6/4/2015

If You Could

Jiyong sat in the passenger seat of the car, hidden behind the dark tinted window. He hadn’t wanted to come this morning, to be here when Sanjin was reunited with Sandara. He had this fear that being there would ruin the moment for the two, but Sanjin had insisted he come and Jiyong was unable to get out of it. He watched as Sandara said goodbye to the Choi brothers, smothering down the feel of jealousy at the closeness she shared with Sanghyun and Mino. Would he ever feel that emotion from her? That she would smile sweetly at him, affection in her eyes?

When the boys left, running to catch their train, he watched as Dara turned and looked at Teddy who was waiting a few feet away from her. The smile that had been on her face moments earlier faded, her look serious as she walked over and spoke briefly to Teddy. In moments she was headed toward him, and Jiyong felt his heart accelerate. But this wasn’t his moment – it was for her and her father.

Wordlessly he opened the car door and slipped out. He saw Sandara pause, clearly not expecting to see him there. But Jiyong didn’t look at her. Instead he took a few steps and opened the back door for her, keeping his eyes averted until the very last moment. He looked up just as she stepped past him and got into the back seat. She didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge him.

Once she was safely inside Jiyong closed the door and then stepped back and looked at Teddy. “I’ll take a cab to the office from here.” He turned then and walked away, leaving Sandara to meet with her father alone, as it should be.

Dara tensed the second she saw Jiyong step out of the waiting car, her footstep faltering. Why was he here? Did she have to do this with him here? But Jiyong was silent as he opened the back door and held it open for her. Anger stirred within her but she held it in as she stepped past him, not looking at him as she stepped into the car and took a seat, her awareness of and anger at Jiyong overriding even the fact that her father was sitting right there. So why was it that when she saw him turn and walk away, her anger deflated into sadness?

“Sandara.”

Dara turned, her gaze focusing on the man beside her. He was dressed in a light gray business suit. Her brows furrowed as she saw the change in him. He looked older, much older, his face thinner.  And suddenly tears filled her eyes and ran unbidden down her cheeks. Had she done this to him?

Dara swallowed and turned her face away, wiped at her eyes and cheeks and composed herself before turning back. By now Teddy had gotten back in to the front but the glass partition was up to give her and her father privacy.

Sanjin Park couldn’t stop looking at her. His eyes were moist with unshed tears as he looked at this woman before him and it occurred to him suddenly just how much time had elapsed for them. It wasn’t just the year that she had left home, but all the years before that as well. Years he had spent dedicated to his business and in providing her a secure home and future, but at the expense of seeing her grow up.

His eyes searched hers, and memories of when she was a little girl came flooding back. Scenes of her as a baby, a toddler, a little girl of five and how she would welcome him home each day. He remembered her young laughter, the feel of her arms about his neck. Her sweet kisses on his cheek as she asked him how his day was.

“What have I done?” he whispered, and Dara looked at him with hesitation and confusion.

“I’ve missed so much,” he said, and he reached in his pocket to withdraw a handkerchief and he leaned over and dabbed gently at her cheeks. Dara took the handkerchief from him and drew back a little and then used it to finish drying her face. She hadn’t wanted to cry when she saw him, she didn’t want him to see her weak. But seeing him and the change that had come over him had weakened her resolve.

Maybe the changes had come even before she left home, she thought. He had started growing older a long time ago but she hadn’t noticed. Only now, after not seeing him all these months and now to see him again, it brought to light for her how much time had passed for the two of them.

He was smiling at her now, a slow smile that was filled with sadness. “I’m just realizing again how much I’ve allowed myself to miss out on your life,” he said. “Can you forgive me?”

Dara hesitated. And then the words of Da Hyun came back to her, ‘your father is only human too, just like the rest of us. Try to find it in your heart to forgive him.’ 

She sighed, her eyes closing briefly, and she nodded. And when her father hesitantly held his hand out to her, Dara, after a moment, placed her hand in his.

*

Dara didn’t want to go to the mansion – she wasn’t quite ready for that because it would feel too much like she was stepping back into her old life, which she wasn’t willing to do. And she didn’t want to go to a restaurant or anywhere where there would be a lot of people. So they settled for staying in the car. Teddy parked the Mercedes Benz Limo along the curb in a park and waited for his boss to tell him when they could leave again.

