Everything I Tried to Forget
Later that day, Hyeri, my younger sister, joins us. When she swings open the front door, complaining about parking in the underground lot, I wait for my baby sister to notice me—her oldest sister, the one who lives in America, the one she hasn’t seen in years. And when she does, she shrieks “Unni!”—Sister! She waddles toward me, arms wide open, her face beaming.
“Jung Hyeri!” I open my arms wide, too, for a hug, but Hyeri avoids them. Instead, she rubs my arms up and down, gently.
Thinking about it, my parents and I hadn’t hugged at the airport either.
I open my arms wide, too, for a hug, but Hyeri avoids them.
After dinner, Hyeri and I clear the dishes from the low table-tray we set on the living room floor. In the same spot, we lay down a thick blanket and spread another on top. We’ll sleep between them, just like we did when we were children. With my parents in separate rooms, there’s no bedroom for us, but I don’t mind sleeping on the floor or in the living room. My baby sister and I will chat into the night, updating each other on our lives. But Hyeri, exhausted from work, quickly drifts off. Soon after, I follow.
Then suddenly, a blazing light jolts me awake. I squint at the clock on the wall—only three in the morning. Mom is pacing around us, over us, rummaging through everything, searching for something. I try to will myself back to sleep, but then my father joins her. Now they’re both circling us, stepping over us, talking without a hint of restraint. I turn to my sister to see if she’s bothered too, but she’s not. Through the chaos, she snores steadily, peacefully. I let out a string of frustrated sighs, but accept there’s nothing I can do but wait for sleep to return.
Now they're both circling us, stepping over us, talking without a hint of restraint.
The next morning, Mom asks to see the outfit I plan to wear to the wedding. When I hold up the black crop top jacket I purchased at Ross back home, she shakes her head. “It will make you look poor. You know there will be a lot of guests there. You need something better.” She suggests we go shopping. But as we’re getting ready to leave, an argument breaks out between my parents in the guest bedroom. Hyeri and I are in the living room, but we can hear their voices rising. We stop talking and listen. I hope their bickering ends soon. And for a moment it seems it will: Mom leaves the guest bedroom and enters the living room, which should mean the argument is done. But when she grunts loudly, “Always like this. So pathetic,” and my father responds, “What did you say?” his voice cold and demanding, I realize it won’t.
“I said what I wanted to say!” Mom turns on her heels back toward the guest bedroom. “What are you going to do about it?” She starts kicking at the air, trying to be threatening. With her two grown daughters beside her, she must feel invincible, certain we’ll step in if things turn physical. I want to tell her, Your husband won’t take it.
Sadly, I’m right. A second later, I hear her yelp in pain.
She staggers back into the living room and holds out her right hand. “He kicked my hand.”
“You shouldn’t have started it,” Hyeri says, taking her hand to examine it. A bruise is beginning to form on her ring finger, which has already started to swell. “You were pushing his buttons.” Then she calls toward the guest bedroom, “Why would you do that? You’re both too old for this!”
“She started it!” my father yells back.
If I don't touch Mom's hand the way I used to touch her back, asking her if she was alright, then I won't be reminded of my little hand on her heaving body.
With her hand still under Hyeri’s inspection, Mom looks up at me, waiting for me to ask to see it too—to look at the bruise, blow on it, and admonish my father like Hyeri just did. But I don’t. Because if I do, I’m afraid I’ll be violently reminded of something I’d rather forget: the ugly past our family once lived, for a long time. When we were young. When my father came home drunk most nights. When my mother would say, “Useless! Here we go again, you idiot!” giving him a perfect reason, in his mind, to beat her up. The sleepless nights when she’d collapse onto the cluttered living room floor, wailing for the Lord to end her misery.
If I don’t touch Mom’s hand the way I used to touch her back, asking her if she was alright, then I won’t be reminded of my little hand on her heaving body. Then I can pretend it didn’t happen.
But pretending is hard, especially to yourself. In Hyeri’s car on the way to Lotte Department Store, Mom is relentless in complaining about her husband and her swollen finger, despite Hyeri repeatedly telling her it’s not that bad, that after all, she brought it on herself by challenging her husband unreasonably, uninvited. Mom disagrees and asks what I think. I say I don’t know and look out the window. All I’m trying to do now is guard my mind from the onslaught of memories and feelings I thought I’d successfully forgotten—forgotten to the point of even questioning whether it happened. Right now it feels like my past has been waiting for me, ready to pounce just to ask: “Remember me?”
Right now it feels like my past has been waiting for me, ready to pounce just to ask: "Remember me?"
A few hours later, when I’m finally left alone on a bench near the women’s bathroom, with Hyeri and Mom still browsing the dozens of floors of that gigantic store, I pull out my phone and Google the Seoul Garden Hotel, the hotel across the street from my brother’s place.
Last night, looking out the window, I thought what an old-fashioned name it was for a hotel—probably from an era when hotel stays were a luxury for most Koreans, especially for my family, who barely stayed afloat on my father’s thin paycheck as a floor mechanic at a steel company. But this old-named hotel, once out of reach, is now within mine, according to Booking.com. So I book a room there, almost hypnotically.
When Hyeri returns to the bench, I tell her I just booked a hotel.
“Really?” Her voice is incredulous. “Maybe you can cancel it?”
“No, I won’t.” I sound louder than I meant to. “It was too much this morning.” Now my gaze drops to the floor, like a child's—intimidated, overwhelmed.
“I get it,” she says. “But Mom won’t like it.”
A few minutes later, when Mom returns and Hyeri tells her about the hotel, Mom’s face beams. “You mean a hotel for all of us?”
“No, just for me.” I study her face to gauge the effect of my statement—the effect probably amplified by her short-lived excitement. She stares at me, her smile gone, her eyes narrowed. “But it’s right across the street. You can come over and hang out if you want.”
My offer doesn’t soften her glare. She asks sternly, “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”
I don’t look away when I say, “No.”
Her eyes locked on mine, she continues to stare. I know she’s giving me time to reconsider. But when I don’t, she turns and walks away.
“You hurt her feelings!” Hyeri jumps up to follow Mom, shooting me a look as she goes.
I don’t follow them.
But moments later, when Hyeri returns and tells me that Mom’s crying, that I should go apologize, I obediently get up and start searching for her, though I have no idea where she is in this massive building. As soon as I realize I should’ve asked Hyeri where Mom is, I find her, still on the same floor, standing in the children’s clothing section. I wonder what she’s doing there. She doesn’t have grandchildren that age anymore. Then I see her wiping her cheeks beneath her glasses. Now I understand: she needed privacy, and the children’s section was the emptiest corner she could find.
I approach her slowly. “Are you okay?”
Now I remember: I hated her as much as I hated my father.
She hears me but doesn't answer, just turns away, her back to me now. So I walk around to see her face. That's when I hear her spit out "You are a bitch." Her words shock me—not because they're offensive, but because I instantly recognize the power they still have. My breath catches in my throat as I watch her walk off triumphantly, carelessly, leaving me transported back to the times when she had no qualms repeating what her husband did to her—to me. Screamed. Slapped. Cursed.
Now I remember: I hated her as much as I hated my father.
The Seoul Garden Hotel was waiting for me across the street. But first, I had to get through the wedding.
© 2025 The SteelMaker’s Daughter by Yuni J. All Rights Reserved.
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