The first time Kwon Boa meets her infant niece, it isn’t when she was born or when she was baptised or even for her first birthday. Boa figures a part of her will always regret that, not coming to see the baby sooner, but circumstances have made it difficult. Her brother had married an American and was so head over heels in love that he willingly moved all the way to New York to live there permanently, the setting of his happily ever after with his wife and future children. Since then, her relationship with her brother has been mostly comprised of long distance calls, inbox messages, hopeful promises and apologies for promises that aren’t kept. 

She swears with all finality and conviction that she’s going to make it up to her brother, his wife, and their baby, work commitments and people’s demands be damned. She books a flight and thinks of all things Korean that she wants to bring to New York, all the things she knows her brother loves and misses, all the things she wants to introduce to her sister-in-law, all the things she wants to buy for her niece. She thinks of all the places in New York she wants to go, all the diners and pizzerias she wants to eat in, all the kinds of people she wants to meet.

The first time Kwon Boa gets the chance to meet her infant niece is filled with hope and excitement. But life, as always, never goes the way you expect it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The first time Kwon Boa really gets a sure chance to meet her infant niece, she is in New York. But instead of happiness and excitement, Boa feels hollow. Instead of gifts and treats, all she has are clothes haphazardly thrown into a suitcase and not much else. She moves in autopilot it seems and barely sees anything around her, barely notices anything, except for that fact that everywhere she looks, everything seems grey. Just two days ago, back in Seoul and how many time zones away, she got a call. Her brother is dead, the call said and she barely registered the fact that she was speaking to someone from the New York Police Department in accented English the person might not have any hopes of understanding, so is his wife. She remembers feeling how the blood literally drained from her face, how her heart felt like it was splitting in half, and then splitting again, splitting some more, and again, and yet again until there was nothing left, except for some hollow expanse she still, until now, can’t quite name.

She flies to New York hours later and adamantly refuses to see their bodies up until she’s told that she needs to for identification purposes. Needs to? Do they really know what she needs? What she needs is her brother, alive and well, smiling happily with an arm around his wife, beautiful and all blonde hair and blue eyes, cradling their baby in her arms and–

“Where’s the baby?” She manages to ask the police officer who has been kind enough to assist her all throughout. “Where’s my niece?”

“She’s with the nanny.” He replies. “The nanny has already been informed but… the child doesn’t know.”

Of course she doesn’t. She won’t understand even if you tell her, she wants to snap, she’s not even two.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Some American child expert informs her that she needs to stay with her niece for a few days in New York. It’s important that time is allotted for familiarization, he says, she doesn’t know you and essentially, you don’t know her. In that little world of hers, all she’s familiar with are mom, daddy, and nanny. She needs to get used to you because the day will come when you’re the only family she’ll recall having. You’re the only family she has now. Her mother’s an only child, both pairs of grandparents have passed on… you’re the only one who’s left.

Long story short, she won’t remember her mom and dad.

The thought kills Boa a little bit more inside.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The first time Kwon Boa lays eyes on her niece, the baby is being brought in the apartment her parents bought more than year ago, cradled lovingly and adoringly by her nanny. Boa is seated on one of the couches, hands wrung together on her lap, and she looks up from the floor only when she hears the door open. She’s spent the time looking at the little mem