“Ae Ri?”his voice called, breaking the silence in a million of shards.

I smiled as I touched his beard. “That’s right, papa, you’re Ae Ri is home,”I muttered, trying to put on my old smile. But then, everything got shattered. Just like…

“Who’s ‘Ae Ri’?”

…that.

“Ae Ri?”called a voice, making me break from my shock and turn around, only to find there a pale, skinny woman. “Is it really you, Ae Ri?”she whispered, placing her palms on my cheeks while tears were running down her face.

“Mother…”

“Oh, my child is home,”she muttered as she pulled me into a tight embrace. “My daughter is finally home…”

“Yes mother, I’m home,”I returned the embrace.

“Mi Roo dear, who’s this girl?”father’s voice sent a dagger through my heart.

I wanted to break from her embrace and turn around to see his face. I needed to see his face in order to convince myself that it was just a bad dream. There was no way father would have forgotten all about me…right?

“No,”mother held me tight in her arms. “I’ll explain everything to you.”

She was different. She was no longer the iron woman I used to know. She was all soft and suffering. She was a human after all. And everything was because of me…

♃~✵~♃

“What’s wrong, dear?”she asked father as she led him to his usual seat, behind the small wooden table that was now empty. Actually, his whole office was empty. There were no longer books scattered all around the place, piled up in corners and paper on the table. The ink was dry and the brushes were full of dust, looking like spears coming up from the stand.

“I want to pain something.”

“Here,”she handed him a piece of paper, a brush and some old ink.

I couldn’t stay there and watch him being like that. He was acting as if I never existed in his life, as if I was never his favorite child. It pained me. It made my heart sting as if million of daggers were stabbing me. I got out and sat on the floor in the dark hallway.

“Ae Ri,”mother’s voice came to me. “Come with me,”she helped me up and led the way to her chambers. “Sit.”

I threw myself on the old, brownish pillow. “What’s happening here, mother? Why is papa acting as if I never existed? Why doesn’t he remember me?”

She sighed. Suddenly she looked so much older… “Your father is senile.”

“S-senile? But…how? He was perfectly healthy before I…left,”I whispered the last word.

“Indeed, he was. But after you left without a word, he just…changed bit by bit. And then Jun Hyung disappeared too and he just pushed away all of his memories, keeping only those from before you came into this world,”she played with her fingers.

“That’s…so cruel of him,”I felt tears stinging my eyes.

“Cruel? Then how about you, Ae Ri? You left without a word! You practically vanished from the surface of the Earth! No matter how many times we looked for you, no matter where, no one had seen you, no one knew where you were. How about that, Ae Ri? Have you ever thought about what was going to happen in this house after you left? Haven’t you given a thought about what would your father feel, what would Jun Hyung feel? About how would I feel?”she looked at me with her old spark in her eyes. “Ae Ri, you were his favorite child. You know that. Believe me when I tell you that I would have been better for him to find your dead body in some bush, in the middle of the forest, than live like this, forgetting all about you,”she continued on a soft tone.

I remained silent. I was to blame for father’s illness. I knew that. The truth is that at that time, the night I fled Hanyang, I never thought about the consequences of my action. I was just…hurried to leave the place that was causing my brother to leave in shame. My presence at that moment was like a thorn in his finger…

“What about Jun Hyung?”I whispered.

Mother sighed. “He’s inside his room. After the news about your departure broke inside the Academy, he went to sear