Because We Can Understand Each Other's Pain
Remarriage.
I never thought that word would come out of my daughter's mouth. Why? Why on earth?
Well. It wasn't unthinkable. Min-ah was an adult now. It was time she stood on her own—the moment my duty to raise her had vanished. So perhaps she'd wondered whether her father might remarry, now, for the sake of his own life. That kind of thought. She had every reason to have it.
That's right. Back when Min-ah was in middle school... I had thought about remarrying myself.
My daughter's elementary school graduation.
"Daaaad~~."
She didn't mind in the slightest that only her father had come. I, on the other hand, was painfully aware of it. Everyone else had arrived as a pair. Fathers and mothers moved through the hall hand in hand with their children. They took pictures. They looked happy, and my daughter and I looked endlessly miserable. It felt as if every eye in the place was on us.
I had no idea whether the people around us were actually murmuring those things. A kind of panic simply crashed over me. My breath locked. Sweat broke out. The anxiety was enough to drive me insane. I was so terrified I couldn't even move a finger.
"What's wrong, Dad?"
But she took my hand and held it tight, her face full of worry, and thanks to that I managed to endure it.
"Dad's sorry."
After the ceremony I had no choice but to apologize to her. The man who was supposed to be her father hadn't been able to keep his head on straight—he'd just stood there pouring sweat. The instant it ended, I'd seized her hand and bolted from the hall.
"Why are you sorry, Dad?"
"You probably wanted to take more pictures with your friends after the ceremony... but Dad said we had to leave right away."
She smiled, utterly unguarded.
"I'm already so happy just because you came."
That face. That smile. There was nothing false in it. She had poured every bit of her gratitude into the single fact that I had shown up.
I was glad, and I was sorry. Something began to well up in my chest. I scooped her up into my arms.
"Ah...! Dad...!"
"Dad's so grateful......"
Tears spilled over.
"Dad... are you crying? Did I do something wrong?"
"No... it's not that, sweetheart... it's just that you're so good... Dad's... Dad's......"
Was it sorrow? Shame? Or joy? I was a mess of feelings I couldn't even name.
After that day, somewhere inside my heart began to stay tight and restless. Thanks to my daughter's generous spirit, nothing had actually gone wrong at the graduation. But the lack inside me was real. That day had made it painfully clear how a family missing a mother—missing a wife—was treated by the world.
In this country, a vacancy in the family is fatal. That was why it had to be filled.
After being burned by my ex-wife, I never saw any woman except a female friend from university. I had absolutely no desire to remarry. My daughter's opinion mattered, too.
"Just do whatever you want, Dad. I'll go along with whatever you decide."
Seventh grade. Still so young, and yet an age both mature and raw. Fortunately, she told me she was all right with my bringing in a stepmother. Even so, my own indecisiveness meant it took a considerable time before I actually made a decision.
And then, two years later, I joined a matchmaking agency. I signed up for the most expensive package. I was a divorced man with a child, but luckily I was a doctor from Hankuk University—and the director of a neighborhood clinic, at that—so I was given a high grade.
I had only two conditions. A woman who could love my daughter completely. A woman who wasn't after my money. Looks, means—none of that mattered in the slightest.
"Oh my, hello. You're so handsome. What do your parents do?"
"You're a clinic director, I hear? What kind of car do you drive?"
"Have you thought about moving to Seoul? I work in the Seoul area, so Gyeonggi is a little difficult for me."
They were women with excellent qualifications, but after only a few words my whole body wanted to reject them. It was understandable enough. Every one of them focused exclusively on my assets, and on whether they would be free to spend those assets however they liked.
Well... maybe I was the strange one. A matchmaking agency. A place where men and women who had failed at marriage gathered to try to buy a marriage with money. Looking there for a woman who wanted none of that was a paradox in itself.
Had I met around twenty of them? I was reaching my limit. I went into each meeting clinging to the faintest thread of hope, and came away with nothing.
The manager assigned to me was dying to sink her teeth into me. By her own standards she carefully selected only the very best members and paired them with me. That was fair enough. My credentials were perfect. My looks were perfect. I didn't even have the belly that usually showed up at my age. On top of that, my manners were good. Apparently every woman I'd turned down had called, begging to meet me just one more time.
