AUTHOR’S POV

Irene watched as the black-haired hunk stood, dropped a tip onto the table and moved up to the cash register by the door. A minute later his dark-haired friend emerged from the restroom and together they went outside and climbed into a white Bentley.

Somebody in that car surely smelled money, Irene decided and she was pretty sure it was the hunk who’d taken the wheel. And not just because he’d left her with a tip two times the total amount of the breakfast ticket.

“The crowd thinned out, Yeri. I’m taking my break.” Irene announced to the younger girl behind the counter. She had already a pack of cigarettes in her hand as she moved towards the back door and went towards the alley. With her phone on the other hand, she dialed the number she wanted after she lighted up her smoke.

The phone rang three times on the other end and a slurry female voice came on the line.

“Aunt Yewon? It’s Irene.”

“Huh? Yah! You crazy little punk! Are you crazy? What time is it?” Kang Yewon groused between hacking coughs as she tried to get awake.

“Pretty near ten o’clock, aunt.” Irene answered.

“Damn it. You know what time I got to bed last night? The bar don’t close till 3 a.m. Irene.”

“I know, but hey, it’s important. I wouldn’t be calling if it isn’t.” the waitress told her, taking a quick but efficient drag on her cigarette.

“Fine. Hang on for a sec. I gotta find my smokes.”

Irene waited, leaning against a wall, tapping her cigarette occasionally, heedless of ashes, until her aunt returned. The rustling and crackling on the other end of the line finally settled down.

“Okay. What’s so important that make you so fired up?”

“You remember hearing the name Kwon before?” Irene asked.

“Baechu.. It’s Korea. There’re tons of Kwons. Which one are you referring to?” Yewon said, mumbling around the cigarette she was lighting.

“Aigoo… You know…That Kwon who was all over the news a few months back.” Irene replied. “Taeyeon unnie’s boss who got killed in a plane crash or something in Philippines.”

“Yeah…Yeah... That rings the bell. Youngmin oppa was ing how the hotel where his little girl would go bankrupt and she would have to take her snooty nose out of the air and come crawling home so she could take care of him like a good daughter should. But he didn’t hear from her. Then, he heard about that guy was asking questions around town a while back cause she applied for some big job or something.”

Irene continued to smoke her cigarette as she waited for her aunt to wind down, then finally jumped in with, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That investigator guy is back and he’s got this good looking dude with him that he called Mr. Kwon, real respectful like, you know, the way you kiss up to somebody who’s got money?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“Gosh, you old hag!. I’m getting to it. They were talking low so I couldn’t really hear much but I did hear him say one thing real clear, and trust me… this will blow up your mind, aunty!”

Yewon waited, but when Irene didn’t continue, she dutifully prompted. “What? What?”

“Taeyeon unnie, who I personally went to school with is this Kwon guy’s wife!”

“What? You’re kidding me!"

“Am not, aunty. I was wiping tables close by because I recognized his name and when the Kwon dude said that he was wanting to see where Taeyeon grew up, I snuck in a little closer. I heard him say she was his wife, plain as day and he needed to understand something.”

“What’d he say next?”

“I don’t know.” Irene replied, taking her irritation out on her nearly extinct cigarette by dropping it and crushing it on the pavement. “The investigator guy started whispering and I figured I’d better back off a little so they wouldn’t suspect I was eavesdropping. I didn’t hear nothing after that.”

“Holy crap,” Yewon said. “Oppa would surely love this. You think this Kwon guy is as rich as the one who got kill? I mean, he’s gotta be somebody important in the hotel right? I remembered reading he was the heir and all.”

Irene shook her head. Her aunt wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in Jeonju. “Oh, for crying out loud! Of course he is! He’s probably the president or something. And unless I miss my guess, he’s richer than the president of Korea. Seeing how that Youngmin ajusshi had been leeching on you for every little penny that you’ve got, I thought maybe he’d wanted to check it out.”

“Yeah, right.  Where do you think oppa going to get the money to go to the Philippines?”

