Please Look After Mom

So-nyo’s unnamed husband narrates Chapter 3 in the second person. When he leaves Hyong-chol’s house and returns home to Chongup, he meets a young woman named Tae-Hee Hong who is looking for “Auntie Park So-nyo” (123). Though confused, the husband lets the woman in. Tae-hee is from an orphanage called Hope House. She reveals that So-nyo frequents the orphanage to clean; she also gives 450,000 won (about $400) to Hope House monthly. In turn, Tae-hee reads books to So-nyo. Now, the children and staff have grown concerned because So-nyo hasn’t visited in a while. So-nyo’s husband feels blindsided by this news; he never knew So-nyo visited an orphanage and that she donated money. He then recalls So-nyo asking to keep the money the children sent to them monthly—450,000 won. He never asked why she wanted it.

Tae-Hee explains that So-nyo practically adopted a boy named Kyun, promising to fund his middle school studies. At the mention of the child’s name, So-nyo’s husband’s demeanor changes and “a chill comes over [his] heart” (127). Tae-Hee then shows So-nyo’s husband the book she’d been reading to So-nyo: It is one of Ch-hon’s books, though Tae-Hee clearly doesn’t know that So-nyo’s daughter wrote it. Though he temporarily feels anger at So-nyo for not asking him to read the book to her, he asks himself if he would have really read the book to So-nyo, admitting that “you’d forgotten about [her] for fifty years” (131). Moreover, he often felt superior to So-nyo because she couldn’t read. Though he was polite to everyone else, he was very rude to his wife.

All his life, So-nyo’s husband wanted nothing more than to always leave his family. He once met a random woman and moved in with her. Another time, he learned to ride a motorcycle and left for the open road. Despite being gone for months sometimes, he’d always miss his wife’s steadfastness and return home. But he only really thought about her as his children’s mother until the day she disappeared. Then, he suddenly ached for her as his wife. He guiltily recalls that he ignored the signs of So-nyo’s health disintegrating for the last few years: He’d find her on a road with no idea where she was going or how to get back home; she’d confuse things or suffer from intense headaches. As So-nyo’s husband has different memories of her, he walks through the house and calls out his wife’s name, hoping she’ll respond. Whenever she went to Seoul and he called her, she’d rush home right away but pretend that it was to feed the dog and not to be with him.

The husband flashes back to his own childhood. He used to sleep outside—he wonders if his desire to always leave the house stems from this. As a child, he worried about being the eldest son and having to be the head of the family. When he was older, he hid outside his house so the army couldn’t draft him into the Korean War. He tried once to turn himself in from guilt but his uncle (a police officer) told him to run away so that he could continue being the man of the family. This memory leads to one of him returning to So-nyo and his children one winter. He always returned because his wife knew how to grow things, but as he fed his children that night and they remained hungry, he decided to be there for them and never leave home again.

In the present, So-nyo’s husband wanders through the empty house while opening all the doors and windows, calling out for his wife. He used to watch his wife doing chores. Whenever she saw him, she’d stop whatever she was doing and fix him food. One day she told him that she was jealous of the butcher’s wife because the butcher made his wife seaweed soup. In the present, So-nyo’s husband calls out that he’s hungry, hoping his wife might appear and make him a meal. He wants her to return so that he can make her food, and he cries at how badly he wants her to return home.

The narrative flashes back to the end of the Korean War. So-nyo’s husband was still young and single; he wanted to leave the country and open a brewery. There were rumors that North Korean soldiers hiding in the mountains came down at night to steal unmarried women, so his family betrothed him to So-nyo without him even seeing her. One day, he snuck away to visit So-nyo’s house in her hometown of Chinmoe. He spied on her embroidering and seemingly composed, and then witnessed her desperately begging her mother to call off the marriage. So-nyo broke down crying and her mother cried too. He decided that he couldn’t leave So-nyo to fate.

In the present, So-nyo’s husband awakes one night and sees the large boxes that contain his and So-nyo’s burial clothes. He remembers So-nyo telling him about the clothing. She also wished that he would die before her because he wouldn’t know how to take care of himself with her gone, so he would only be a burden for their children.

Two girls rush into the house calling for So-nyo. They’re the children of Tae-sop, a neighbor who leaves them with his possibly senile mother. So-nyo has been cooking for the girls, who now come for all their meals. So-nyo’s husband tries preparing food for them but doesn’t even know how to use the rice cooker. As he waits for the rice to cook, he regrets that he never once slowed down his gait for his wife, who’d been asking him to slow down and wait for her for 50 years; he blames this oversight for his wife’s disappearance. He wants to cry aloud, since he had to keep his sobs to himself while in Seoul with his children. He recalls all the dark times he suffered as a child but refused to cry: When he was 10 years old and his parents died; when North Korean soldiers beat him and stole the family’s cow; when a soldier speared him in the shoulder and almost killed him. He suddenly begins crying uncontrollably because he admits to himself that he ignored his wife’s pain.

