Page 3 of Heart and Seoul (Seoul 1)

So while Mom might be mad at Nina forever, I’m fine with not getting anything. I’d also be fine with not being Pat Wilson’s real daughter at the moment if that meant I could leave.

The slight chemical smell of the funeral home, the hushed whispers, and the casket sitting in the other room were all making that space between my shoulder blades—the one I can’t reach from either above or below—begin to itch.

“Ellen, my goodness. I wondered if you would come. How are you holding up?” A big woman with a beak of a nose dressed in a black floral dress leans down to envelop Mom. I breathe in a wave of lavender and eucalyptus, which makes my empty stomach turn over. “I can’t believe Patrick is gone and so young, too. I heard it was a heart attack?”

“Yes, while he was mowing the grass, can you believe it? His arteries were a mess. I always told him he needed to lower his cholesterol.”

“How could he when he was married to you, though? You always made the most delicious desserts. Potlucks haven’t been the same since you and Pat got the divorce. Do you still make that chocolate mousse? You told me your secret once and I forgot.”

“Ice,” Mom explains, happy to be distracted. “Everything needs to be cold. I even freeze the whisk that I use to whip the egg whites. That’s the key to a perfect piecrust, too. Cold butter. So many people forget that. I have this book I adore even though I know paper books are outdated these days.”

“I love paper cookbooks, too!” declares the other woman.

The two fall into a discussion about the merits of print versus internet recipes. The new ones can’t compare. Since Mom is occupied and the overwhelming perfume is threatening to make me sick, I decide to move. Over the woman’s head, I point to my barely touched tea and mouth that I’m getting a replacement. Mom gives me an encouraging smile and motions me off.

I drop my cup into a nearby trash can and wander over to the memory table. Set up near the poster board full of pictures is a television monitor. It plays a loop of photos and videos of Dad’s life. Nina put it together so I’m not surprised that large chunks of Dad’s life are unrepresented in the movie, but I find myself engaged anyway. There are baby pictures. A montage of old school photos with Dad holding a baseball bat and then a football and then at a track-and-field event. There’s an image of him leaning against a bright blue sedan and then another at prom followed by a young Patrick throwing his graduation cap in the air.

“It’s such a pity about Patrick, isn’t it?” a woman says behind me. “He couldn’t do much of anything right and now he’s left behind a young widow and a baby.”

“He finally got a kid after years of trying. At least he was successful at one thing before he died,” answers a man.

I wonder if criticizing a dead man is normal discourse for a funeral. It feels like it’s in bad taste, even if it is accurate. After the text, Dad invited me to dinner. Over pasta, he’d admitted to being a bad, absentee father. The specific words were: I had shit for brains when you were a kid, Hara. I didn’t do good by you so I think I should make it right by being there for my son.

I nodded and told him it was fine. Even if it wasn’t fine, I would’ve said it was because Dad is—I mean, was—a salesman and if he suspected that I didn’t agree with him, he’d try to “sell” me on his ideas. I saved myself from that exhausting experience.

“Didn’t he have a child from a previous marriage?”

“I think so, but not a real one. Apparently his first wife couldn’t have kids. Or maybe she had kids before they were married because she has a daughter. Anyway, this is his first real child—and a son, thank goodness.”

I should move. There’s no point in listening to this conversation anymore. I look down at my feet and order them into motion but they remain planted.

“I knew it was something because when I first heard he was having a baby, I offered my condolences. Who wants to parent a toddler at the age of fifty? But Pat was thrilled to death. He said that he hadn’t ever got to experience the whole bottle-feeding, diaper-changing bit and that he couldn’t wait.”

“Crazy. I’d lock myself in the bathroom for the next five years if my wife told me she was pregnant.”

“Same, but Pat was beside himself with excitement.” The woman tsks. “Too bad. It’s all so tragic.”

That’s enough funeraling for today, I decide. It’s not just the conversation that’s unsettling; it’s that save for my mom, Nina, and Ryder, everyone else is a stranger to me. I don’t know how any of these people are connected to my father. Were they coworkers? Golf partners? Part of a swingers’ club? I have zero idea and the more I think about it, the greater my head aches. If I stay much longer in this oppressive room with its tinny classical music soundtrack and the spiteful extras, I might climb onto a table and ask to be embalmed. I turn to make my way back to Mom when a wave of my coworkers streams through the door, blocking my escape.

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