Father and daughter spent the next hour talking. Sanjin opened himself up to Sandara, told her of how he’d been devastated by the loss of her mother. And on instinct he began telling her of how he met her mother, information that Dara didn’t know and was fascinated by. There were moments when he laughed softly, recalling some funny memory from the past, and Dara smiled along with him as he retold it. And there were moments when he grew silent, unable to finish a story, and Dara covered his hand with hers, letting him know it was okay.

“She loved you so much,” he told her. “And so do I.”

Dara looked out the window and thought how the world looked beautiful. Everything, for the most part, felt it was as it should be, or very close to it. “There’s some people I want you to meet. They helped to take care of me when I was gone. They’ve become like family to me, helped heal me.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Sanjin revealed. “I’d like to meet them to, when you’re ready.”

Dara turned to him. “How did you find me?” she asked, curious.

“Jiyong found you,” Sanjin said. Dara’s expression changed, very subtle, but he saw the way she seemed to close herself off at the mention of Jiyong.

“I need to explain to you about Jiyong, Sandara. Please don’t blame him for my failures. I was wrong to bring in to our home without explaining to you the full story of who he is and why I brought him there. And for that I’m sorry. Yes I brought him hoping he would be able to connect with you, and that was because I was doing such a terrible job at communicating with you myself. But there’s a lot more going on with Jiyong’s story then I’ve let you know.”

Dara was silent as she waited for his explanation.

“Jiyong’s father was one of my closest friends growing up. After high school he left to go to school in the U.S. and we lost touch. I always thought he would come back to Seoul but I never heard from him again. Life went on and I met your mother, we fell in love, got married, had our family. It wasn’t until about three years ago that I ran into another classmate and while we talked I learned that Geonwoo, Jiyong’s father, had died in a car accident nearly ten years ago. He’d been drinking and lost control of his car.”

“I learned later that he had a son who still lived in the U.S. On one of my visits there I met him and was impressed with how much he looks and acts like his father. His mother had remarried and had another family but Jiyong was living pretty much on his own. I offered him a chance to come here to Seoul and to finish school and work for me. He’s a very smart young man. But more importantly, and what I believe he will never admit to, is that he’s a lonely man.”

Dara gave her father a doubtful look at that last statement, but Sanjin shook his head and said gently. “You wouldn’t think he is but if you get to know him you’ll see what I mean. And I hope you will give him that chance, Sandara. He blames himself for you leaving home and has never stopped searching for you. I’m not sure what went on between you two that day that I walked in, but a part of me believes he was reliving the whole nightmare of losing his father.”

Dara took this in and she thought back again to her argument with Jiyong. It surprised her though to find that she didn’t even quite remember what it was he’d said that time, at least not word for word like she had in the beginning. Now there was only remnants of hurt from him yelling at her, being angry with her. Even now she felt a dull throb of pain at the memory but not as intense as before. Who knows, maybe in time she would learn to accept Jiyong into her life since he seemed to be important to her father. He was to her father sort of what she was to the Choi’s, and that helped her to understand him a little better.

“I know you don’t want to come back yet, but I hope you’ll know that your home is always open to you. Jiyong’s moved out – he did so about a month after you left. But he comes by often to check on me.”

This was a surprise to Dara. She thought for sure he was still living at the mansion with her father.

“He has his own pride too, Sandara,” Sanjin explained. “His original plan was only to stay with us a few days while he looked for a place to rent, but he stayed because I asked him to.” Sanjin breathed in deeply and hoped this next bit of news didn’t hit Sandara the wrong way. But he wanted to lay all his cards on the table and not keep any secrets from her. “I had hoped at one time for you and Jiyong to marry.”

“What!?” Dara’s head snapped toward her father.

He held his hands up in surrender fashion. “I know. And I said at one time. I don’t feel that way any longer,” Sanjin said, and Dara visibly relaxed.

“Well, I mean, I still would be thrilled if you two did fall in love and marry…”

“Appa!”

“… but I won’t force the issue,” Sanjin completed. “I’ll leave that part totally up to you two.”

**