Chapter 7. Mom : Daughters

My husband is late.

Very late.

So dare of him letting me waiting for two hours in this private room he books for our so-called lunch date.

Lunch date? I laugh inwardly at the irony. The term our daughter use to tease us is not really fitting the situation. This is not dating. This is me trying to decide what to do after catching my husband with another woman.

The hot mint tea I ordered when I first entering the room has gone cold and I wonder if should just put this whole situation into an end. Stop waiting, stop stalling and just ask my husband to divorce me. I surely can't wipe the image of his wrong-doing from my mind and it's almost impossible for our relationship to go back to how it used to.

The door burst open on the next second though. My husband comes in a hurry, sweating and all, and I have to fight this filthy image of him sitting from the waist down in front of his secretary.

“I'm sorry I'm late.” He sits cross-legged across the table, wiping his brows. “I've just had an ugly meeting with one of the supplier.”

I make no comment. The waitress comes in, bearing menus and welcoming beverages in her hand. This is a very sophisticated restaurant with privates dining room. Wide variety of menus are available but all I want to do is skipping meal and throw the menu at my husband instead.

None of us initiates the conversation, not even after the waitress finishes taking our order. Thick and uncomfortable silent hangs in the room and I choose the time to weigh options in my mind. Divorce or no divorce. Living in agony alone or living in agony by his side. It's pretty much an easy choice if I don't have to regard my daughters' feelings and reputations.

The food comes and we eat quietly. My order of grilled vegetable panini that I usually savor the most now feels sour on my palate. We visit this restaurant often with the kids, the privacy suits my famous daughters. I eat as the memory of many happiness and celebrations happened in this place takes over my mind. If I choose to leave my husband, will the happiness of being around their parents ever come to my daughters again.

“I think something is happening to Soojung.” My husband breaks the icy quietness, his eyes doesn't move from the steak on his plate.

“You meant how she always stay in her room lately?”

“Uh uh, I thought she's here for summer vacation, to have fun.”

“I asked her about it once, but she said she's just too tired from previous filming schedules.” I sense something else is going on with our youngest but don't seethe need to bring it up in this occasion.

“And Sooyeon?”

I chew my salad, acknowledging the fact that my husband always pays attention to his daughters well being despite his indifferent appearance. “She's having a fight with her husband.”

“For a week? That's new.”

“The Kwons pester her for a grandchild.”

“I see.”

The silent comes back with a vengeance after. We finish our respective meal without a word. Only after the waitress clean the table and finally there are nothing else between us but two glasses of gin and our problem, my husband speaks.

“How about us now?”

I took a sip of the liquid, peering over the glass to meet my husband's eyes. “I want a divorce.”

He sighs, hand reaching for his glass too. “We are too old for that. Mind our reputation.”

“Don't bring reputation up when it's you who cheat on me.” I try to be calm.

“Think about our children. They are public figures, our separation might harm them.”

“You are the one who should have think about them before you let that filthy secretary get between your feet.”

“Mind your word please.”

The fact that he comes to her defense wakes my anger. I stand up, reaching for my purse, ready to leave. “I want a divorce. Either you make it happen or I file it myself to the court.”

“Our want and need is not the only thing matter in this world, Sookyung-ah. Not anymore.” He states calmly, his eyes challenging mine.

“Have you ever wonder why I cheat on you? Have you ever put my feeling into consideration for all the years we've been through as husband and wife? Sit down, Sookyung-ah. Let me tell you all I've wanted to tell you since a long time ago then you can decide whatever you want to do to our marriage.”

I have no idea what he's trying to imply. Is he trying to throw the blame on me? Because I've been nothing but a good wife since the day we exchanged vow in front of the priest. I sit back on to the carpeted wooden floor, watching him gulping the rest of his beverage.

“You are a great mother to Soojung and Sooyeon, a fact that I'm always thankful for. But you never really there to be my wife, Sookyung-ah, a reality I have learned the hard way.”

“What do you mean? I'm always here for you. I never cheat on you. I gave my career up and stay at home to take care our family. I-”

“You didn't stop being a gymnast because of me Sookyung-ah. You stopped because Jungjin's death. And since then, there's nothing but him on your mind.”

My husband's accusation is a sharp word slicing through my heart. The mention of Jungjin brings back hurtful memory and the past comes to me like an angry tidal waves. A car accident took away my first and only love right before my eyes. Jungjin's bleeding hands in mine will always be that painful nightmare haunting my life and for once I start to understand where this conversation actually leads.

“You never really forget Jungjin, Sookyung-ah. That's the problem. I've tried my best to meet his par, to be the man who deserves your love. But no matter what I do, he always comes between us.”

Silent tears prick my eyes and when I look up, my husband eyes has gone wet too. The only time I see tears in his eyes were at the moments our daughters came into this world.

“I tried to accept the fact that this man, who's not even physically exist anymore, will always be a part of your life. I consoled myself, thinking that one day, you will fall for me. But our daughters come, we get older, and the only thing you do is drifting away from me. And last year, things have turned for the worse.”

Last year, what has happened last year? I have no idea.

“We meet Jungsu, remember? At B&E store launch in Hongkong.”

I gasp, Jungsu is Jungjin's brother who was also in the car with us when the accident happen.

“You barely exchange a word with him but the night after, in our hotel room, his late brother's name was the only name you said in your troubled sleep.”

I can't remember the nightmare but I remember spending days and days after the meeting with Jungjin's face lingering in my mind.

“I'm a coward Sookyung-ah. I admit it. I should have let you go before we have our children. I shouldn't have thought of winning you when all I could do is watching you dance your life with memory of him. But I can't fight with a ghost Sookyung-ah. I can't stand your facade for so long either. 32 years of sharing a bed with a woman who can only think of another man when I touch her is enough.”

Jungjin is both the sweetest and the most painful part of my past. I have been holding onto his image for so long thinking that nobody knows about it.

“You thought I didn't know, did you? You must have thought that you keep it well to yourself. But too many nights spent with your body in my arms but