𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝'𝐯𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐎𝐧 | ᵗʰᵉ ⁱᵐᵖᵒˢˢⁱᵇˡᵉ ʰᵉⁱʳ

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖

Seri watches her mother hum while she works on her laptop. In a minute, she's dusting the photo frames on the shelves; she's showing Taeri the little trophies Seri and her brother won growing up; she's putting the kettle on to make tea; she texts Seri's father, reminding him to pay his bills. The rays of sunset fall through the kitchen window, and Seri sees her mother in a new light. It's far different from how she saw her at ten and fifteen and eighteen.

Did she ever want to run away from their home, across the heath and beyond the mountains? How many times was she forced to swallow her frustration and loneliness and bend her spine to carry her family? Did she think it would make her a bad person or a bad mother if she ever said aloud that her life would've been much better without her family in it? Like Seri does these days?

A twinge in her stomach brings Seri back home.

"What's got you thinking so hard?" Her mother sits down beside her. She hands her a mug of tea and pulls her computer into her lap again.

Seri loses her trail of thought, staring at the steam curling over the mug. "I used to try not to get angry over your divorce," she recalls softly. "I'd try to understand why it didn't work out."

"Did you, now?" Her mother types a quick response to a message. She speaks with a Dublin accent now. It feels wrong.

"Because on the outside, it looked like you and Dad were just fine. You loved each other so much, so I could never understand why you wanted to leave and move away." She thinks of Taeoh, her job, and how she loves Taeri and Jihoon more than anything in this world. "But you're right. Sometimes, it's not enough."

Her mom looks up again, deep in thought. She closes her laptop and smiles wistfully. "I wish I could say something that would make you feel better. That it's normal to be anxious at this stage of your pregnancy. But," she reaches to brush Seri's hair back, "suffering is a constant in a woman's life, my love. We can never catch a break." With a grunt, Louisa shifts Seri's feet into her lap. "All I can do for you at the moment is massage your feet."

"Just not the ankles, yeah?" She'd forgotten how it feels to be loved like this. Seri is home. She is protected. There are people she trusts to catch her if she falls. Here, she can shirk off her responsibility for a while without the world coming crashing down.

"I'm sorry that I barged in like this," she murmurs, the massage nearly moving her to tears.

Louisa laughs. Softly, she says, "Wherever I go will be your home, and you don't apologise for coming back to it." Seri's mouth curves, impressed by such a heavy dialogue. Her mom shrugs proudly. "It's what your gran used to say to me when she was alive."

•✧•

Seri tries to familiarise herself with the new hospital over the week. It's a little weird to hear people call her 'Doctor Keating', but it doesn't make her feel uncomfortable. The doctors, professors, and supervisors she'll be working with are all warm and friendly. Within a week and a half, she knows the hospital and its staff like the back of her hand.

Nathan Flemming—who insists that she call him Nate—is the attending in-charge who shows her around. His credentials are impressive and Seri is secretly jealous of his status as a double-boarded surgeon. "As a Trauma Surgeon, I'm hovering around the ED most of the time," he says, flashing a doctor passing them by a blinding white smile, "But with the ongoing research, I've taken something of a sabbatical. Doesn't mean you won't find me in my office. I still have my patients."

He's too much to handle, Seri thinks but she also understands the confidence in him. Doctor Flemming is good at what he does—he's one of the best in the country. So maybe she can look past his jelled brown hair and blue eyes and not write him off as pretentious or annoying just because he's English.