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  I’ve never seen Dad in person. I’ve only seen him in photos a few times. When I was still in my mom’s womb, a drunk motorbike rider crashed into Dad’s accessories stand. Dad died instantly, leaving behind his cheap, colorful accessories. It became even more difficult for Mom to reach out to Granny. After leaving for love, she didn’t want to come back bringing all her misfortune into the house. And so seven years passed. During those years, Mom tried to get by and held out until she realized all this enduring was no use. Until the very brink of a breakdown. Until she finally realized she couldn’t bear it—bear me—on her own anymore.

  12

  Granny and I first met at McDonald’s. It was a strange day. Mom ordered two burger combos, something she rarely bought, but she didn’t touch a thing. Her gaze was fixed on the door, and whenever someone came in, she kept sitting up straight then slouching, her eyes widening then narrowing. When I later asked her what that was, Mom said that was one of the ways your body reacts when you are both afraid and relieved at the same time.

  Finally, when Mom got tired of waiting and had stood up to leave, the door swung open and the wind rushed in. There stood a big woman with broad shoulders. On her gray hair she had a purple hat with a feather. She looked like Robin Hood from one of those children’s books. That woman was my mom’s mom.

  Granny was very big. There were no other words to accurately describe her. If I had to try, I would say that she was like a huge, everlasting oak tree. Her body, voice, even her shadow was enormous. Her hands especially were thick like those of a strong-man. She sat in front of me, folded her arms, and pressed her lips tight. Mom lowered her eyes and mumbled to say something, but Granny stopped her with a low, thick voice.

  “Eat first.”

  Reluctantly, Mom started stuffing the cold burger into her mouth. There was a long silence between them even after Mom ate her last french fry. I licked my fingers to pick up and eat the crumbs on the plastic tray, one by one, waiting for their next move.

  Mom bit her lips and just looked down at her shoes in front of Granny’s firm folded arms. When there was literally nothing left on the tray, Mom finally worked up the courage to put her hands on my shoulders and say in a tiny, faint voice, “This is him.”

  Granny took a deep breath, leaned back in her chair, and grunted. Later, I asked Granny what that sound had meant. She said it meant something like, “You could’ve had a better life, poor wench.”

  “You’re a mess!” Granny shouted, so loud that her voice echoed throughout the whole place.

  People looked at us as Mom started to weep. Between her barely open lips, she poured out to Granny everything she had gone through in the past seven years. To me, it merely sounded like a series of sobbings and snifflings and the occasional blowing of her nose, but Granny managed to understand everything Mom said. Granny’s locked arms were released, her hands resting on her knees, the glow on her face now gone. While Mom was describing me, Granny’s face had even looked rather similar to Mom’s. After Mom finished talking, Granny remained silent for a while. Then her face suddenly changed.

  “If what your mom says is true, you’re surely a monster.”

  Mom gaped at Granny, who had now drawn her face close to mine, smiling. The corners of her mouth turned up at the edges while the outer corners of her eyes drooped. It was as if her eyes and mouth were about to meet.

  “And the most adorable little monster you are!”

  She stroked my head so much it hurt. That was how our life together began.

  13

  After moving in with Granny, Mom opened a used-book store. Of course it was only possible with Granny’s help. But Granny, who Mom always said loved to hold a grudge, grumbled at every opportunity.

  “I sold tteokbokki spicy rice cakes my whole life to pay for my only child’s education, but look at you, selling old books away instead of studying books. Way to go, you rotten wench.”

  Taken literally, rotten wench had an awful meaning, but even still, Granny showered Mom with it day and night.

  “What kind of mother calls her daughter a rotten wench, huh?”

  “What’s wrong with that? Everybody will eventually rot to death. I’m not cussing, just telling the truth.”

