Page 30 of Heart and Seoul (Seoul 1)

“How’d you know I went to a funeral?”

“Your friend showed up in a hurry with a shopping bag full of black stuff and then you disappeared for two days. What else could it be?” Anna lifts the lid of the fermented cabbage and takes a long whiff. “This stuff smells good.” She flashes me a smile. “There’s nothing wrong with the market kimchi, but it doesn’t have the same flavor as the stuff the aunties make. What else do we have here? Marinated bean sprouts? Fish cakes? Nice. So who was it? The funeral.”

“Oh, my father’s.”

She nearly drops the plastic container. “Your dad? Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I’ve been rattling on like it’s—”

“I didn’t know him,” I interrupt before she can pile on the condolences. The only thing I’m feeling sad about at this moment is that I rented a room at the top of the steepest hill in Seoul. “I’m going to shower.”

Maybe under the hot water, some kind of revelation will come to me about whether I should stay or go. I know what Mom would say. Come home immediately. The death is a sign. Boyoung would likely vote for me to leave, too. My roommates won’t care as long as I pay my leasing fee.

“Okay. Hey, wait. Are these yours?”

Hand on the railing, I turn a tired eye in Anna’s direction and squint. The smaller girl is holding up a photo. Wait. No. Not a single photo. There are five in total. I nearly fall down the steps in my rush back to Anna’s side. In each one, my father has an arm slung around a pretty young woman. Sometimes the arm is around her shoulders; sometimes it’s snug around the waist. The women have a sameness about them, as if my dad had a type—sloped eyes, small nose, and round chin. My hand rises to touch my own curved chin, which I’ve never liked because Ellen’s chin is so strong and square.

“There’s something on the back,” the girl points out.

I flip the first photo over. On the back a collection of characters is written in small, neat handwriting. My heart beats a little faster. The characters are grouped in three-syllable sets, and from my limited knowledge of Korean, that’s how names are written. Names. Photos. Faces. This is the real gift the two women have given me—not the food that Anna was excited over, but the five photos.

“Who are they?” Anna fans the photos out.

“My mother.”

“For real? Like, all of them? Your dad was in a commune or something?”

“Is that a thing here?” I ask in surprise. I hadn’t considered this a possibility.

She shrugs. “Hey, it’s possible. I mean, probably not here in Korea, but it’s possible other places. It looks like there are names on the back, see?”

I’d guessed correctly. “What do they say?”

Anna gives me a side-eye. “Do you not know how to read hangukeo?”

“Hanguk— Do you mean Hangul?”

“No. Hangul is the alphabet. Hangukeo or just gukeo is the language itself.”

I grimace. I don’t know what I don’t know. “Obviously, I’m pretty ignorant.”

“I guess you’ll pick it up as you go. How long did you say you were staying?”

I stare at the photos. Five minutes ago, I was considering taking the first flight home. Now my plans seem to be changing. “I don’t know.”

“Not to be an ass, but there’s a no-cancellation clause. If you leave, we’re not going to be able to give you a refund.”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.” I’d already paid the housing fee so I’m not going to worry about money already spent. “These names . . . can I google them?” How hard would it be to find these five women?

“I mean, you could, but you wouldn’t get anywhere. No one uses that here. We all use Naver, but it’s not going to be of any use for you until you read Hangul.” Anna pulls out her phone and types one of the names in. My heart is racing. I hadn’t even considered I could find my mother now that Lee Jonghyung is dead, but the photos and the names are filling me with hope. It leaps into my throat and makes it hard to breathe. A bunch of results show up on the screen. “Lots of people have the same name, and”—she squints at the tiny photos—“none of them look like their old photos. Are you going to hire a private investigator?”

I gnaw on the corner of my mouth. “I don’t have the money for that.”

Anna grimaces. “This might be impossible, then. South Korea is small, but millions of people live here.”

I inspect the internet search results but it’s as if I’m looking at a code without the key. Hangukeo is supposed to be the easiest language to learn—at least that’s what it said online—but I haven’t managed to even memorize the simple alphabet. The results are a collection of undecipherable characters. I squeeze my throat and tell myself that this is a hurdle, but not an insurmountable one. I have Boyoung. She’ll help me.

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