When The Phone Rings / The Call You Just Made Is

Chapter 12 The Photo

‘Someone is here to visit you.’

When Hee-joo showed the text on the phone screen to the nurse, the nurse smiled brightly.

“Hee-joo, long time no see.”

Hee-joo smiled in response and walked down the still unfamiliar corridor. Through the glass wall, the green garden was in full view.

This is a top-notch nursing home.

Hee-joo stopped at the door of the familiar room and tidied her clothes. Pushing the door open, she saw an elderly man sitting on the balcony. The old man looked dazed, staring blankly at a certain place in the garden.

Hee-joo approached him and covered him with the slipped blanket.

“…Dad, I’m here.”

She spoke naturally, her voice weak and mysterious.

“Have you been well these days? How was your meal?” 

“…….”

Despite her gentle voice, her father’s eyes were still blurry.

The only time Hee-joo would speak was when she saw her biological father. But even then, there was no way to have a conversation. Her father had long been trapped in the water tank from which he could not escape.

"Dad, is it comfortable here?" 

"......."

"Can you say something? Dad..."

Hee-joo's biological father was once a funny host in a shabby club.

He was the one who could make his daughter laugh with a cherry tomato, and Hee-joo liked such a father. Although they lived in the basement of the club, they were not lonely together.

Until her mother caught the attention of Chairman Hong.

At that time, her father's lungs had problems. He had difficulty breathing, his tongue gradually dried up, and his breath smelled sour.

Her mother refused to talk to her father in disgust.

Hee-joo witnessed the process of a man being gradually forgotten. Her mother became someone else's mistress, and her father remained silent.

The man who once made people laugh with a microphone gradually dissipated into bubbles. Even at the moment when her mother left, her father only had bloodshot eyes and said nothing.

"Why didn't you say a word at that time? You have been making a living with your mouth all your life, why didn't you do your best to scold her a few words? Even if it was a curse."

Hee-joo gently stroked the back of her father's skinny hand.

"But, Dad... I just want to live like this now." 

"......."

"I want to do this, I'm sorry."

The wrinkled old man still looked out the window, as if waiting for something.

"...Maybe we need to move to a nursing home."

The father who gave up everything.

Even so, his old age can be so luxurious, after all, it depends on her mother's money.

Because Hee-joo once asked her mother to solve her father's settlement problem on the condition of replacing her stepsister.

'If you divorce, the support will end.'

For her father, Hee-joo persisted for a long time, but her patience had long been exhausted. At that moment, the father who was looking at the void opened his mouth slightly.