“What’s that got to do with it? I heard them talking about Seoul. I’m betting my whole life that Taeyeon’s back in Korea.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. This is sure a hell of a time for oppa to be in jail.” Yewon lowered her voice confidentially. “Just between you and me, dumb head. I was glad he got into a fight with Kangta because it was going to get him out of my nerve for a couple of months. But now there’s no telling how long it’ll be before we can cash in on this.”

“Well, considering what all you put up with from that useless piece of garbage, you ought to cash in big, aunty. If Taeyeon’s got money now, she can just fork some of it over and take care of her family like she should been doing all along.”

“You damn right. Youngmin oppa is her father and there ain’t a tiny grain of salt chance that he’s going to let her forget it. We just gotta figure out one thing.” Yewon paused as she lit another cigarette.

“What’s that?” Irene prompted.

“Do you think oppa will get out of jail alive?”

*

JIYONG’S STORY

HOMETOWN

With Daesung as the tour guide, I drove through Taeyeon’s hometown, seeing the places I’d read about in her file… Dr. Park’s old clinic, the cemetery where her mother was buried. The school where she had learned to love the piano from a hiding place in the shadows. I strolled on the school compound but left quickly when I realized that I was sticking out like a sore thumb.

The final stop was her old house, down a twisting two-lane road, turning onto a dusty gravel path. We went up and down nearly vertical hills, around a blind curves, then made one more turn.

“This is it. The road to her house.”

“You called this a road?” I said as I pulled slowly onto the almost nonexistent dirt lane. “I should have brought my 4WD rather than this white Bentley.”

“It’s about a mile and a half, but it doesn’t get much worse than this,” Daesung assured me. “Just take it slow and you’ll be fine. That was her bust stop, where we turned off, by the way.”

“She walked this every day?” I asked incredulously.

“Hard to imagine, isn’t it?”

To say the least. “Did they have any neighbors?”

“Yeah…About three miles down the road.”

“My god…” We fell silent as I considered our desolate surroundings, trying to imagine Taeyeon as a little girl walking down this long road. Had her mother come with her, holding her hand and reassuring her that there was nothing to fear? Or had Taeyeon made the trip alone?

Somehow, I suspected the latter.

The house itself had been abandoned in the great depression. The roof now sagged in the middle and were it not for a hole that let the pooled water escape, it would have caved in long ago. The teal paint was peeling off at a rapid pace, and the windows seemed to stare back at me, almost as if they were challenging me to step inside.

The isolated house dissolved into the unearthy shrubs. The withering trees arrogantly weeped the imminent demise of their master. Layers of dust encrusted the finely cut glass pieces and fissured window panes bordered the obnoxious framework of the house. The shut doors ambiguously creaked in sorrow of its dissolution.

Somehow, the house reminded me of the parched bones of an animal that had gone extinct before the dawn of ma. It was a fitting analogy for a place that was no longer fit for a man nor beast and probably hadn’t been much better in its prime.

I tried to visualize Taeyeon in the house and couldn’t. I imagine the house blanketed with snow and thought of Taeyeon’s mother huddled outside of the house with no place to go, too afraid of her drunken husband to come inside. I tried again to imagine Taeyeon in the house, but my mind rebelled and I finally realized what a mistake it had been to come here.

I stood for a long time looking at the decripted house, my hands clenched into fists that rested on my hips, wishing I had a sledgehammer, or better yet a bulldozer, so that I could tear down the place and make it as though it had never existed. Then I would gather the little girl who had lived here into my arms and protect her. Never let anything cruel or ugly touch her life again.

“What would you say, Mr. Kang, if I told you that last night the woman who grew up in this place charmed the pants off a roomful of Seoul aristocrats with her sweet smile, kind words and gentle laugh?” I asked the detective who was behind me, leaning against the hood of the car.

“I’d say that makes your wife a remarkable lady,” Daesung replied.

“It does indeed.” I said, my voice choked with emotion. “So why can’t my grandmother see that?”

Not waiting for an answer, I turned abruptly, and moved towards the car. “Alright, Mr. Kang, let’