Page 20 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
She smiled again and this time she looked more happy but also that knife-like kind of sad.
“How long do I have to stay with my dad?”
Her eyes shadowed, and then her chin came up. “I don’t know, Jun. The people I’m going to see are not very kind. They had misguided ideas, and they do bad things with those ideas. They can never know about you.”
“I’m a secret.” Jun nodded. He knew this. He wasn’t a very big secret, but there were certain people who sometimes called Mama, and sometimes she had to take two pictures when they went on a trip, one with him and one without him. And sometimes they didn’t go to certain places in big cities.
“You’re my wonderful, beautiful secret.” She flashed him a real smile. “And when I’m done making this problem be fixed, I’ll come back for you.” She stopped and knelt down in front of him, holding him by the shoulders. “It might be a long time, Jun. I might not be able to write you or call you. But know that I’m always with you.”
She took the jade Buddha on the red string from around her neck and slid it over his head, sliding the jade under his shirt. “This is my lucky necklace. When you need me, hold it in your hand and squeeze, and I’ll be sending you luck.”
“I will, Mama. Mama, how long is a long time?”
“A couple months, at least. Maybe longer than months.” Mama wiped a tear away from the side of her eye. Mama didn’t cry often, but when she did, she always did it this way, like a princess in a movie, water coming out of her eye and shimmering on her cheek. He reached up and pushed it away for her, the way she did for him.
“Don’t cry, Mama. I’m strong. And you said Korea belongs to me, too, so I’ll be okay here, just like in Seattle.”
“You will be.” She patted his shoulder and smiled through the water smeared over her cheeks. “And when this big adventure is over, I want you to tell me all about it. I’ve never been to Korea before. So, it will be all new to me. You’ll have something to teach me.”
Jun beamed at her. That would be fun. Not the waiting months and months. His stomach hurt thinking about it, but he was finally going to see his dad and learn all about this other part that belonged to him, the part his mother said wasn’t hers to teach him. If Mama believed this was what they had to do, then he trusted her. She always took care of him, and when people didn’t understand him, she fixed it. She was good at fixing things. She could fix his pants when he broke them or his head when he got into a fight with a friend from school and his head was hurting his heart.
“And when this is finished, I can see my friends again, right?”
She nodded, and more water was on her cheeks again. “Some of them might be in a new school, but we can visit them or call them on the phone or go on a trip with them.”
Jun nodded. This was good. People moved and changed or went to different schools. It wasn’t always fun, but then new friends came, and he could talk to old friends and see them on the weekends in the park or at the museum, and then they would all have new stories to tell each other that the other one didn’t know because they had been somewhere else.
“I love you, Mama.” He flung his arms around her. “I’ll study hard and have so many stories, and you’ll have stories.”
She hugged him back. “Yes, so many stories.”
She stood up and took his hand again, and they kept walking. Eventually, they came up to a desk, and Mama talked to the woman behind it. She put stamps on his papers. And then someone opened a side door. There was a man standing in the big airport corridor on the other side. He wore a rumpled suit and carried a black briefcase. He was looking at his phone.
“Jun,” Mama said, squeezing his hand again, “that’s your dad, Bak Sahyuk.”
“And Bak is the family name, just like in China but not like in American.” Jun repeated what she’d explained before.
“Yes.” Mama nodded.
“So Bak is my name too.”
“Yes. Your surname in Korea is Bak.” She squeezed his hand.
The man holding the door cleared his throat. “Ma’am.”
Mama sighed. She knelt down and handed Jun a large manila envelope. “This is all your papers, Jun. Keep them with you somewhere safe in your house. Your dad will have your Korean papers, so you won’t need these every day, but someday, you might if you want to use the other parts of yourself again. You’ll need them when I come back for you.”
He took the envelope. “Yes, Mama.”
“Put it in your backpack.” She tapped the little personal backpack on his shoulders. It had his video game in it and the books he’d read on the plane but not his bear. That was in his suitcase.
When he was finished putting the envelope inside, she smiled at him, and there were more tears. She kissed him on the forehead and squeezed his shoulders. Then she stood and lifted her chin.
He raised his chin too and squared his shoulder. “I’ll be okay, Mama.”
“I know, Jun. Now go be my beautiful secret. Go be happy. And have adventures.”
“You too, Mama.”
