Someplace Like Home |n.j

33.

The walk from the metro station to the restaurant is the longest walk I've ever been on. It seemed to have lasted forever. My legs were weak and all I wanted was to stop. I kept trying to convince myself to turn around, to get on the soonest plane back to Korea, back to Namu. He'd welcome me with open arms. He'd hold me so tightly and he wouldn't ask a single thing. He'd be everything this place is not. But I can't. Because it's what's easier. And that's not what I need right now.

It's near midnight, and here I am, standing before my mother's restaurant with two suitcases at my side. There was a dim flickering light at the very back of the kitchen. I knew she'd still be here.

My hand leaves the suitcase and I clench around the door handle, shaking as I did. With one thick swallow, I push the door and hear the bell from above ring.

I pull the heavy luggages inside as I heard footsteps scrambling to reach the front of the restaurant.

"Miss, we're closed-"

I raise my head to meet the eyes of the woman. She still had her red apron on, stained from washing all the dishes. She was short and petite with that towel draped from her neck. A woman her age should be resting at home at such an hour. You could almost pity her. Almost.

"Mother."

I watched as her face contorted from one of shock to pure anger. At least she's still healthy with fast reflexes.

I know that expression too well.

It's like I never left. Even through all the effort I put into escaping my identity, the second I stepped foot in here, I was pushed a thousand steps back. I'm still her daughter. I'm still the daughter of a lowlife that gambled himself to death. I'm still the one that went to school as an outcast and only knew to hang my head low. It doesn't matter what I've achieved in all those other towns, or in Korea. When I come back here, I'm still nobody. I'm still nothing.

I understand now that everything is still a part of me. It makes the last eight years spent on running away seem like such a waste. I tried to erase all the proof of this life I once had, but all I am is the result of my experiences. I am living evidence. It makes me feel dirty. The kind that can't be made clean.

Standing here together so many years later, it's obvious that neither of us has changed.

Her legs seemed that of a young woman's when she strided her way towards me. My eyes followed her hand as she raised it. I shut them tightly and felt the familiar stinging pain on my cheek. My tongue feels around and tastes metal. I was used to that taste, once a upon a time. It's been a while.

I lift my head back up to see tears welled up in those aged eyes.

"Six years! Six years and now you come back to call me Mother?" Her gaze drops to the two suitcases next to my sides.

I take a step back and witnessed her falling apart. She grabs my suitcases and struggles to push them out the door, but she does it eventually. They fall to the concrete ground with a loud thump. I stay silent to keep the lump in my throat right where it is. Does that make her feel better? I always wanted ask that whenever she hit me or threw my things around. It must've, that's why she kept doing it.

I was used to this once too. The tantrums, the mental breakdowns, everything. I don't have many memories of her being calm or gentle. I remember wondering if I even had a mother at all. She never seemed like what all the other people were saying about their mothers.

She looks at me and her face grimaces, wrinkles rise to her face. Each line reminded me of her age and of the years that's gone by. She finally falls to the floor, sobbing. She crosses her arms and hides her face in them. The restaurant now fills with the sound of the life leaving her chest and the smell of what I believe is our odor. It smells. Everything seems to rot when we're together. I hate it.

She still cries the same.

"I put my life into this family! And in turn," She hiccups with snot beginning to drip down her nose, "My husband gets himself killed and leaves me with nothing but debts. And my only child runs away! Even my own blood rejected me."

She looks up at me and all I see is hate. Hate and loathing, I know I let it build up. I knew I would destroy our relationship when I left. I knew my departure would burn what was left of us. I just didn't expect myself to be standing here again nearly seven years later.

"Six years! Tell any mother to wait six years for their child to return!" She stood up and wiped her face with her sleeve, "It was a fucking eternity!" She cried out again with her arms swinging at me.

She clenched her fists and pounded at my shoulders and my chest. I don't know why I reacted the way I did. I just held her. I took her by the arms and I pulled her into the tightest embrace. I held her so tight she couldn't hit me anymore.

I don't want to forgive her for the way she treated me. I know I don't have to. I don't want for things to be good between us. I know that's not possible. Things have gone way past that point. There is nothing left to repair. So why, of all things? I chose not to hit her back nor to curse at her, but to hold her. I've never done that before.

I've never hugged her before. This is the first time.

And honestly, it doesn't feel great. I don't feel any love, or any warmth that people claim they feel when they hug their loving mothers. They say you feel a sense of security and you feel at home. I don't know what that is.
But I tried.

I saw her breaking down, and it was suddenly so much easier to be someone else. And everything is easier when I'm not her daughter. I saw this woman, reaching her sixties, having lost a husband that never loved her much, working all alone in the middle of the night. Her daughter abandoned what was left of the family and all she could do was wait. I realize now that she's a really pitiful woman. Everything about her makes you want to cry. You don't know whether to feel sorry, sad, or disappointed. So you just cry.

My mother's breathing soon steadies, and she rips herself apart from me the second her tears begin to dry. She's silent and almost dead as she moved, even drifting in a way. She opened the door and stepped out into the cold to pick up my suitcases. I was frozen and still as she dragged them back inside.

"Where have you been?"

It's like nothing happened.

"Here and there."

She nodded and patted her hands on her apron to dry them.

We were always good at that. Pretending nothing happened. We always moved on the next day as if the events of the day before never took place. It didn't matter if it was a visit from the loan sharks, or a night at the police station. It didn't matter if yesterday she threatened to kill me, or if she told me I was the second biggest mistake—the first being having married my father. If we woke up the next morning, it didn't happen. That was the way to survive.

"Have you eaten?"

I shook my head.

"I have some leftover food in the fridge. Lock the door and come to the back, okay?"

My mother walks towards the kitchen at the end of the restaurant and pauses when I don't reply. She turns around and waits for me to give her a response.

I dig my nails deep into my clenched fists and fought to pull apart the invisible thread sewing my lips together. I licked my lips and shoved the lump in my throat down as far as I could.

"Okay."