  Anyway, as we reunited with Granny, we were able to end the never-ending cycle of moving in and out, and finally settled in for good. At least Granny didn’t nag at Mom to get another job that paid more. Granny had an admiration for letters. That’s why she used to buy Mom many books despite being pressed for cash, and had hoped her daughter would grow up into a well-read, well-educated woman. In fact, Granny had wanted Mom to become a writer. Specifically, she had wanted her to be an “unmarried woman of words” who spent her entire life in solitude yet aged gracefully. That was the kind of life Granny would have wanted for herself, if only she could turn back the clock. It was part of the reason she gave Mom the name Jieun, which meant “author.”

  “Whenever I called her, Jieun, Jieun, I thought fancy words would flow from the tip of her pen. I had her read as many books as possible, hoping she’d become an intellectual. Who knew the only thing she’d learn from books was to fall head over heels in love with some ignorant punk. Aigoo . . .” Granny often complained.

  Because there already was a vibrant online market for used goods, no one thought that running a used-book store offline would make any money. But Mom was determined. A used-book store was the most impractical decision my practical mom had ever made. It had been a cherished dream of hers for many years. There had even been a time in her life when she had also dreamed of becoming a writer as Granny wished. But Mom said she dared not write about all the scars life had left her over the years. Writing would mean she’d have to sell her own life, and she didn’t have the confidence to do that. Basically, she didn’t have the guts to be a writer. Instead, she decided to sell books by other writers. Books that were already drenched in the scent of time. Not new ones that would regularly flow into the bookstores, but ones that Mom could handpick volume by volume. Hence, used books.

  The store was in an alley in a residential area in Suyu-dong, a quiet neighborhood that many people still call by its old name Suyu-ri. I doubted anybody would come all the way here to get used books, but Mom was confident. She had a knack for picking out old niche books that readers would love, plus she bought them at cheap prices. Our house was connected to the back of the store: two bedrooms, one living room, and a bathroom without a tub. Just enough for the three of us. We stepped out from our bedrooms to greet customers and when we felt lazy we just closed the store. The words “Used-Book Store” went up on the sparkling glass window, as did a sign that read “Jieun’s Bookstore.” The night before our opening day, Mom dusted off her hands and smiled.

  “No more moving. This is our home.”

  That became true. Granny often mumbled to herself in disbelief, because to her surprise, we managed to sell just enough books to afford our living expenses.

  14

  I also felt comfortable at our bookstore-home. Other people might say they “like” it or even “love” it, but in my vocabulary, “comfortable” was the best scale. To be more specific, I felt connected to the smell of old books. The first time I smelled them, it was as if I’d encountered something I already knew. I would flip open the books and smell them whenever I could, while Granny nagged me, asking what the point of smelling musty books was.

  Books took me to places I could never go otherwise. They shared the confessions of people I’d never met and lives I’d never witnessed. The emotions I could never feel, and the events I hadn’t experienced could all be found in those volumes. They were completely different by nature from TV shows or movies.

  The worlds of movies, soap operas, or cartoons were already so meticulous that there were no blanks left for me to fill in. These stories on screen existed exactly as they had been filmed and drawn. For example, if a book had the description, “A blond lady sits cross-legged on a brown cushion in a hexagon-shaped house,
” a visual adaptation would have everything else decided as well, from her skin tone and expression to even the length of her fingernails. There was nothing left for me to change in that world.

  But books were different. They had lots of blanks. Blanks between words and even between lines. I could squeeze myself in there and sit, or walk, or scribble down my thoughts. It didn’t matter if I had no idea what the words meant. Turning the pages was half the battle.

  I shall love thee.

  Even if I can never know whether my love would be a sin or poison or honey, I shall not stop this journey of loving thee.

  The words didn’t speak to me at all, but it didn’t matter. It was enough that my eyes moved along the words. I smelled the books, my eyes slowly tracing the shape and strokes of each letter. To me, that was as sacred as eating almonds. Once I’d felt around a letter long enough with my eyes, I read it out loud. I, shall, love, thee. Even if, I can, neverknow, whethermy, love-would, bea, sinor, poison-or, honey-I, shallnot, stopthisjour-, neyof, lov,-ingthee.

