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chang called in the late morning and said there was an emergency. soon e's older sister-in-law had called him and accused him of not taking care of her. the word is out that she is staying with me and that we are sleeping together. chang wants us to come over tonight so that he can talk with soon e about what she plans to do.
soon e wanted to walk to bancroft: mimi and ashley's school. we left the condo about 4:15. the sky was really threatening. i was sure we were going to get drowned. i thought, "if we get soaked, we'll just dry off."
soon e insisted in walking in her high heels so we had to stay on a hard surface and couldn't take any short cuts. we stopped several times and sat down in the grass. it was really warm. i carried her heavy coat. we held hands all the way. as we we got near bancroft, soon e said, "hwa-jong-shil" ("bathroom)". she stepped off the road and found some bushes.
after we saw the school, we walked to chang's. i was nervous because chang planned to ask her what her plans were for me. at the bottom of the steps to chang's front door, we stopped. I said, "sa-rang hae-yo" ("i love you").
once inside i asked myong not to serve any alcohol to soon e. she may have to make some critical decisions and i don't want alcohol to influence them. i'm just hoping that chang isn't drinking tonight.
we had a nice dinner: octopus, rice, kim chi, hamburger helper. after dinner, chang had a long talk with soon e about the phone call from her sister-in-law. she was very quiet. toward the end she wasn't talking at all. i got more nervous as time past.
finally, soon e went into the kitchen and started talking to myong. chang and i talked about what he and soon e had discussed. she said that she would make a decision about staying after she saw the girls. chang told her that wasn't a viable option. i could feel everything slipping away. could she have let us get so close and yet have decided not to stay?
there was a light rain when we left and we took myong's umbrella.
we were both exhausted and went to bed soon after we got back. but we woke up about 3 am and talked for quite a while. i began to feel that maybe she was going to stay after all.
this afternoon, we went to the korean store. i wanted to buy a korean music cd for soon e. at first she shook her head "no" but then relented . after looking at the ones available, she picked one with love songs by kim soo-hee a korean singer she really likes.
tonight we walked to south church for the christmas eve service. we held hands for most of the service. just being in that service with soon e and singing christmas carols made christmas eve perfect. if soon e weren't here i would be alone tonight.
after the service we walked and ran back to the condo. on the way soon e stepped up on a stone wall and ran along holding my hand. we played the elevator game (guess which of the two condo elevators we'll get) several times today and i lost the last two; getting a quite substantial thump on the forehead.
another nerve-wracking time tonight. soon e wanted to watch the 8mm videos. i asked her if she wanted anything to drink. she said "egg" (eggnog). she seems to really like it; suggesting that we get two cartons when we were shopping today.
while i was setting up the video she disappeared into melissa's bedroom and closed the door. she took the phone from our bedroom with here. i assumed that she was calling her husband. when she came out, she seem quite calm. we sat down on the couch. she moved close enough to me so that our shoulders were touching. i was determined not to make a move until she did. the next thing i knew, she leaned toward me and put her head on my shoulder. we held hands. then she got tired and wanted to lie down.
it was only 7:30 but soon e quickly went to sleep. i slipped out and put on a christmas cd.
soon e slept from about 7:30 last night until 10:00 this morning; almost 15 hours. as usual i was awake off and on all night. soon e said she was a "sleeping teh-gee" ("sleeping pig").
she told me how she used to sleep on her "hal-mo-nee's" ("grandmother's") shoulder and her halmoni would massage her all over.
i teased her about how hard it is to get her bra undone. she asked me if i hadn't learned from my first wife. i showed her the word "forgot".
i did a time line of my life showing birth, public school, university, work and the approximate years the kids were born.
soon e burped. i laughed and she apologized. i asked her how i should have responded. she gave me a phrase that a father would use to rebuke a child for burping.
i told her how much she is like mimi and ashley: climbing onto the wall at the cemetery last night and running to the end; also chewing gum. and, of course, that she's beautiful like them.
i was on the phone quite a while today with my kids wishing them a merry christmas. when i was talking to my grandson nicolas (marianna's son), i asked him if he remembered mimi, melissa, and ashley. he said, "yes. they're my sisters aren't they?" i laughed and corrected him, "they're your aunts".
soon e made a really nice lunch.
around 2:00, i started spaghetti sauce for dinner. when soon e saw me about add some garlic from a bottle, she suggested that she prepare some fresh garlic.
mimi called and wanted me to bring her and ashley's barbies to donna's. i told her i couldn't because of the court order. she was quite upset.
i had the speaker phone on and told soon e it was mimi. it was the first time since the girls left korea that she had heard one of their voices. soon e gasped in korean, "mimi-ga, aw-ma-ga" ("mimi, this is your mother"). soon e badly wanted to speak to her but i knew it wasn't a good idea given the situation.
after the phone call soon e was quite agitated. was she blaming me for not letting her try to talk to mimi? for some time we sat at the table and attempted. she was using too many words that i didn't know.
at one point she wanted me to call donna. then she said that donna, the girls, and i would be happy if she went back to korea. i assured her that that wasn't true. she wanted to know about donna and me and i tried to explain what happened.
we watched more 8mm tapes of the girls. as the afternoon wore on, i began to feel somewhat discouraged, after last night, i had been convinced that she was going to stay. now, i'm not feeling nearly as confident.
soon e and i were closely entwined from the time we went to bed around 9:45 until i sneaked out around 2 am. i knew that i had to get up and get some work done. 5 days without work have slipped by.
after breakfast this morning, soon e said that everybody in korea knows that she's sleeping with me. i think she's embarrassed. then she talked about the differences in our ages. i pointed out that in the U.S., an age difference like ours is quite acceptable. she wrote down 39 and 52 and said, "cho-wa-yo" ("ok"). after this talk i felt more discouraged.
in the late morning, soon e went into melissa's bedroom. she lay down on the bed and was writing a letter. i figured it was to her husband. of course, that made me quite nervous.
a little later, i saw that she had fallen asleep. i took the opportunity to call chang. he was rather hurt that soon e didn't call them yesterday. then i felt badly that i hadn't called him but the aftermath of mimi's call had left me a bit shaken. i don't want to feel that i have to call chang every time something happens but, after all, he is the only reason this thing has a prayer of succeeding.
i asked soon e if she wanted to listen the korean cd that she picked out on saturday. she did. i sat down beside her. she gave me the word for "sad" to describe the songs. ed, "cho-wa-yo" ("i like"). we held hands and she sang along with the cd. she told me how ashley would sing one of the songs on the cd: "na-mu ham-ni-da?" i asked her if she wanted to dance. she said that she didn't dance. but the next thing i knew, she stood up, took my hand and led me to the middle of the room. |
