(tysm for readin ur wonderful) (vote if u r so inclined)
My halmoni lived on Davis Avenue, in a house with a high porch, and grass that always grew too long.
Now, my halabeoji was there, sure, but the man was a man of great health and refused to quit work until either his heart gave out or someone killed him themselves. My halmoni was more reasonable and gave all that righteous insanity to other aspects of her life.
"Seohyun," she beckoned, gesturing for me to sit next to my mother at the table. "Iliwa. Help your umma with the food."
My mother set down the last bowl and handed me the chopsticks. "Give them to everyone." She handed me a wooden set. "And put this by your bowl."
"I can eat with the metal ones," I argued.
"Too slippery. Just take it."
"Let him use them," my halmoni called. "He should learn."
My mother sighed, but handed them over anyway. Fear not, as mothers were always right, and I did face the music of spending five minutes trying to eat the japchae only to ask for the wooden ones again, with a pointed look from her.
She was a seamstress, my halmoni, and would take every opportunity in the world to fix every last stitch in our torn up clothes. A small woman, barely five feet, with ungodly amounts of slippers, some stuck between the folds of her perfumed quilts or beneath her stacks of gaudy vests, floral shirts too big, silky pants that swam in the winds. She only wore the practical jewelry: the occasional chunky gold bracelet, or red-colored pendant, or ring from a merchant she couldn't remember the name of. Even with the indelible lines on her face, gravity's sinking hands over her skin, she convinced me constantly she did not grow old.
"You make kimchi with me," she said, beckoning for me to help her settle down on the floor, plastic gloves over her hands. "Ppalli."
I sat down, pulling on my own kimchi gloves. She corrected her green apron, lined with flowers and slightly stained.
"How's school?" she asked, her Korean so perfected it made my novice version sound almost foreign.
"Good," I said. I was ten. It was always good. "I like it."
"Best subject?"
"English."
"No math?"
"I don't like math." I helped her massage the great bowl of reddened kimchi, the scent sharp as it wafted through the house, mixing with the aroma of dust, steaming rice, aged wood, sunlit perfume, and the past. "It's boring."
"You're like your umma," she said. Then in broken English, "'I like what I like'." She shook her head. "That's what she said to me."
I nodded, the clippings of English chunky to me and therefore not as recognizable as they should have been. I just mixed the kimchi with her, nodding along to what she said, answering her questions accordingly, laughing when she made fun of my father.
For a long time, I never knew exactly what she said. Where her Korean held an iron sword to mine, my English drew an iron gate to hers. Not that it mattered to me then. Whatever my halmoni said, I trusted, because I loved her.
How strange was that? When two worlds met and could still love without understanding?
How was it that you could love something and not understand it?
"Did she say that line again?" my mother laughed, a few months later when we'd come home after our weekly visit there on Sundays. I held my yogurt drink between my hands in the backseat, listening to my mother and father discuss their conversations. "I like what I like?"
YOU ARE READING
Suicide Buddies
Teen Fiction"My mother once told me there are three, and only three, truly defining moments in your life. One: When you don't know. Two: When you realize you don't know. Three: When you know. This is about the third one." --- Angel Young is going to die. Or at...
