Now and for the Last Time

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By the beginning of the following week, Eomma was finally coming to the idea of a couple of days away. She was thinking that a trip would be a disaster and saying she'd never agree to an actual wedding that far offsite in a million years. But for her, this was progress.

"See that?" she said to me on Tuesday morning, as she sat in front of the TV with her coffee. Mary Lin was narrating a segment called "Prank on Tourists!" that detailed various scams crooks used on people while on vacation. "They asked you for help, then they steal your passport, then you can never get home. It's evil genius."

"You can get another passport," I pointed out, sticking a straw into a smoothie I'd made. "You don't have to, like, live there forever."

Eomma grumbled as Mary held up a travel wallet the current expert recommended, which basically made it possible to attach your currency and documents to your body in many knots. "I mean, really. I can't wear something like that! I shouldn't go. This is ridiculous."

I sat down next to her. "Eomma," I said. "What's the real problem? This can't just be about an offsite wedding. It's too crazy even for you."

She gave me a look. "Oh, that's nice. Thank you."

"You know what I mean. Seriously, what's up?"

In response, she looked down at her cup, running her finger around the rim. "I've just never been much of the vacation type. That's it."

"Because you haven't had the opportunity," I said. "Also, you're stuck with me."

"I have never been stuck with you," she replied. Then she reached over, brushing my hair back with her free hand. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Eomma," I smiled, "but you're still not answering my question."

Exasperated, she dropped her hand. "Look. I know it's not a popular or common thing, but I like working. I prefer it, actually. If I'm not doing my job then I feel lost. Which is bad enough here at home. But we're going to be on an island. With no escape."

I raised my brows. "Are you serious? But you always talk about how much you hate you job."

"I do not," she replied immediately, clearly dismayed. "No, no. I say that certain aspects get on my nerves, and specific brides or circumstances. But the job itself? Never."

I sat back, trying to process this. It did actually fit, now that I thought about it. "So what you're saying is that all those times I wanted to go to the beach, or the mountains, or the amusement park, we could have and you just didn't want to?"

She bit her lip. "Well, maybe not every time."

I shook my head. "Wow."

"I'm sorry," she told me. She squeezed my hand. "Look. There was a point in my life, when I was still married to your appa, when I was free to do whatever I wanted. I felt I should've been so happy. And I wasn't. Then everything feel apart, and I ended up at that company as a single parent, and didn't expect to be happy ever again. But when I met Wooyoung, and started doing this business, it was like suddenly things clicked for me. I'd found my thing. When you come to something like that late, you're always afraid you'll lose it again. it makes everything about it feel precious."

"Eomma, you were, like, twenty-two when you started this business," I pointed out.

"Twenty-two, divorced from a trust-fund poet, and I'd spent the last few years raising chickens and making bracelets for a living." She sighed. "Finding my calling felt like a blessing. And you don't take blessings for granted."

"You're allowed a day off, though. Even God took one."

"And like Him, I get my sundays," she said. "That's enough."

She got up then, crossing the kitchen to refill her coffee. On the TV, Daniel Kang, the news anchor, was reporting on the stock market. I studied the graphics, thinking about what she'd said. The calling part I couldn't relate to, not yet anyway, and I loved vacations. But this idea of coming across something so right for you after feeling like you never would, and then being terrified of scaring it away - well, that wasn't hard to understand.

"We have four weddings left before Julee's," I said to her now, as she took her seat again, folding one leg under her. "They won't be affected by you relaxing a bit. I'll make sure they're waiting for you the minute you return. Promise."

"Well, it looks like I don't have a choice," she sighed. "Wooyoung already bought us matching hats and robes. I'm going, like it or not."

The way she said this, you still would've thought she was being packed off the work camp in Afghanistan. But you never know what you can do until you try, and if you're lucky, what you love will always be waiting for you. That's just how it is in most cases. Not all. But most.