Page 116 of Mother Parker
Of what it would do to me.
How could I fit him in my life when I couldn’t even take a breath in peace? How could I run my café when all I wanted was to devote myself to him, dedicate my life to him.
This wasn’t me. The shop had been my dream since I was a kid, much to Halmeoni’s dismay. I couldn’t just abandon it for Parker’s sake.
I looked out the window at the passing houses, roads familiar and asphyxiating.
When did I get in my car? When had I driven all the way up here?
I pulled into Halmeoni’s driveway and found myself in her embrace within moments.
My insides were burning, the pain in my chest too constricting to even breathe, let alone talk or think. The needles in my eyes were so sharp that I couldn’t keep them open.
“It okay, Hwanchan-ah,” she said in her soothing voice, stroking my head, rocking us back and forth, waiting for me to stop crying.
She was used to it. She was a master at it after everything that had happened to us. She’d tell me the same thing when I asked for my omma after she died and hold me in her arms until the pain numbed me.
And she would do the same whenever something—anything—happened in my life. When kids would make fun of me at school and treat me like dirt. When I’d find my locker stuffed with porn photos with insults written all over them. Or when I’d get called into the principal’s office for just being myself.
When I’d give my heart to someone, and they’d discard me as if I were nobody.
“What happen, Hwanchan-ah? Tell me,” she hummed after a while.
I tried to tell her, but it was hard to form words, and I was a sloppy mess. Halmeoni gave me tissues to wipe my face, blow my nose, clean myself, and when I finally felt somewhat human again, I had a hot cup of green tea in front of me.
“Is it that boy? He hurt you?” she asked with a taut face and narrowed eyes.
I shook my head.
“He…he…he told me he loved me,” I said.
I took a sip of the tea, and it scorched my throat clear.
I took a deep breath and watched my cup.
“Is bad?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Why?”
I shrugged.
“Because, Halmeoni. I don’t have the time right now. Maybe I never will. Running that shop is my life now, and all I want to do is drop it all so I can love him.”
“Hwanchan-ah, you make no sense.”
I looked up at her and grimaced.
“I love him too, Halmeoni. But I can’t. I just…can’t.”
“Why not? You always want to find love. Why you can’t?”
She held her cup in both hands, seemingly unaffected by how hot it was, and didn’t move or flinch. She just stared at me, waiting for an answer. An answer I didn’t know how to explain.
“The shop. My life is there. I finally made my dream come true. Used that sperm donor’s money like you told me to. I don’t have time—”
“Time? What is time? What you talking about time? People don’t love on schedule.”