She told me I ought to compromise, at least a little. I couldn't. Marriage itself wasn't what mattered. This was a search to fill the vacancy in our family—so that I could be happy, so that my daughter could be happy. I was a man who had gotten divorced over money. If I abandoned my conditions, it would be worse than not doing it at all.
I was exhausted. So I told her. I would meet one more person, and then I was done.
The manager's eyes were full of resolve. She seemed to have put in considerable effort to match me with someone I might actually like.
"Hello. My name is Kim Hye-jin."
"Hello. I'm Cha Eun-hyeok."
The woman who appeared was one year younger than I was. According to the manager, she was a divorcée with a daughter of her own. She'd said this woman would suit me better than the high-spec members, so I agreed to see her as my last meeting.
She was a woman whose voice was calm, and whose appearance was just as composed.
"The weather's lovely. Shall we walk a little?"
Unusually, she was a woman who suggested we walk the moment we met. So we started down the lakeside path nearby. It was the season when the cherry blossoms had bloomed and were beginning to fall. Petals drifted down like snow.
"How did you come to get divorced?"
She was the first person who had ever asked me that. I was so taken aback I stammered.
"Ah... I'm sorry if that was rude. I didn't actually want to hear yours. I brought it up because I was going to tell you mine."
We each held a cup of warm tea against the blossom-season chill. She wrapped both hands around the black tea she'd been holding in one.
"I lived being beaten by my ex-husband."
"...Pardon?"
"I'm sorry. Even so, I thought I ought to tell you the pain I've been through, if we're going to get to know each other properly."
A shadow lay across her face. And yet she did not look like a woman who had been swallowed by that shadow.
"I thought I was doing really well in my twenties, in my own way. I was lucky enough to pass the bar in my twenties, and I was much... younger-looking than I am now."
"You're still extraordinarily beautiful."
A faint flush rose in her face.
"...So I married according to the conditions. He was a handsome businessman. On our wedding day, I thought I had everything. Other people envied me, too."
"......"
She caught a falling petal.
"After we married—after I got pregnant—I found out. I was... a doll. Something for him to show off to his family."
With a flick, she let the petal fall to the ground again.
"There was another woman. When his parents opposed it, he pretended to marry me on the surface, and lived a double life with the woman he actually loved."
She took a sip of her tea, as if her throat hurt.
"When I confronted him, the result was assault. But I couldn't get a divorce. I already had a daughter in my womb."
"Then......"
"I endured it for ten years. For my daughter. But then... his parents suddenly passed away. The very next day after the funeral, he told me he wanted a divorce."
She laughed, as if emptied out.
...Listening to her made my chest uneasy. And then anger surged up. How could there be a man that vile...... Until now I had thought I was the pitiful one. I wasn't.
"I've been through a great deal of pain. And I never want to go through that kind of pain again. I realized it the moment we met. You're not the right person for me, Eun-hyeok."
"Ah... no. That isn't true."
"You're handsome, you have a good body, and you're a doctor, you said? I think you'd be better off meeting someone else rather than me."
She gave a little bow.
"Let's part here. Thanks to you, I got to enjoy the flowers and a warm cup of tea. Thank you."
"Ah... well... about a meal......"
"Do two people with different purposes really need to go as far as sharing a meal?"
She smiled. It was a lonely face. What was that? Was she giving up in advance, assuming I was too good for her?
"Well then... I'll be going."
A person with many wounds. And because of that, a person who mistook me for someone without any. A person who blamed her own inadequacy more than she tried to catch a successful man.
Yes.
I seized her hand.
"...What?"
This is the one.
"I've finally found someone I can really talk with."
"...Ah... I......"
Her face was turning red. Color began, little by little, to return to a face that until now had looked like that of a dead woman.
"I can't tell my story here. I know a good pasta place nearby. Would you listen to mine there?"
"...Yes......I'd like that."
And that was how I had my first real meeting with a proper candidate for remarriage.