  I’d chew on the letters, savor them, and spit them out with my voice. I’d do this again and again until I memorized all of them. Once you repeat the same word over and over, there comes a time when its meaning fades. Then at some point, letters go beyond letters, and words beyond words. They start to sound like a meaningless, alien language. That’s when I actually feel those incomprehensible words like “love” or “eternity” start speaking to me. I told Mom about this fun game.

  “Anything will lose its meaning if you repeat it often enough,” she said. “At first you feel you are getting the hang of it, but then as time goes by, you feel like the meaning’s changing and becoming tarnished. Then, finally, it gets lost. Completely fades to white.”

  Love, Love, Love, Love, Love, Lo, ve, Looo, veee, Love, LoveLo,-veLo,-veLo.

  Eternity, Eternity, Eternity, Eter,-nity, Eeeter,-niiity.

  Now the meanings were gone. Just like the inside of my head, which had been a blank slate from day one.

  15

  Time passed through the endless cycle of seasons—spring, summer, fall, winter—and back to spring. Mom and Granny bickered, often laughed out loud, then grew quiet when dusk fell. When the sun painted the sky red, Granny took a swig of soju and let out a satisfied Kyahh, and Mom chimed in with her throaty, “So good,” finishing Granny’s sentence.

  Mom was popular. She’d had a few more boyfriends even after we’d started living with Granny. Granny said the reason men were after Mom, despite her eccentric personality, was because she looked exactly like Granny herself when she was younger. Mom pouted but conceded, “Yeah, your granny sure was pretty,” although no one could verify that statement. I wasn’t all that curious about her boyfriends. Her dating life followed the same pattern. It always started with men approaching her and ended with her clinging onto them. Granny said all they wanted from Mom was casual when Mom was looking for father material.

  Mom was slim. She wore chestnut-colored eyeliner that made her big, dark, round eyes look even bigger. Her straight seaweed-black hair fell down to her waist, and her lips were always painted red like a vampire’s. I sometimes flipped through her old photo albums and found out that she’d looked the same throughout her adolescence until now almost reaching her forties. Her clothes, her hairstyle, even her face all stayed the same. As if she hadn’t aged a bit, save for growing taller inch by inch. She didn’t like being called rotten wench by Granny, so I gave her a new nickname, unrotting lady. But she only sulked, saying she didn’t like that either.

  Granny also didn’t seem to age. Her gray hair turned neither blacker nor whiter, and neither her large body nor the amount of alcohol she drank by the bowlful showed signs of decrease as the years went by.

  Every winter solstice, we went up to the rooftop, put a camera on the bricks, and took a family photo. Between Mom the Ageless Vampire and Granny the Giant, I was the only one growing and changing.

  * * *

  That year. The year when everything happened. It was winter. A few days before the year’s first snowfall, I found something strange on Mom’s face. I thought short strands of her hair were stuck to her face, so I reached out to take them off. But they weren’t her hair. They were wrinkles. I didn’t know when they’d appeared, those deep and long lines. That was the first time I realized that Mom was getting old.

  “Mom, you have wrinkles.”

  She beamed at me, which made her wrinkles longer. I tried to picture Mom aging but couldn’t. It was hard to believe.

  “The only thing left for me now is to grow old,” she said, her smile gone for some reason. She stared blankly into the distance, then slowly closed her eyes. What would’ve gone on in her mind? Was she imagining herself laughing like an old grandma in her golden years?

  But she was wrong. It turned out that she wouldn’t have the chance to age.

  16

  When Granny washed dishes or wiped the floor, she would hum a random tune, adding her own lyrics.

  Corn in summer, sweet potatoes in winter,

  Yummy, sweet, tasty, and sugary.

