I don’t know. My head is aching and I can’t concentrate. The elevator speeds to the fourteenth floor and then the doors open. No one moves.
“Hara?” Yujun says gently. “This is our floor.”
I curl my trembling fingers around the strap of my purse and follow Yujun off the elevator. My sandals slap against the wooden floor and down toward a set of glass doors. Inside, a slickly dressed woman rises and bows. I barely manage a nod in return.
“This way, Hara.” Yujun touches my elbow lightly. Behind us I hear the slight inhale of breath as if this casual touch is shocking. I turn down the hallway. On either side are glass walls with a thick band of frosting starting about two feet off the floor and ending right at my shoulder. I can see people’s heads above the privacy screens and I keep peering over them in the misguided belief that I will suddenly recognize my mother. But today is no different than the one where I stood watching all the workers stream out of the building. There are many faces but none are familiar.
The corridors of glass give way to another large reception area dominated by a gigantic marble desk with white and chrome accessories. A very attractive woman sits behind the wall of marble. To the right of the desk are a set of four curved white leather chairs. Behind her is an enormous abstract painting with slashes of red and blue set on a white canvas. Besides the black suit of the receptionist, the painting provides the sole color.
My already chilled hands grow colder.
“Park Seolhyun, is Choi Wansu available? Someone is here to see her.” Yujun uses English, presumably for my benefit.
“She is. Does your . . .” The woman is unsure of how to address me and I make no move to clarify because I don’t know what my role is here. Daughter? Stranger? Investigator?
“My friend,” Yujun answers.
That surprises the woman, but she’s too professional to allow more than a slight eyebrow raise that I might have missed had I not been staring intently. The woman presses a button and murmurs something in Korean. Last night’s hotteok climbs into my throat. I stumble back and Yujun has to reach out to brace me. The shock in the secretary’s face is too great to hide this time, but the importance of that doesn’t register. I’m thinking about something else. Do I need to meet my mother? What’s it going to solve? Will I suddenly feel like I fit in with all the other people wearing stripes? Or is it polka dots? I don’t even know anymore. Half of me thinks I should grab Yujun’s hand and drag him outside to the river where we can eat gimbap and drink beer and kiss and pretend this never happened. The thoughts whip up like a tornado, swirling around with gale-force winds that threaten to flay me open from the inside. I can’t even remember the purpose of this whole excursion. Something about polka dots and stripes and my neglectful father and my own inability to come to terms with my identity. None of that is going to be resolved by coming face-to-face with her—
All of my thoughts dissolve when the door opens. Choi Wansu is tall—aided by four-inch heels. Her frame is encased in a smart cream-colored suit with a pale yellow shirt. Needle-thin gold spikes dangle from her ears. Red adorns her lips. She has jet-black hair cut into an angular chin-length bob. Rectangular glasses slide down her nose because, like me, she has almost no bridge. Unconsciously, I reach up and stroke my bridge bone. We barely look alike except for the eyes. Our eyes are exactly the same, and in them I see shock and something that looks like resignation before Wansu blinks and then there’s nothing but dark glass, as if I was staring at the Han River on a windless night.
“You have your father’s face,” Wansu says, breaking the silence.
My hand drops to my throat. I apply some pressure, maybe instinctively, maybe subconsciously, so I don’t scream or vomit. It’s hard to get the words out past the giant lump, but I manage to say, “I guess so.”
Wansu steps aside and pushes the door open. “Come in.”
“Eomma?” Yujun is confused. His mind is trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together but he doesn’t like the picture they’re forming so he scatters them and tries again. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like is happening as Yujun’s gaze ping-pongs from me to his stepmother and back again.
“I’ll see you at home tonight, son. Please, come in,” she repeats to me.
I grab onto Yujun as if he’s a life raft in the middle of a hurricane. Don’t leave me, I plead silently. I don’t know what I’m doing here.