Daughter
Karis Ryu
Content warning: mentions of death.
“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but
have not love, I gain nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:3 (ESV)
and me, trying to wake up from the dream that was our life
with her.
****
Appa doesn’t react well when I tell him that I’m not coming
home for winter break.
****
When Umma died, I didn’t cry.
It was two weeks after my seventh birthday. We’d visited her in
the hospital that day, Appa and me. Gathered our breaths and
blown the candles out together, the three of us.
“I’m taking a winter course,” I explain over the phone, careful
to keep my voice low. The librarian is particularly sensitive
about noise. “I found a way to pay for housing, so don’t worry
about it—”
“Why would you decide this before talking to me?” he
interjects.
“When are you coming home?” I had asked her.
“Soon,” she’d promised.
Maybe I still thought she would follow through. As Pastor Heo
delivered a solemn message, as we placed flowers down by the
plaque in the churchyard. Maybe I was thinking of that story
we learned in Sunday school about Lazarus and how Jesus
raised him from the dead, and how, when we learned that
story, I had turned to Jinsung and whispered if he thought
Jesus could do that for my umma too.
Silence. My brain grapples for words to string together, but no
explanation arises, because there is none.
I’ve only called Appa once this whole semester.
“Even Jinsung has been calling his parents.”
“Mm-hmm.” I smile and nod on reflex, even though he can’t
see me.
“I can’t tell people what my own daughter is up to.”
“I don’t know, you’re the smartest one here.” He shrugged
and turned back around to face Ms. Moon.
Maybe Umma was only napping. Maybe she would wake up
soon.
But she didn’t.
She didn’t, and at the end of every day from then on are Appa
Smile, nod, smile, nod, always say please, always say thank
you, always say yes.
That’s all I’ve ever done.
“Ddal-ah.”
Good daughters go home.
“Bye, Appa.”
Click.
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