He's coming..
He was coming… Junhee had been worried that her mother-in-law might not pick up either, but after a few rings, the familiar voice came through the phone. Yet the voice that reached her now sounded nothing like the one she remembered from years ago. It carried no energy at all, as if the woman on the other end had been completely drained. Had she been crying? Her voice was terribly hoarse. Junhee felt guilty even asking if she was all right.
After a brief exchange of greetings, Junhee suggested it might be better to meet in person. There was a short hesitation on the line, but thankfully her mother-in-law agreed without protest.
She met Hye-sun at a nearby café. The moment Junhee jumped up to greet her, she was struck by how much the woman had changed. Only a few years had passed since the divorce, yet Hye-sun looked as if decades had crashed down on her all at once. Her complexion was so poor it was painful to see. She was gaunt, her body painfully thin. The shadows carved deep into her face were so dark they seemed bottomless. She kept limping on one leg, and even that sight filled Junhee with pity.
Facing her, Junhee suddenly didn’t know where to begin. She hesitated, words failing her.
“Oh! First… would you like something to eat? Coffee is fine, right? If you haven’t had a meal, maybe some dessert…”
“It’s all right… Just a warm coffee will do.”
“Yes! I’ll order for us.”
Junhee asked her to wait a moment, then went to the counter and ordered two coffees. When she returned, an awkward silence settled over them. Hye-sun remained completely listless, head bowed low. It made sense. She had lost both her daughter and granddaughter in one blow. Her heart must have been torn to shreds. Junhee herself felt as if her chest were collapsing; how much worse must it be for her mother-in-law?
Hye-sun already knew the full story of how Junhee and So-yeon’s marriage had ended in divorce. As the head of the family, she understood how much she herself had lacked. Still, their relationship had never been bad. In fact, it had been quite good. Especially for Junhee, who had grown up under strict parents, her warm and affectionate mother-in-law had felt more like a real mother.
But this was their first meeting since the divorce, so the awkwardness was inevitable.
“Um… how have you been… feeling?”
She couldn’t keep hesitating forever. Junhee carefully broke the silence. A heavy sigh came from Hye-sun, followed by a voice thick with tears.
“Living… isn’t living anymore… I’m just getting through each day because I can’t die.”
“Oh… you shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Mr. Lee… nothing is left for me now. My granddaughter is gone. Even my daughter has disappeared. How am I supposed to go on living like this? Who am I supposed to live for?”
Her trembling voice stabbed into Junhee’s heart like a knife.
“Still… this is exactly when you need to gather your strength. That’s the only way we can find So-yeon and So-hee.”
At that moment, Hye-sun’s gaze met Junhee’s. There was a trace of resentment in those eyes. Junhee found it impossible to meet her mother-in-law’s stare directly. The look pierced her with overwhelming guilt. In the end, she looked away.
“If only you had stayed by her side… Why… why did you do that? I trusted you so much. How could you?”
“That’s…”
“She lost her father when she was so young and had to grow up struggling. Wouldn’t it have been better if you had stayed and supported her? Why did you give up so easily? Why…”
“I-I’m sorry.”
The flood of accusations left her speechless. Of course Junhee regretted it too. Just as her mother-in-law said, if they hadn’t divorced, if only they hadn’t, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe they wouldn’t have lost So-hee. Maybe they wouldn’t have lost So-yeon. Yes, perhaps it would have been different.
Junhee let out a heavy sigh. Just then the pager vibrated, signaling their coffees were ready. She asked Hye-sun to wait again and went to the counter. Suddenly she wanted a cigarette.
“Did… the police contact you at all?”
“Nothing… not a single call.”
“Ah… did So-yeon ever mention where she might go?”
She wondered if asking these questions served any purpose, but Junhee still had many things she needed to know. After all, So-yeon had once been her wife, and their daughter So-hee was involved. She couldn’t simply sit back and do nothing, even if they were now strangers after the divorce.
She asked about many things, but her mother-in-law seemed to have no useful information. Hye-sun clutched the warm coffee with both hands and kept sighing as if she could barely breathe. Junhee felt equally lost. Not knowing how to ease the suffocating frustration, she simply sipped her coffee endlessly. The urge to smoke grew stronger with every passing minute. It looked like she wouldn’t be able to quit anytime soon.
Then Hye-sun’s expression turned strange, and she spoke.
“Ah… right before So-yeon disappeared, something odd happened.”
“Odd? What do you mean?”
“It’s… hard to explain… I still don’t understand what happened, but before So-yeon vanished, she received a call from So-hee.”
“What? That… what are you saying…”
Junhee couldn’t make sense of it. A call from So-hee? Wasn’t So-hee missing? Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at her mother-in-law. Hye-sun, for her part, still wore a doubtful, uneasy expression. The wrinkles on her face seemed to deepen with worry. She looked as if she could hardly believe it herself.
“It wasn’t just that one day… she says So-hee had called several times before. Each time the child kept asking for her mom. At first… I didn’t believe it. How could I? But… that day, the day So-yeon disappeared, the call came again in the evening. And I heard it too. Through the phone, I heard my granddaughter’s voice calling, ‘Mom…’”
“What? Is that true? Was it really So-hee? Then what about the police? If you told them, couldn’t they find out where she is?”
At the mention of the police, Hye-sun’s face twisted bitterly.
“They… didn’t believe a word we said. They treated us like we were crazy.”
“But… there must have been a call log, right? If they traced the records, at least they could tell if it was real or fake?”
“The calls… came up as restricted numbers…”
“What?”
The words “restricted number” made Junhee’s heart drop. A chill ran down her spine.
“The police said they can’t trace calls like that. They tried asking the carrier to track the location before, but they couldn’t find anything.”
“The police… didn’t believe you?”
“They didn’t. Not at all…”
Junhee paused for a moment, then asked more seriously.
“Then did you hear the voice too, Mother? Did it really sound exactly like So-hee?”
“So-yeon and I both heard it together! Please believe me! It was exactly So-hee’s voice! I can’t prove it, but do you think I wouldn’t recognize my own precious granddaughter’s voice? And So-yeon loved that child more than anything. How could a mother not know her daughter’s voice?”
“Well… that’s true…”
“But there was something a little strange about it.”
“Strange how?”
Hye-sun hesitated, taking a sip of her now-cooling coffee before continuing.
“It was definitely So-hee’s voice… but something felt off.”
“Off… in what way?”
“I don’t know how to describe it. No matter how I think about it, it was So-hee’s voice… but it felt too strange. Almost like it wasn’t the voice of a living person…”
Junhee grew even more unsettled. Hye-sun herself looked deeply confused as she spoke. It was unmistakably their granddaughter So-hee’s voice, yet it had felt eerily alien.
And at Hye-sun’s words, Junhee suddenly remembered the nightmares that had been tormenting her lately. The restricted call she had received today was exactly the same. The voice on the phone had clearly been So-yeon’s. No matter how she thought about it, it was So-yeon. Yet it carried that same subtly alien feeling… as if it didn’t belong to someone alive.
“That’s not all. Before So-yeon disappeared… I think she saw So-hee in the apartment complex. So-yeon went to find her. After getting that call from So-hee, she left to look for their daughter… and she never came back. I have no idea if the child ascended to heaven or sank into the earth. There’s no trace of her.”
Finally, Hye-sun could hold back no longer and burst into tears. The sight left Junhee utterly bewildered. What on earth was happening to them? Her tangled thoughts brought on a pounding headache.