an elegant nursery in a grand house in Irvine with her two-year-old daughter fast asleep in a toddler bed imported from Italy, she yearned for Sangju’s verdant fields, rock terraces that touched the clouds, evergreen mountains thick with ancient trees, and blue-and-white streaked skies edged by water.
She missed the plaintive sounds of the people’s voices, the rounded Sangju dialect that bore little relationship to Seoul speech, and her umma’s sad way of phrasing everything as a question.
Danbi heard Shin’s footfalls down the hall. She covered Anna with her pink quilt, kissed her forehead, and left the room, closing the door gently.
“Where were you?” she asked.
Shin didn’t answer her question. “I want to take a shower. It’s late.”
For a moment, Danbi felt afraid, wondering if he could have gone to a room salon. She’d heard of two between Garden Grove and Anaheim. They had sex nearly every day, and she couldn’t imagine him needing more.
“Are you upset with me?” she asked.
“No, no.”
“Do you want me to scrub your back?”
He shook his head and went to the bedroom and closed the door.
Danbi went to the kitchen. In the refrigerator, she found the ingredients to make a stew, and she heated the short ribs. The housekeeper had already made rice.
The first time she had sex with Shin had been at a motel in Sinchon. He had flirted with her after a work dinner.
“Miss Jung is the smartest and loveliest trainee in the world,” he’d said to her at the taxi stand.
So she asked him to take her home, claiming she’d had too much to drink. “I’m afraid of being alone with the driver. Would I be out of your way? Could you be my protector?”
In the taxi, when they passed a motel, she looked at Shin first, then asked the driver to pull in. In the lobby, without any words exchanged, Shin knew exactly why they were there. He asked for the honeymoon suite, which was the most expensive room.
“I’ve always wanted a grown-up man to be mine,” she’d said as he undressed her slowly. She took him to the bathroom, got on her knees, and washed him, not letting him touch her until she was ready.
On the bed, he turned her around and made love to her, and she bled a little, making him think that it was her first time.
With her index finger, she tapped the blood on the sheets.
“Will you take responsibility for me?”
“Of course,” he’d said before climaxing.
Danbi knew that the first year of their affair had intoxicated him.
With the energy of a twenty-four-year-old woman, she thought of new things and places each week.
She bought erotic novels and manhwa to learn what men and women wanted from sex.
She didn’t like pornographic films, finding them more unhelpful than vulgar.
The women were often unappealing and looked artificial.
For her purposes, the images weren’t important. She studied the motivations in the novels and manhwa because if she could control a man’s motives, she could get what she wanted.
Of course, Danbi had lovers before, but none of them could do enough for her. Money was a commodity that many men possessed, and many young women could extract it from them.
Never before Shin did she want to possess a married man.
He wasn’t rich, and he was not the most important officer in the company.
But he was beautiful and strong. When he talked about his sons, she envied them, and loved him more.
He could be old-fashioned about what a man was supposed to do for a woman, and he was tender with her, even when she could be cruel.
Always, he forgave her, though she could not understand why.
When he was angry with her, she was afraid of losing him.
After Shin’s numerous attempts to be free from her, she realized that she even loved his failure to escape.
A year after they met, she went to his apartment and made him dinner and asked him to leave his wife. He ate the meal and they made love.
“It isn’t up to me. My wife is Catholic, and she refuses to give me a divorce. I’m responsible for her and our sons.” And his answer had not wavered in all the years they had been together.
After Anna was born, he promised never to leave her.
Danbi had not realized what it would feel like to be a mother.
For Shin, she would have killed a person; but for Anna, she would have died.
Everything had changed after she had a baby.
Anna was perfect—creamy skin, Shin’s large eyes, and Danbi’s button nose.
Already she could speak well. Her first word had been “cat.”
Danbi wanted another child, but Shin said no and got a vasectomy. “In twenty years, when Anna finishes college, I’ll be seventy-five. Let’s be reasonable.”
In her large kitchen with its double-door, stainless steel refrigerator, twin German dishwashers, and six-burner stove, Danbi cooked a meal for Shin and set the table.
His dark, wet hair was combed back, and his tanned profile was still remarkable—the unusual aquiline nose, the sad deep-set eyes and elegant mouth. Shin wore a black polo shirt and khakis. He was barefoot.
“You made dinner?” Shin seemed surprised.
“Yes.”
He sat down at the table, having retained the manners of an older generation, vulnerable to a woman pouring him a drink or cooking him a meal. Shin was good at being grateful and liked the roles from another era a woman and a man played.
“Do you want a drink?” she asked.
“No. I’m okay.”
She served his dinner and sat opposite him without eating.
“You ate?”
“Yes,” she lied, always watching her figure, never allowing herself to weigh more than fifty kilograms.
She poured his water and sat quietly, letting him eat in peace. When he was done, she cleared the dishes.
“Did you call her?”
“No. I told you I wouldn’t,” he said. “The answer would be the same.”
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. He had sent her a divorce agreement. The house would be hers. Again and again, Mary had refused. Shin couldn’t ask anymore.
“I did a bad thing,” she began. “I’m sorry.”
Shin looked concerned.
“I called him.”
“Who?”
“Your eldest son.”
“Joey?”
She nodded, her eyes full of fear.
“I told you that’s not allowed. There’s a line. My sons should be left alone. My life is separate from theirs now, and—”
“But you send them money still. Every month. I’ve never seen you not send—”
“My wife and sons are still my responsibility. What did you say to my son?”
“I invited him to visit us in California. He has a baby sister now. I invited him and his brothers. This summer. Anytime. If she won’t give you a divorce, why can’t we be modern? Why can’t you see your boys? You have a right to see them.”
“I can go to New Jersey.”
“Why can’t they come here? We have guest rooms.”
“Do you know where I was today?”
Now it was her turn to look worried.
“I went to see Koh Yohan. But I couldn’t find him.”
“Why?”
“I needed to talk to someone. You’re making me crazy.”
“I’m sorry,” Danbi said. Shin closed his eyes, and she knew he was trying to be calm, so she went to him and sat on the dining room floor by his chair and laid her head on his lap. “Forgive me. I was wrong. I won’t do it again. I want us to be a good family.”
Since moving to California with Danbi, Shin had gone back to New Jersey only once, and it had been an awkward three days.
Mary had barely spoken to him, and the boys were still in shock.
Joey, in particular, could not contain his disappointment.
Luke, the middle son, had walked out of the restaurant before the food came out, and the youngest, Patrick, had sat in his chair and cried, begging his father to return.
“I won’t do it again,” she promised.
This was how it was between them. He would tell her no, and she would test him until he warned her, and then she would apologize, and he would forgive.
“What did Joey say?” he asked her.
“He won’t come here.”
“Is that all?”
“He said I was a bad person because I knew that you were married.”
Shin dropped his chin to his chest, a gesture of such sorrow that Danbi felt desperate to make things right.
“Do you still want to be friends with Koh Yohan? If you miss him, why don’t you hire him? I can’t imagine him wanting to work at that fried fish place.”
“You think he would work at our insurance agency?” He laughed.
“Yes. He’s fifty-three years old. There’s no trading company that’s hiring a man like him. You know that. We had to create our own business and jobs. He has no choices. All these salarymen—”
“I’ve already asked him. Months ago. He flat-out refused. And the last time we saw them at church, don’t you remember what his sister-in-law Sonya said? You are never supposed to talk with his wife or him again.”
Danbi said nothing, having later learned more about Sonya and her husband’s family’s business from Bina, her cousin’s wife, who still kept up with everything back home. No one trifled with Sonya, her husband, Yong-gil, or Chairman Mun.