chapter three
“...Morning takes you again to the place of no return... I don’t have the time to tell you, how much I want you to be here…” - Zorica Savron

Thirteen year old Mina spots her mother over the sea of students almost immediately. She breaks out into a grin and sprints forward, jumping over the school steps and landing with a thud on the other side.

“Hey wait for me!” She hears Chaeyoung’s high pitched voice call out to her from behind and ignores her.

Couldn’t her sister see? It was their mother!

Mina runs across the school yard and as she nears she can see the warm smile on her mother's face. When she reaches her Mina wraps her arms around her hugging her tight. Her mother holds her close.  

“Hey sweetheart! You ready for tonight?”

The sweet smell of jasmine lingers in the air, the sweet smell of her mother closing around her sending her heart into a fit. It beats against her ribcage pounding mercilessly against every breath almost as if it were filling her veins like a shot of adrenaline right into her arteries.

Silence crashes down around Mina. In this moment it is only her and her mother. Even the fall leaves have ceased parachuting from high atop the trees and the wind has halted its assault of blasting the October chill into everyone's core. Mina holds on for dear life. She doesn’t let go of her mother. She knows, somehow she knows the ending and she isn’t ready to let go. Not again.

Mina glances up and her mother smiles. And it is a beautiful smile. And Mina wants to hold on to this moment forever but she can’t. It will end soon. Mina holds her breath, tears cloud her vision and slowly her mother fades away.

Waking up is no longer the pleasure it used to be.

There is a fleeting moment when Mina is whole again but it evaporates instantly as the cold rush of reality seeps into her. Mina opens her eyes slowly, maybe if she did not rush into the morning she could still be able to feel the lingering touch of her mother. There is an ache in her chest. She didn’t know which was worse anymore. Being able to see her mother in her dreams or not being able to see her at all. There were days when her dreams evaded her and those days were the  worst but when she wakes up on days like this she wonders if it is actually so bad. It was as if she hadn’t eaten in days and the longer she spent without food the more she wondered if she really wanted it. Because being fed meant getting a taste of what she is truly missing in her life. And after those days, being starved seems like less of a torture.

Mina wishes she could linger in that blissful ignorance of dreams or else never sleep.

Mina is in the kitchen cooking breakfast when she hears a stumbling out in the hall. No time after she hears a curse and her father walks hastily into the room hands tangled in the knot of his tie as he tries to undo it. He walks past the kitchen and into the small nook at the entrance.

Mina calls out after him, “Dad I made breakfast!”

He re-enters the kitchen looking around the room for something, “I’m sorry Mina, I don’t have time to eat today, I have to get to work, I’m already late. Have you seen my dress shoes?”

Mina retrieves his shoes from the drying rack in the laundry room. She had taken the time yesterday to clean them so that they would look good as new for her fathers presentation today. Returning to him he lights up at the sight of them.

“Look at that! They look brand new, thank you Mina, you didn’t have to do that.”

He takes the shoes from her and walks back to the entrance where he pulls the shoes on and shrugs on his coat.

“Dad! Wait!.” Mina runs after him.

“At Least take this.” She hands him a lunch bag where she’s prepared him two bento boxes, one containing his breakfast and the other his lunch, “I thought you’d skip breakfast so I saved some for you, you can eat it when you get to work.”

“Wow! Thanks honey, you think of everything don’t you?” Her father turns around and poses with his hands on his hips, “How do I look?”

Mina looks up at her withering father who was beginning to grow wrinkled more and more everyday. Son In-Gi’s face had long since lost its healthy color and looked recently like it was fading. The death of her mother hadn’t just changed her life it had nearly destroyed his. The only reason he was bothering to go on was for his daughters but he had taken on the full responsibility of a single parent head on, refusing help from family and friends. He worked non-stop, he barely ate. And when his clock wasn’t ticking he just slept.  

Mina remembers when her father was a powerful man, when he was tall and strong, when his smile melted hearts and his authority made others tremble. That seemed like a forever ago. Now, he no longer carried himself like the youthful and handsome man he should have been, but like an exhausted, grizzled, buffer. He is clean shaven and his hair could use a trim. But his smile was still the warmest she’d ever seen. She swallows back tears.

“Here, I’ll fix this for you,” Mina steps forward unknotting the tie and tying it the right way. She smoothes out the wrinkles on his shirt.

“Thanks hun, I have a presentation today and the last thing I need is to look like I overslept.”

He takes the lunch bag from her and lays a kiss on her cheek, he is about to walk out the door but Mina stops him, dangling a set of keys from her finger.

He turns around and chuckles, “Where would we be without you?.”

“We’d be with mom that's for sure,” Chaeyoung startles Mina as she stands beside her. Her harsh words leaving Mina cold.

“What?” In-Gi blinks, he hadn’t heard. Chaeyoung never said anything incriminating when he was around. Their father still thought they were close. He had no clue of what went on either at school or even at home when he wasn’t around.