A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it.
“I know.” My mom’s reply trembled. “I can’t take that pain back. But I can tell you the truth now. All of it.”
I looked at her again, trying to reconcile the woman who held me through nightmares and packed me lunches for school, with the one who’d hidden something so pivotal. Maybe both versions could exist at the same time. People were complex, after all.
“I loved him,” I murmured. “I still do.”
She reached out slowly, setting a hand on my knee. “Then there’s only one thing left to do.”
“What?”
“Fight.”
I stared at her, searching for a catch, a condition. But there wasn’t one. Just the quiet, hard-earned honesty of a motherwho’d made a mistake and wanted to make it right. I chose to believe she wanted to make it right and to fix things between us.
I looked down at my sketch. At the shadows I’d drawn between them. And I knew what needed to come next.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you for this,” I admitted. The wound was too fresh and deep.
Mom let out a slow breath, her shoulders sinking. “I don’t expect you to. You’ve always held yourself and others to high standards.”
A snort escaped me. “I wonder who I learned that from.”
Her lips curved into the faintest smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes. “Kira, I know that I am tough on you.” She picked at the frayed edge of her robe, something nervous in the gesture. “It’s only because I want the best for you.”
“I know,” I said softly, setting the charcoal down beside my sketchpad. “But what you think is best for me isn’t always whatIthink is best. You have to let me choose for myself, even if I fall.”
“I can’t promise I’ll always understand your decisions,” she said, her voice steadier now. “But I can promise to try.”
Something in my chest loosened—not forgiveness, not yet, but the beginning of it. Like there was a space being made for it.
I gave her a small nod, accepting the offering for what it was: imperfect but real. She stood and reached for the tea she’d brought me earlier, then handed it over again with a quieter sort of tenderness.
“Your father’s making pancakes,” she said after a pause. “He’s out of practice, so if you want to live, you might want to help him.”
I smiled faintly. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
She gave my shoulder a squeeze before disappearing down the hall. I stared at the drawing in my lap—still unfinished, still evolving—and pressed my palm over the page.
The pancakes were, in short, a disaster. Burnt on the edges,gooey in the middle. Basically, the culinary version of a confused identity crisis. But Dad grinned like he’d just whipped up a five-star brunch.
“I’m sick of heart-healthy breakfasts,” he declared proudly, flipping a lopsided pancake onto my plate. “Bring on the sugar and shame!”
Despite the mess, I couldn’t stop smiling.
After breakfast, he settled beside me on the floor, his knees popping as he sat cross-legged. I insisted he get comfortable on the couch, but he wanted to be level with me.
He kept interrupting my sketching with stories from his childhood, like how he and his brothers used to climb the elm tree behind their grandma’s house and toss down persimmons to their cousins. Each memory he shared turned into ideas I could thread into my drawing.
Eventually, I landed on a concept: a split portrait. Down the center, an elm tree’s trunk divided two scenes. On the left, a traditional Korean family gathered at a low table, sharing a steaming pot of kimchi jjigae. On the right, a Western-style backyard barbecue, all red-checkered tablecloths and smoke curling off a grill. The tones were different—cool neutrals on one side, warm reds and golds on the other—but they blended softly where the tree’s branches stretched wide across the page.
Technically, it looked fine. Especially for something sketched while running on two hours of sleep. But still…
“It’s missing something,” I murmured, frowning at the page.
Dad leaned over, his arm brushing mine. “I think it’s shaping up nicely,” he said with quiet conviction.
I sighed, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes. “This is supposed to represent me. Represent our family. And I can’t even get it right.”
