The Matiz basically functioned as an ambulance all year. Sowon contracted illness after illness, from conjunctivitis to measles, and they would drive over that steep mountain in the middle of the night, Sowon burning with fever. On snowy days, their lives were at the tiny car’s mercy. Hyonsu wasn’t sure he was ready to go back to such a small town, especially after Sowon’s bout with meningitis.
“For how long?” In Hyonsu’s mind, two opposing feelings collided—the sweetness of the phrase “our apartment” and anxiety about dormant future crises.
“Three years. By that time we’ll have paid off some of the loan, and then we can refinance.”
“Why don’t we buy something smaller? We can set our sights lower and still have our own place without stretching ourselves thin. It’s only the three of us. We could do with less space.”
“No. We need it.”
“This is like building a house on thin ice. How do we know something won’t happen to our incomes in the future?”
“I know what’s going to happen in the future,” Eunju said triumphantly. “We’re going to sign the contract.”
There was no room for compromise. Apparently this apartment was what Eunju perceived was a requirement to enter the middle class, something she fervently desired.
Hyonsu swallowed the sour tang of nervousness and submitted a form volunteering for an assignment in the countryside. He was immediately given a new assignment. Nobody wanted to go to the countryside; everyone else was clamoring to be transferred to posts in cities. His first day at Seryong Dam would be August 30. Eunju bought the apartment and found a renter that very day. Only one thing bothered her about the arrangement: the young man living in the house they were assigned to.
HYONSU GLANCED AT HIS WATCH. It was 9:03, an hour and three minutes past the time he had told Ahn Sunghwan, his new employee, that he’d be there. He took his cell from his shirt pocket and turned it on. There were four missed calls—two from Eunju, of course, and two from Sunghwan. Sunghwan had also texted him the code to the front door. Hyonsu called him back, but he didn’t pick up. He slid his cell back into his pocket, cracked the car windows, and sat up straight. A glow-in-the-dark skull grinned from below his rearview mirror, dangling in the breeze. It had been a birthday present from Sowon. He smiled. Other than the fact that he was also a lefty, his kid didn’t take after him at all. He didn’t take after Eunju, either. In fact, he was just like Hyonsu’s late mother, in both his appearance and his personality. Hyonsu liked that. He imagined that Sowon was destined for something different—something better. The skull wasn’t just decoration; it reflected his pride in his son, who was so different from him.
Right after he passed a sign that said Seryong Rest Area: 1 m, a white BMW pulled up behind him and began to flash its brights. They were on a winding uphill stretch of the highway and three large trailers weighed down with steel plates were barreling along in the next lane. Asshole, Hyonsu thought, glaring at the BMW in his rearview mirror.
* * *
The Matiz slowly changed lanes and merged in front of a trailer, as leisurely as a dog that had just woken up from a nice long nap. Yongje leaned on the horn and blasted past. Why hadn’t the stupid car move over when he flashed it? A car that slow shouldn’t be in the fast lane to begin with. He looked back at it through his rearview mirror. A glow-in-the-dark skull grinned at him through the dark front window of the Matiz. Yongje took his hand off the horn and accelerated. The Matiz fell away from view and his thoughts returned to Hayong. Divorce, custody battle, restraining order, alimony. How dare she?
Only hours before, his lawyer had called him at his hotel room—he was in Seoul at an orthodontics conference—and told him something he’d almost never heard in his life: “We lost.”
The opposing counsel was renowned for his high win rate. Throughout the proceedings, which Hayong hadn’t even deigned to show up for, her lawyer had gone on at length about the ways a clearly “disturbed” individual named Oh Yongje had mentally and physically abused his wife and daughter over the past decade. Unfortunately, his story was supported by reams of documentation. Photographs of Hayong’s naked body covered in lash marks, bundles of switches hanging throughout the house, Hayong’s signed statement, doctor’s notes for every single bruise leading up to her miscarriage. There were even recordings of their fights. More damning still was Seryong’s taped deposition. The girl had a good memory, laying out in detail when, where, and how her dad had corrected her and her mother’s mistakes. At the end, she expressed her frank, tearful wish that her mother be granted sole custody.
Yongje’s lawyer’s arguments about Hayong’s practice of leaving the family whenever she wanted to, her lack of economic power, and her poor child-rearing ability had, apparently, not been persuasive. Hayong’s lawyer entered trivial licenses into the record that pointed to her ability to support Seryong. A baking certificate? A cooking certificate for Korean cuisine? Yongje recalled how Hayong had gone to cooking classes in town about two years back; she had said she was doing it for fun. She left the house at the same time every week, taking the art class shuttle with Seryong and returning together with her. Yongje hadn’t thought twice about it—it didn’t inconvenience him and nothing about it raised his suspicions. He didn’t mind her improved cooking skills. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that she was laying the groundwork for a divorce.
After a long explanation excusing his poor performance, his lawyer had added, “It seems you didn’t know that woman very well.”
Yongje stiffened. How dare this incompetent hack try to distract from his defeat by insulting him? He wasn’t pleased with the way the attorney referred to Hayong as “that woman,” either. Nobody was allowed to talk about his wife that way. Yongje advised his lawyer to call his own stupid wife “that woman” and hung up. He threw his phone down on the bed and stalked over to the window. Cars and people were moving about smoothly twenty stories below.
His own world had been orderly a mere three months before: people followed his orders and behaved according to his rules. But at the end of April, Hayong had vanished. It was the day they went to the coast to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the sea, and everything had gone fine. The problem was when they called a car service to drive them back to the hotel. The driver requested more money than had been advertised, telling them the rate had recently gone up. Yongje gave him a piece of his mind. He wasn’t about to be swindled. That was when Hayong did something truly shocking. Looking mortified, she took cash out of her own wallet and pressed it into the driver’s hand. To top it off, she apologized. “I’m sorry. He’s had a little too much to drink.”
When they got up to the room, he slapped her around. Then he drove her up to Hangyeryong Peak. At the very top, he grabbed her wallet and cell phone and forced her out of the car. His plan had been for her to reflect on her behavior, not for her to leave him and file for divorce.