그림자 약속

The last time I saw my father alive, he was trying to fix the garbage disposal with a butter knife.

I remember because I told him he was going to electrocute himself, and he laughed and said the house had to kill him somehow since the cigarettes hadn't managed it yet. Three weeks later, a blood clot moved from his leg to his lung and proved him wrong.

That was fourteen months ago.

Now I'm standing in our kitchen again, and the garbage disposal still makes that grinding sound like rocks in a blender. My mother hasn't fixed it. She hasn't fixed much of anything.

She's at the stove, stirring something that smells like ginger and soy sauce. Her back is to me. She's wearing the same blue apron she's worn since I was seven, the one with the faded flower pattern that looks more like bruises now than blossoms. Her hair is pulled back the way it always is, a few gray strands escaping near her ears.

"School's good?" she asks.

"School's fine."

"Just fine?"

"School is school, Mom."

She doesn't turn around. The steam rises from the pot and curls around her face. I watch her shoulders, the way they're tight, the way they don't relax even when she's just standing there. She's been like this since the funeral. Like someone waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like someone who already heard it fall but hasn't told anyone yet.

There's a knock at the door.

Three quick raps. Not the mailman. Not the neighbor lady who brings us banchan every Tuesday. Those are two knocks, polite and spaced apart. This is someone who knows we're home. Someone who expects to be let in.

My mother's hand stops stirring. Just for a second. Then she keeps going, but the rhythm is off.

"I'll get it," I say.

"No."

The word comes out sharp. Cuts the air like a blade. She turns to face me and her eyes are wide, almost panicked. Then she blinks and it's gone, replaced by something careful and controlled.

"I'll get it," she says again, softer this time. "You finish your homework."

"It's summer."

"Then eat your dinner."

She wipes her hands on the apron and walks past me. I catch a whiff of her perfume, the one my father bought her for their anniversary two years ago. She still wears it. That's something, I guess. Or maybe it's nothing. Maybe she just hasn't finished the bottle.

The door opens. I hear voices, low and muffled. A man's voice. Deep. Laughing at something my mother said. Then her voice, lighter than it's been all day, all month, all year.

I move to the hallway. Not to spy. Just to see.

He's standing on our porch, this man I've never met before. Tall. Silver hair at his temples. A face that's handsome in that way old Korean men sometimes are, like weathered stone that's been carved by a careful hand. He's holding a bottle of wine, the expensive kind my father used to buy for New Year's.

My mother is smiling. A real smile. The kind that reaches her eyes and makes her look ten years younger. She's touching his arm, just briefly, just a brush of fingers against his sleeve.

Something cold settles in my chest.

"You must be Jae-won," the man says, spotting me in the hallway. His voice is warm. Friendly. Like he already knows me. Like he has a right to. "Your mother talks about you all the time. I'm Mr. Park."

He extends his hand. I don't take it.

"Jae-won," my mother says, and there's a warning in her voice. A thin edge of something she's trying to hide.

I look at her. Then at him. Then at the wine bottle in his hand, the way his thumb rests against the label, casual and familiar.

"Nice to meet you," I say. The words come out flat. Dead.

Mr. Park's smile doesn't waver. If anything, it gets warmer. More practiced. He's been smiled at before, I can tell. He knows how to handle people like me.

"Your mother tells me you're good with computers," he says. "I have this laptop that's been giving me trouble. Maybe you could take a look at it sometime."

"I don't fix things for strangers."

The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on. My mother's face goes still. Mr. Park's smile finally flickers, just a little, like a candle in a draft.

"Well," he says. "I hope we won't be strangers for long."

He hands my mother the wine bottle. She takes it without looking at him. Her fingers are trembling. I notice that. I notice everything now.

"Thank you, Mr. Park," she says. "For the wine."

"Call me Sang-ho," he says. "Please."

He nods at me. I don't nod back. He turns and walks down the path to his car, a black sedan that looks too new for this neighborhood. My mother watches him go. She doesn't close the door until his taillights disappear around the corner.

The kitchen is quiet when we go back in. The soup has boiled over, a brown stain spreading across the stove. My mother doesn't seem to notice. She sets the wine bottle on the counter and stares at it like it might explode.

"Who was that?" I ask.

"A friend."

"Since when?"

She turns to me. Her eyes are red. Not from crying. From something else. Something tired and old and worn down.

"Since your father died," she says. "He was at the funeral. You probably don't remember. There were so many people."

I remember everyone. The aunties who pinched my cheeks and told me I looked just like him. The uncles who shook my hand too firmly and said I was the man of the house now. The woman from his office who cried so hard someone had to drive her home. I remember every single face.

I don't remember Mr. Park.

"He's been helping me," she says. "With the paperwork. The insurance. Things your father didn't handle well."

"Things Dad didn't handle well." I repeat the words slowly, letting them sit in the air between us.

She flinches. I see it. A small movement, barely there, but I see it.

"You don't know anything," she says.

"Then tell me."

The words hang there. Heavy. Impossible to take back.

She looks at me, and for a moment she's not my mother. She's a woman I don't recognize, someone with secrets behind her eyes and a stranger's wine on her counter and a story she's not ready to tell.

"Eat your dinner," she says. "It's getting cold."

She leaves the kitchen. I hear her footsteps on the stairs, the creak of her bedroom door, the click of the lock.

The soup is burning. I turn off the stove and stare at the wine bottle. There's a note tied to the neck with a thin ribbon. I untie it. Read it.

*For the woman who deserves more than she's been given.*

I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with any of this.

The garbage disposal grinds on, a sound like rocks in a blender, and I realize my mother never fixed it because she was waiting for my father to come home and do it himself. She's been waiting for a lot of things. I'm starting to wonder if she's still waiting, or if she's finally stopped.

The black car is gone. But I saw it. I saw him. I saw the way she touched his arm.

And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that either.