A Southern Girl: A Novel

5: Jong Sim

Confluence 41 “Sounds like trouble,” Vernon agreed. “And Elizabeth expects this reaction ?” “I have no idea. We haven’t discussed it. I doubt she has given it much thought from their standpoint.” “They don’t get along?” “They do, but it’s a delicate truce easily broken by importing alien children into the family.” I felt the tightening in my throat. I had said more than I intended. Still unsaid, but very much on my mind as I walked the fairway, now hidden in the murky stillness of dusk, was the impending pressure to love a total stranger like I loved those boys. I didn’t see how that was possible. I just didn’t. j 5 i Jong Sim The trip back to my village was the longest of my life. Your cries followed me down the street until I stopped my ears. When I stepped onto the bus, the driver stared at me because I was looking at him, just standing there like a tree. He took the fare from some money I held, then pushed me toward the back. The people I passed must have known I had done a terrible thing because they looked at me like a criminal. All the seats were filled, but a kind auntie made a space for me. I tried not to think about you but instead about the cane machete with the rusty blade I put under my sleeping mat yesterday. It was not very sharp, but it was sharp enough. You looked so helpless lying on those steps. I could still hear you crying though the bus had been many miles. I told myself they had found you by now, that you were inside the police station being changed and fed and smiled upon. You were on your way to America, I whispered, but too softly for the auntie beside me to hear. I did the best I could for you by giving you away. You would rather be with me than on a doorstep, but you were helpless. I was just as helpless in a world controlled by men and tradition. I gave away my child. I murdered you. I will murder myself, I had decided. A Southern Girl 42 The temperature dropped. You would be cold, but it was warm in the station, where you surely were by now, being cradled by someone who had seen the mirror and knew that you were special. The auntie beside me was most kind, patting my hand like she understood, but she could not because I myself did not understand. At the sign of the green dragon I got off. The temperature had dropped more and the air was very cold so I shivered as I waited. The bus to the village was not crowded, and the few passengers did not notice me weeping in the back. If they heard me, they did not turn around. That night I took the machete from under my sleeping mat with only the slightest scraping of its rusty blade against the floor. I did not want my mother to hear. I crept into the kitchen and crawled into the large tub used to render meat. There I curled up with my hands locked around my knees. My breasts throbbed, swollen with milk. They will give you milk but it will not be my milk and you will not like it. I sat in the tub a long time, holding the machete between my legs and waiting for the courage to force it into the very place where I felt your restless stretch at sunrise. My heart beat with love for you and hatred for myself, for my parents, for my grandfather, for Hyun Su, for Uncle Jae, for Korea. Why must I, who had nothing, give up something so precious? If I must give up what I love, so must they. I would enter the next life so they would know I loved you more than life itself. When they found me in the morning, stiff and cold in my own blood, they would suffer loss and know the depth of mine. I turned the rusty blade toward my stomach and gripped the handle with both hands. I knew I must do it quickly, with one thrust, at the very moment when my courage surged and before I could change my mind. I waited for that courage. The house was silent and I wondered if I would break that silence by crying out...