When I told him of the plans we’d made, I’d had to force myself to power on, to ignore the burn in my throat. To blink away the regret at all the missed opportunities.
The tour. Jeju vacations, even just visiting Namsan Tower. Things we thought we’d have time for, but that had never come to pass.
He didn’t interrupt me, just watched me as I spoke, his expression intent, but neutral.
Until at last I wound down to the end. The way I described my last days in Korea, handing in my notice and the last time I saw Jihoon. Standing in the airport terminal, shoulders hunched.
My words dried up, raindrops on pavement, evaporating.
“And now?” He asked, gently.
His question threw me for a second.
“Now, what?”
“Are you still together?”
His face was gentle. No judgement, only genuine care for my well-being. But his question confused me. It had never occurred to me that that option would be on the table, or be a consequence of me leaving.
“Yes, of course.” I frowned.
Dad nodded thoughtfully, as if my answer didn’t surprise him.
“And the plan is to go back once… once everything goes back to normal?”
“Yes,” I said, but it felt like the word had caught on my teeth on the way out. Like the threads of a jumper snagging against anuneven bit of wood. My fingers tightened around the hot cup of tea.
“You’re not pregnant?”
I nearly spat out the tea I’d taken that moment to sip.
“Dad! Jesus Chr- Why would you think that?”
His lips quirked as he handed me one of the terrycloth tea towels stacked at the end of the table. He watched me wipe my face for a moment before replying.
“Well, your mum went abroad and came home with you, so…”
I blinked. Once, twice and then I burst out laughing, seeing the mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“No, Pops. I am not knocked up.”
“Good,” he said, matter-of-factly. “We only have a two-bed. We’d have had to up-size, and we only just paid the mortgage off on this place.”
Chapter 3
As my phone was charging, Dad and I ate a quiet dinner together in front of the TV. I didn’t recognise the show, but it forced the silence from the room.
Not long after, I headed up the stairs to the room I’d occupied for half of my life. Mum and Dad hadn’t done anything to it since I’d moved to London for university.
The walls were the same, faded floral wallpaper that I’d picked out on my twelfth birthday. Underneath the small dressing table, specks of nail polish stained the cream carpet, a result of years of trial and error. The bed was made up, as if Mum had always been prepared for me to come home at a moment’s notice, and I knew that if I looked in the tiny en-suite I’d find my favourite toiletries lined up on the little shelf above the bath.
One of my favourite things about my room was the window seat. It wasn’t really a proper seat, not like the kind you always saw in Hallmark movies. It was just a slightly wider windowsill,but my Dad had fashioned it into a bench with a length of plywood and padded cushions. But it didn’t matter, it had allowed me to live out my teenage Wuthering Heights fantasies by sitting there, overlooking the moors by moonlight. It also hadn’t mattered that it wasn’t the moors over the road; just field that was intermittently used to graze cows and sheep.
I sat there now, fitting neatly into the soft indents I had spent years making. And yet it felt too small for me now. I had grown since the last time I’d sat here. Not physically, but I was no longer the same person. I didn’t fit into that life anymore.
Through the windows, I watched the sky get progressively darker. That was one of the many, wonderful things about living this deep in the countryside. Night time was a different experience, which, once you got over any apprehension you had about it, became quite lovely. The stars weren’t just present and visible, they shone.
I’d missed the stars while living in cities. Sometimes you’d see the hint of them peeking through the clouds, but up here in the country, they splashed across the sky like splatters from a paintbrush, different colours discernible amongst the bright, white pinpricks. Red, blue, purple. Constellations you could pick out. Planets you could recognise.
