Even After You Die

TWO

I'm running frantically through the airport, still, in my sweatpants and tank top, a lightly packed backpack thrown over my shoulder. I make myself believe that running as fast as I can, will reverse time. A security guard whistles at me, proceeding to yell at me to stop. I don't. I can't.

"Hey! You, stop!"

"This isn't a damned swimming pool. I can run if I want!"

He stops and speaks into his radio.

Darting into the security checkpoint, I'm balling my face out. And I don't know if it's because I'm feeling shocked, sad, or guilty. The other security guards must have heard through the radio that a madwoman was on the loose, but after hearing my endlessly crying about Haneul, they leave me alone. For the most part.

My mother-in-law bought my flight ticket—bless her—and 16 hours later I'm standing in the Incheon International Airport.

A chauffeur picks me up and drives me to her house on the outskirts of Seoul. She welcomes me with a bow, not commenting on my disheveled state, grimy clothes, red eyes, or tangled hair. I say nothing, afraid I would start crying again if I did. She gives me a room and only tells me the funeral will be held tomorrow.

***

The coffin is lowered into the ground, family members of the body gathered together to say their last goodbyes. None of them, besides my mother-in-law, have I ever met before.

The rest of the funeral goes by in a blur and too soon I find myself standing by myself.

"I didn't mean for you to go like this." My throat hurts to speak.

The job Haneul had been offered by his cousin was meant for someone else. And when Haneul got the position instead of Jaeyung, a twelve-year employee, jealousy had overtaken the man. Haneul was shot in the chest five times before falling to the ground.

Eomeonim* told me. But it's also all over the news.

It's my fault he is dead. If we hadn't gone through with the divorce, we both would still be in Chicago, not in a Korean cemetery. If I had never filed that paperwork, we would have been unhappy, but both alive.

"My son was rare about speaking on his feelings." My mother-in-law's voice startles me. She stands a half foot beneath me. "Even to me, his mother."

My eyes move from the grave to her face, withered with age but still impressively smooth. Her eyes droopy with remorse.

"When he came to visit when my father got sick, we spent a lot of time together. It was the most he had ever spoken to me in a long time." She smiles for a brief moment at the memory. "And he mostly spoke of you."

"What?" Her words catch me off guard.

"He asked me many questions, to which I could not answer. But I told him that the cocoon loves its butterfly, but cannot hold onto it forever. The cocoon must allow the butterfly to spread its wings."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Eomeonim chuckles. "That is exactly what he said."

I notice her eyes tearing up.

"Sometimes to love is to let go." She doesn't bother wiping her eyes. "I let him go to America. He let you go through the divorce. And now, it is your turn to let go."

"I... I don't know if I can." I gaze out into the distance. "Death is something I've never been able to handle well."

She pats my shoulder. "You are not the only one, my child."

***

I set the keys on the small table by the door and walk into the living room, slumping into his favorite spot on the couch. The ticking of the clock hanging on the wall echoes in the hallway. My first trip to Korea, my husband's—ex-husband's—birthplace and it was to his funeral. Eomeonim invited me to stay longer but I couldn't bear it any longer. She looked too much like him. I needed to come home. But I don't know what reminded me of him more. His mother or our home.

I blink. I don't deserve to cry. He was no longer mine even before the murder.

I get to my feet, grabbing my keys once again and storming out of the apartment. I drive two hours to the place where my sister is buried. I've had enough of cemeteries but I have to see her. She was always there to comfort me. After mom and dad's divorce, she held me in her arms instead of walking out to be by herself. When I was rejected by art school, she was there to take me out to teriyaki. And when I had lost my secretarial job, she had applied me to over a dozen of other "funner" jobs.

"That place was boring anyway," she had said. "Ooh, what about being a lifeguard at the waterpark? You'll get to meet a ton of hot guys."

She was always like that. Fun and guys. Her idea of the most important things in life. I smile at the memory as I step out of the car, a bouquet of yellow roses in hand. Her favorite.

I maneuver my way through the cemetery, remembering her headstone is placed beneath a small oak tree. I find it sitting quietly in the shade.

Evelynn Sue Yager

Beloved Sister and Friend

"May she finally find her peace"

I grab the withered stems in the sun-stained vase and replace them with the roses, smelling them one last time before doing so.

"Why'd you have to go?" I ask quietly. "Why didn't you tell me you were hurting? You were always there for me, you should've let me be there for you too."

Over three years ago, I got a call from the hospital. I had been so worried; she hadn't come home that night. Little to my knowledge, she had driven 12 miles out of town, parked on the side of the road, and pulled the trigger.

"Evelynn, I need your help." I kneel down in front of her headstone. "I can't do this anymore. First you, now Haneul."

I had cried so much when she died. I went to dad's office to let him know because he wouldn't answer my calls. When I told him, he slammed the door on my face. I had been sorrowful while he had been angry, and he took that anger out on me. Telling me it was my fault. I was too much of a burden for her. It was my fault she died. I should have moved out of her house a long time ago. She's gone... because of me.

Haneul had been working for my dad for over a year then, his work visa close to ending, and he had heard the whole thing. I had collapsed onto the ground sobbing. The others turned their heads and whispered behind my back. Haneul, picked on by the others because of his race, was the only one who came to my side to check if I was okay. He bought me lunch and took me to a park.

It was there I told him everything about my sister and how I didn't think I could move back in with my father or even live by myself. After telling him that, he told me about the ending of his work visa but how he wanted to continue working for my father. He proposed the deal of marriage. After we married, he could apply for a green card and I didn't have to live with my father or by myself. We would look after each other.

"It only lasted two years," I tell to my sister's grave. "I should have tried harder. Now that he's permanently gone, I wish there was a way I could go back in time and stop myself from filing the divorce.

"I would have cared for him, checked up on him." I sob, my cheeks suddenly soaked. "Hell, I would have at least found out how to tell him 'thank you' in his native language."

I stop talking and let the tears come, clenching my sides as I let it all out. I cry for Haneul and I cry for Evelynn, my tears watering the grass on her grave, just before blacking out.

**********

*Korean for mother-in-law on husband's side