  Granny used to sell them to passersby at the Express Bus Terminal when she was younger. She would squat somewhere in front of the entrance. The only luxury that young Granny could afford was to roam around the terminal after work. She was especially enchanted by the decorations on Buddha’s Birthday and Christmas. Rows of lotus lanterns hung outside the terminal from late spring to early summer, and Christmas ornaments adorned it in winter. It was both her workplace and her wonderland. She said she’d wanted those sloppy lotus lanterns and fake Christmas trees so badly. So when she opened a tteokbokki stall with her savings from selling sweet potatoes and steamed corn, the first thing she did was buy pretty lotus lanterns and a miniature Christmas tree. Seasons didn’t matter to her. All year round, lotus lanterns and Christmas ornaments hung side by side over her stall.

  Even after Granny closed her store and Mom opened the used-book store, one of Granny’s ironclad rules was to always celebrate Buddha’s Birthday and Christmas.

  “No wonder Buddha and Jesus were saints. They made sure to avoid overlapping birthdays for us to enjoy both holidays. But if I had to choose one birthday over the other, my favorite is, of course, Christmas Eve!” said Granny, stroking my hair. Christmas Eve was my birthday.

  Every Christmas Eve, we’d eat out to celebrate my birthday. That year, on Christmas Eve, we were getting ready to go out, as usual. It was freezing and damp. The sky was cloudy, and the heavy, moist air seeped into my skin. Why go through all the hassle, it’s just a birthday, I thought to myself, buttoning up my coat. And I really meant it. We shouldn’t have gone out that day.

  17

  The city was full of crowds. The only difference from other Christmas Eves was that it began to snow right after we got on the bus. There was an endless traffic jam as a radio broadcaster reported that the heavy snowfall would continue the next day, marking the first white Christmas in a decade. As long as I could remember, I’d never had snow on my birthday until that year.

  The snow piled up fearfully fast as if it meant to devour the whole city. The once gray city now looked much softer. Maybe because of the view, people on the bus didn’t seem too annoyed by the traffic. Mesmerized, they stared out the window and took pictures with their cell phones.

  “I want naengmyeon,” said Granny.

  “And hot pork mandu,” Mom followed, smacking her lips.

  “And hot soup,” I chimed in. They looked at each other and giggled. It must’ve reminded them of the other day when I had asked why people rarely ate naengmyeon in winter. They probably thought I craved it.

  After dozing off on the bus, we got off and walked along Cheonggyecheon stream endlessly. It was a white world. I looked up to see snowflakes rushing down. Mom yelled and stuck her tongue out to taste the snow like a child.

  It turned out that the restaurant with a long tradition where Granny had been was no longer there in the corner of the alleyway. B
y the time the moisture that soaked the hems of our pants crept up and felt cold against our calves, we had finally found another store that Mom had just looked up on her cell phone. It was a franchise restaurant surrounded by rows of coffee shops.

  The words “Pyongyang-style Naengmyeon” were on the wall in big letters, and as if to prove it, the cold noodles were so soggy that they broke into pieces as soon as they touched my teeth, and that was not even the worst part. The soup was stale, the big mandus were burned, and the naengmyeon broth tasted like Sprite. Even someone who had naengmyeon for the first time would know it was bad and sloppy. Despite that, Mom and Granny devoured and emptied their dishes. I guess sometimes ambiance can give you appetite more than the actual taste does. That day it was the snow, of course. Granny and Mom were all smiles that day. I put a huge ice cube inside my mouth and rolled it around with my tongue.

  “Happy birthday,” Granny said. “Thank you for being my son,” Mom added, squeezing my hand. Happy birthday. Thank you for being my son. Somewhat clichéd. But there are days when you are supposed to say those things.

  We stood up to leave without deciding where to go next. While Granny and Mom were paying, I spotted a plum-flavored candy in a basket on the counter. It was actually an empty candy wrapper someone had left there. A waiter saw me fidgeting with it, smiled, and told me to wait and he would get some more.

  Granny and Mom went outside first. The snow was still falling hard, and Mom looked so happy, jumping up and down, trying to catch snowflakes. Granny shook with laughter at the sight of her daughter and turned, beaming, to look at me from the other side of the window. The waiter came back with a large, new candy bag. He tore the seal and out came the candy, filling up the basket like tiny presents.