“I’ve got to go,” you say, gesturing back toward the house rising up in the dark. A glow comes from the kitchen in the rear. You see in your mind a picture of your mother-in-law bent over the large pot that is always on the stove. “I’ve got to help Mother-in-law with dinner.”
“Is she still giving you a hard time?” your neighbor asks, looking at you with pity.
At this moment you hate your neighbor. Notice how ugly and snakelike the look on her face is. “No.” You shake your head. “And when did I say she was giving me a hard time?” You smile. The truth is you hate so many things about this neighbor. Her thin, greasy hair. The mole under her nostril.
You choke it back and say good night to your neighbor. You walk reluctantly toward the fire in the kitchen. Yes, there is thebent back of your mother-in-law, her head caught in the steam of the opened pot, a rounded bone growing out of her back like the stump of a tree. She looks up at you and frowns, stirs and stirs the rice porridge. There are bits of oysters in there and red beans, and you eat it all the time because it’s Father-in-law’s favorite.
“Don’t just stand there being useless,” your mother-in-law says. “Come over here and trim the sprouts. Where were you, anyway? I can never find you when I need you.”
That’s because it’s all the time, you want to say to her, but instead you say, “Please forgive me. I wanted to see if the cherry trees had fruited yet.”
“That’s why you should have children. You could send a child to do that.” She gives a big sigh and frowns. “Buddha, I must have done something wrong in another life,” she says to herself. She does this so often, you hardly even notice it anymore.
Despite the cold, you sit outside the open door on an overturned jar and clip the long, hairy ends of the bean sprouts between your fingernails, tossing them in the dirt. The chickens come running over to see what you’re doing, start pecking and blinking. Your sister-in-law is there too, rinsing the vegetables at the pump. She looks up and you give each other a warm look. She is the only one who makes your life bearable right now. This is because Mother-in-law complains almost as much about her.
Brother-in-law died two autumns ago from a stomach ailment. You can still recall the way his belly grew big and tight like a pregnant woman about to give birth. Father-in-law thought there was an imbalance in his body, too much heat, and fed him gardenia seeds and bamboo shavings, but nothing worked. Sister-in-law remains here because of their two children, a boy and a girl, instead of moving back in with her family. Mother-in-law dotes on her grandson and makes you all do without so he can be sent to school in Songdo. But youdon’t mind, because he is a kind, thoughtful boy. He’s more like your husband than his own father, who was always grouchy, much like Father-in-law.
When you’re finished with the sprouts, you permit yourself a moment to look up at the stars. They are more numerous here than in your mountain village. The air is warmer too; you feel it wrap itself around you.
“What’s keeping you?” an anxious voice calls out.
Mother-in-law sees you as a servant. That’s just the way it always is. Always was. Even your own mother treats your brother’s wife like a servant. You wonder why things always have to be the way they are, but you never find any answers.
You serve dinner first to your father-in-law, then your husband, then to your mother-in-law and sister-in-law, then the children. At last you sit on the platform outside the kitchen and eat your dinner alone. You prefer this. You’re alone so rarely. By the time you finish serving everybody, they’re done eating anyway. Besides, you don’t want to eat much—a bowl of rice mixed with water and part of a fish. A childless woman doesn’t need much food. Stacked near the water pump are the dinner dishes waiting to be washed.
You see Suyon at the Saturday market. Normally Mother-in-law takes Sister-in-law, but today Mother-in-law is not well. It is too bad because Saturday is your favorite day of the week. When the family goes to market, they are gone all day and you are alone with your husband. You can speak easily with each other then, unafraid of being overheard. You can lie down and try to make a baby.
It was on a Saturday you told each other the names of your first crushes; another Saturday when you took turns showing off childhood scars; on yet another Saturday you lay in bed and told each other dirty jokes all afternoon.
But lately, your husband has been distracted. He grows limp as soon as he enters you and gives up shortly afterward. It isawkward and worrying. After he puts his clothes back on, he does not look you in the eyes as he says he is going to the village tavern. There is a new girl working there, a niece of the old widow who runs the place; you can’t help but wonder if this is why he goes there so often. It’s good you’ve come to market. You can look for things to make you more beautiful.
You feel Suyon’s glow before you see her. It shines from her round face, her soft body, her plump hands as she fingers the shiny, dangling hairpins made to look like jade and silver. If she is suffering at the hands of her in-laws, it doesn’t show. She laughs at something the merchant says and
