Chapter 2

It wasn't until a few months later when she learned that was not true and ummas didn't always get better when they were sick. Jin Mi watched her mother wither like the flowers she had first put in her room. Life seemed to have drained from her and she continued to spend more and more time in bed. She no longer made breakfast; she was far too weak. She went to the doctor every other week and she seemed weaker each time she came home.

It was always very quiet when Jin Mi went to go visit her umma in her room. Most of the time she was sleeping but when she was awake, Jin Mi would go and tell her all about her day. And talk to her, telling her about how one of her sonsaengnim's chair broke with him in it or that  one of the boys found a frog during recess and smuggled it into class.  Sometimes she brought pictures she drew at school home for her umma to see. Her umma would smile and coo at her things but each day, it seemed like it became harder for her to sit up and hold conversations. Their times together slowly began to decline even more until Jin Mi was barely able to see her.

Jin Mi sometimes felt like crying when she saw her mother, weak and frail and so unlike herself. But she tried not to. She had to be strong. Strong for her umma and her appa. So that meant showing a smile, regardless of how she felt. But some nights, she would cry and pray. And fall asleep like that, her pillow soaked in tears.

Her appa spent more time at home now, doing the chores and taking care of her umma. He took her to all of her doctor appointments and he would leave Jin Mi in the care of his sister if the appointments were in the afternoon or if her mother had to stay overnight at the hospital. He would drop her off at Eun Young's house before the appointments or sometimes after school, Aunt Eun Young and her cousin Young Bae would be waiting for her to take her to their house.

Young Bae, or Taeyang as he liked to be called now, was a freshmen in highschool and he was one of her favorite cousins. He was 16 and she was only a 4th grader but he still treated her nicely when she was there. He would help her with her homework, let her play some of his video games, but not all of them (god forbid she broke his high score) and he let her hangout with him and his friends some of the time. Ji Yong called her "maknae" all the time and he pinched her sometimes. Seunghyun was very nice to her, abeit quiet. He put up with her laying on him and asking for piggyback rides when she saw him.

 Jin Mi noticed she had begun to spend more and more time at Auntie's house than she did her own and she was contented to a point. She missed her umma, though. And her appa.  She missed seeing them happy together and having their love spreading through the house. The house seemed dead now.

The past few times she had seen her appa, he had been fighting back tears or smiling a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. When her umma was sleeping, which was all the time now, and he thought that Jin Mi was sleeping as well, he would creep down into the kitchen and cry. He would drink from a brown bottle he kept in the cabinet and cry until he fell asleep. Jin Mi sometimes watched from the top of the stairs, but she didn't know what to do. Those nights were becoming increasingly often.

One Friday after school, Jin Mi spotted Eun Young's car parked out front when she was walking out of the entrance. Her aunt gestured for her to come over and Jin Mi scrunched up her forehead. She didn't remember her umma having an appointment. She walked over to the car and gave a small smile to Taeyang who was sitting in the passenger's seat.

" Your umma has gotten sicker. So your appa took her to the hospital." Auntie Eun Young explained to her. Jin Mi climbed silently into the backseat of the car and Eun Young followed suit.

" We're going to go to your house so you can pick up a few things for the weekend. I don't know how long they'll be at the hospital but I'm sure everything will be alright." Eun Young looked back at her from the rear view mirror and smiled reassuringly. But something twisted in the pit of Jin Mi's stomach. What if things weren't okay?  She settled her head on the window and watched the scenery pass by on the duration of the car trip. She wasn't sure when she started crying but she felt the warm tears slid down her cheek. Sniffling softly, she let the tears fall as she prayed silently for her umma.