Chapter 12. At the Cafe
At six in the evening, Eun-chae arrived in front of the cafe her mother had mentioned. It was somewhere she had passed by several times when she was still working at the company.
When she opened the door and stepped inside, her mother was already sitting by the window. It was the first time Eun-chae had seen her face in two months.
“Mom.”
“You’re here? Sit down.”
Eun-chae sat across from her. An awkward silence passed between them for a moment. When the server came over, they both ordered Americanos.
“You look better.”
Her mother spoke first.
“Do I? Maybe it’s because I’ve been working in the kitchen garden every day lately.”
“Your complexion’s brighter, too. You’re completely different from when you were working at the company.”
Eun-chae gave a faint smile. Her mother’s eyes seemed more cautious than before.
When the coffee arrived, her mother wrapped both hands around her cup and remained silent for a long while. Eun-chae waited without pressing her.
“Eun-chae.”
“Yeah?”
“You said Grandma didn’t tell you about what happened back then, right?”
“Yeah. Gran said it wasn’t something she should tell me.”
Her mother nodded and took a sip of coffee.
“That’s right. I’m the one who should tell you.”
Eun-chae held her breath and looked at her mother. At last, she was about to hear the story she had wondered about for so long.
“But, Eun-chae...”
Her mother set down her cup and looked at her.
“Today... I’ll only tell you a little, not everything.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think either of us could handle it if I told you everything all at once.”
Eun-chae felt a little deflated by that, but at the same time, she understood. Her mother’s expression looked that heavy.
“Then where are you going to start?”
Her mother glanced out the window for a moment before speaking.
“When I was twenty-four, I stayed at Grandma’s guesthouse for about two months. It was three years before I had you.”
“Three years before? So that was before you met Dad?”
Instead of answering, her mother gave a faint smile.
“Back then, at that guesthouse... I met someone.”
Eun-chae’s eyes widened.
“Who?”
Just as her mother seemed about to say more, her phone rang. Eun-chae caught a glimpse of the name on her mother’s screen.
*“Kim Mal-soon (Grandma)”*
Her mother’s hand paused above the phone. Eun-chae held her breath when she saw the name on the screen.
“...Answer it,” Eun-chae said quietly.
Her mother pressed the call button.
“Yes, Mother.”
Her grandmother’s voice seeped faintly through the phone. Eun-chae couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she could see her mother’s expression growing more and more guarded.
“Yes... I’m with Eun-chae right now.”
A brief silence.
“No, we’re only talking a little at a time. Don’t worry.”
Her mother glanced at Eun-chae. A subtle emotion flickered in her eyes.
“Yes, I understand. I’ll hang up now.”
After ending the call, her mother set the phone down on the table.
“What did Gran say?”
“...She said not to rush and tell you everything.”
A wave of frustration rose in Eun-chae at those words.
“If you both know everything, why are you being so careful? Is it something bad?”
Her mother lowered her eyes for a moment.
“It’s not something bad. But... it’s something that involves the feelings of several people.”
“Several people?”
“Me, Grandma, and...”
Her mother couldn’t finish and took the coffee cup in her hands again.
Eun-chae wanted to press her for more, but stopped when she saw her mother’s expression. It seemed unlikely she would hear the whole story today.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll stop here for today.”
Her mother’s shoulders relaxed as if in relief.
“Thank you for understanding.”
“But can I ask you just one thing?”
“What is it?”
“Do you still see that person?”
Her mother turned her gaze toward the window. It took her a while to answer.
“...No. We lost touch a long time ago.”
Eun-chae sensed there was something deeper behind that answer, but decided not to ask anything else.
“Okay. Tell me the rest when you’re ready.”
Her mother nodded with a faint smile.
“Okay. But, Eun-chae.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s one thing you need to know. What happened back then has nothing to do with you. It’s just something between your mother and your grandmother, so don’t worry about it too much.”
Eun-chae nodded, but a lingering curiosity remained in one corner of her heart.
As they left the cafe, her mother gave Eun-chae’s shoulder a light pat.
“Take care of getting the house organized, and call me anytime if it gets hard.”