So-nyo’s husband recalls another time he mistreated his wife, when she became sick with diarrhea after birthing their daughter. He gave his sister some money and told her to buy Chinese medicine but didn’t worry himself with his wife’s lingering discomfort. From that moment on, So-nyo suffered from stomach problems. She tried home remedies but he never bought her medicine or cooked for her. One year, he found a lump in So-nyo’s breast, but she ignored it until the sickness became too much. They went to the hospital, but they didn’t return for the results until it was too late. It was breast cancer, and had he taken his wife back to the hospital they might have saved her breast. Before her disappearance, So-nyo had been confused for weeks, but he ignored her symptoms, chalking them up to old age.

So-nyo’s husband’s sister visits the house and brings her brother food. She berates him for leaving So-nyo lost in Seoul, and her anger shocks him. So-nyo and his sister hardly ever got along. His sister lost her husband in a fire when younger and has hardened herself against further loss. She treated So-nyo like a daughter-in-law more than a sister-in-law; nothing So-nyo did was good enough. He asks his sister if she came by to apologize to So-nyo, and she admits that she wanted to tell So-nyo three things: “about Kyun […] about the apricot tree […] and about not getting her enough medicine when she had stomach problems” (161). So-nyo’s husband again startles at the mention of Kyun.

A flashback reveals that So-nyo’s husband had a brother named Kyun. Kyun was bright and well liked, and he wanted nothing more than to go to middle school but the family couldn’t afford to send him. When So-nyo suggested they sell their garden to send him to school, the sister-in-law sent So-nyo back to her family home in Chinmoe. So-nyo’s husband went after her and brought her back home (this was the first time she begged him to walk slower). When they came back, Kyun said he’d never ask for schooling again if So-nyo didn’t leave him. Kyun then began helping So-nyo with house chores. When he got older, he bought So-nyo new things, while So-nyo’s husband never even thought to replace anything she needed. Kyun gifted So-nyo a nickel basin, which she cherished.

In the present, So-nyo’s husband rushes to the shed and sees the old nickel basin is still there.

When So-nyo had her second child, Kyun helped with the delivery because So-nyo’s husband was wandering the countryside. There was no wood for a fire, and because So-nyo was close to getting sick, Kyun chopped down the family’s prized apricot tree for firewood. The sister-in-law threatened So-nyo and blamed her for the tree’s loss. Kyun soon left for four years and returned a changed man. One day, he began foaming at the mouth and died on the very spot where the apricot tree had been. The sister-in-law blamed So-nyo, claiming she poisoned Kyun. This rumor spread, and So-nyo faced interrogation several times about the death.

In the present, So-nyo’s husband chastises himself because So-nyo was perhaps the closest to Kyun and her demeanor changed after Kyun’s death. Though he and his sister grieved for Kyun, neither thought to ever ask how So-nyo was handling the loss. Even when So-nyo tried to get her husband to visit Kyun’s grave, he refused. It was only until recently, until just before So-nyo’s disappearance that she began speaking about Kyun again. Her doctor asked if she’d had any trauma and suggested she see a therapist, but So-nyo’s husband shrugged it off. Even when So-nyo woke up frantically one night, asking whether Kyun had gone to heaven, her husband ignored her. Now he realizes that So-nyo’s headaches probably had something to do with her trauma over Kyun.

Chi-hon calls her father when she finds out that he returned to the family home alone. He listens to her sad voice and worries about her because she’s been up all night drinking. Of all the children, she’s been searching the hardest. So-nyo’s husband breaks down and tells Chi-hon that So-nyo wasn’t well enough to travel but that he insisted on the trip anyway. He blames himself: He walked too fast and didn’t do anything about her headaches. Chi-hon confesses that So-nyo had a headache that day because she and Chi-hon had a bad argument right before the trip. So-nyo was making alcohol for her youngest son, though the family knows he’s an alcoholic. Chi-hon berated her mother by calling her a country bumpkin and told her that no one ate the crackers So-nyo brought. So-nyo, hurt, called her daughter a “b----” (175) and then Chi-hon hung on her. Chi-hon admits that everyone in the family yelled at So-nyo and So-nyo hated it. As Chi-hon sobs, her father comforts her by telling her a secret: So-nyo was always proud of her and would cut articles about her books out the paper and carry them around, beaming. He instructs Chi-hon to keep writing and to “please look after your mom” (176). He hopes that even if everyone forgets So-nyo, Chi-hon won’t forget that So-nyo loved life, and that those in her life loved her greatly.