Foolish Wit

I: Liam

The only thing Jennie Kim can think about on the day of Hanbin's funeral is Liam Manoban.

This is odd for a few reasons. Firstly, her only brother is dead--murdered, in fact. The hows and whys aren't terribly important; a rival trading company, two hoodlums apprehended into police custody, one dead brother. Hanbin had been her friend once and she thought he might be again, although if those feelings of optimism were ever to bear fruit Jennie isn't sure and will probably never know.

Secondly, while she has, of course, thought about Liam Manoban before--he is the best blacksmith for horseshoes in a 20 mile radius and also extremely handsome (she knows this because the maids titter over him and who's turn it is to retrieve that month's order from the smith's, of course, not by her own estimation)--endless thoughts do feel a little excessive.

Nonetheless, Liam's face pops into her mind as soon as she wakes up in the morning and stays there, like something foul stuck to the bottom of her boot. Her first thought is to ask after him, that perhaps something nasty had befallen him during the night. Yea-ji had once called her clairvoyant in a spat of meanness. She'd taken it to heart, like she did with many of her mother's insults. Her favorite books at the time were, after all, stories of ghosts and black cats and bad omens, reflective of the bad luck she herself experienced from the moment of her dreadful birth.

Still, Jennie scuttles the thought. Asking after Mr. Manoban to the maids will just induce another wave of fevered whisperings which she is not in the mood to tolerate. She has a funeral to prepare for, after all.

As they step out of the church awash in the crowd of people, rubberneckers more than friends, Jennie dons her black leather gloves and turns to her maid. "Ms. Huang." She says, "Will you run ahead and tell the driver to take me back to the house? I'm feeling a little tired."

Ms. Huang wisely says nothing more than "Yes, Ma'am." And trots down to notify the carriage. Tomorrow will be a whirlwind, Jennie knows. She'll have only today as a grace period before the vultures begin to circle. There is a clock that has been ticking down from the moment she was informed of Hanbin's death, and the hour hand is rapidly approaching midnight. Until that moment she has business to attend to, and a house that will surely be quieter now that it is one Lee lighter.

And it is--detestable as she'd found Hanbin near the end of his life, the overwhelming gap left in the home they shared is somehow worse. It is this small hole in her constitution that Liam Manoban must use to burrow in and stay rooted in her thoughts. She doesn't stop thinking about him. Not as she removes her gloves and winter coat in the foyer, and not as she sits in her study writing to her lawyer. He's a tawny specter in the back of her mind, an answer to a question that Jennie hasn't been asked yet. Liam Manoban, town blacksmith, boy who she's known peripherally since his family moved to the area at the tender age of 16, when Jennie was 14. He was handsome then, too.

The thought is banished as soon as it appears. She knows that he is handsome because other women find him handsome. He was as disgustingly optimistic then, as starry-eyed, a gnat buzzing in her ear. That much she knows for herself. And yet he remains unmarried, although such a man should have his pick of the women living in the township.