“Okay. You be careful getting home, too, Mom.”
They parted in front of the subway station. Eun-chae watched her mother’s retreating figure for a long while.
Eun-chae waved toward her mother’s back as she walked away.
“Bye, Mom! It’s been so long, but we didn’t get to stay together very long.”
Her mother turned around, smiled, and waved back.
“Next time, let’s spend more time together. When I come visit the guesthouse.”
“Yeah! You better come.”
After watching her mother disappear down the subway station stairs, Eun-chae was left alone on the street. The evening breeze blew coolly.
On the walk home, Eun-chae kept turning over their conversation in her mind. Her mother at twenty-four, the two months she had spent at the guesthouse, someone she had met there, and the fact that they had lost touch long ago.
She felt as if she were holding only a few pieces of a puzzle in her hands. The rest remained shrouded in darkness.
When she arrived home and opened the front door, silence rushed over her. It was the house she had returned to after two months, yet it still felt unfamiliar. Eun-chae turned on the lights and stood in the living room, letting herself feel that unfamiliarity for a moment.
“Let’s start with the packing.”
Eun-chae opened the closet and began taking out her clothes one by one and putting them into boxes. The suits she had worn to work came out first. She set aside a few outfits to donate and packed the rest to take with her.
While cleaning out her desk drawers, she found her employee ID. Her expression in the photo was much stiffer than it was now. Eun-chae stared at it for a long time, then placed it in the box at the very bottom of the drawer. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it away.
As she organized the bookshelf, an old album caught her eye. It was a family album with a faded cover. Eun-chae sat on the sofa and opened it.
There were pictures from her childhood, arranged in order. Her first birthday party, her kindergarten graduation, a grade-school field trip. Then her hand stopped on one photograph.
It showed her mother looking much younger, standing in front of an unfamiliar guesthouse yard. A sign was faintly visible in the background: “Sandeul Haven Guesthouse.”
And beside her mother stood an unfamiliar man.
“Every single one is a memory...”
Eun-chae murmured as she turned the pages. Then her gaze returned to that photograph.
“But who is this?”
The man in the picture looked to be in his late twenties. Dressed comfortably, he was smiling naturally beside her mother. Though he was a stranger, something about him felt vaguely familiar.
Eun-chae carefully removed the photograph from the album. There was handwriting on the back.
*“Sandeul Haven Guesthouse, That Summer”*
There was no date. Eun-chae turned the picture over and studied the front again. She examined the man’s face closely. Something about his eyes looked familiar.
“I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before.”
She searched her memory, but nothing came to her. Eun-chae took out her phone and snapped a picture of the photograph. She felt like she would need to look at it again later.
As she continued turning through the album, Eun-chae’s hand stopped. There were no more pictures of the man after that photograph. It was as if that one scene from that summer had been cut out and left on its own.
“Could he be the person Mom was talking about?”
Eun-chae slipped the photograph back into the album and carefully placed it on top of the box. It was the first thing she decided to pack among the belongings she would take from Seoul.
Eun-chae continued sorting through her things until late into the night. Once everything was organized, the room felt bare. It was hard to believe that someone had been living there only a few days ago.
Sitting by the living room window, Eun-chae opened her phone and looked again at the picture she had taken earlier. She zoomed in and studied the man’s face.
Suddenly, she remembered her grandmother’s words.
*“You ask your mother about that yourself. It’s not my story to tell.”*
And her mother’s words, too.
*“What happened back then has nothing to do with you.”*
They had both stopped at the same point. Eun-chae looked at the photograph one more time, then set her phone down.
“I can find out little by little.”
The Seoul nightscape spread out beyond the window. It was a view she had seen every day until two months ago, but tonight it felt strangely unfamiliar.
Eun-chae turned off the lights and lay down. Tomorrow, she would finish sorting through the rest of her things and notify the real estate agent that she was terminating her lease. And in a few days, she would return to that yard, to the kitchen garden, to Grandma.
Author’s Note
I’ve dropped in a new hook with the unfamiliar man in the album. I’ll adjust when and how Eun-chae unravels this mystery according to the direction set by the main writer.