Seeing as I don’t have a choice in the matter, I drag my feet to the kitchen. Along with her coveted giant bowl and a bunch of large Napa cabbages, there are ingredients spread out on the counter. Most of them are label-less, and the others have Korean writing on them.
“The first thing you have to do is cut the cabbage into quarters, keeping the core intact so it doesn’t fall apart.” The level of confidence she has when spearing her knife into the heart of a cabbage is frightening. But also kind of badass. “Next we have to season the cabbage. The salt will not only flavor the leaves but also soften and preserve them.” After she slips on rubber gloves that go up to her elbows, she begins rubbing coarse salt onto the cabbage, careful toget in between each leaf. As she finishes the quartered cabbage, she submerges it in a bucket of water. “Once we salt all the cabbages, we leave them in the water for six hours.”
“Six hours?” I shriek incredulously.
“You have somewhere you need to be?” She stares down her nose at me, and I clamp my mouth shut. As if it couldn’t get any worse, she adds, “Don’t just stand there and watch. Put the extra pair of gloves on and do what I’m doing.”
I sigh, glancing over at the ugly-as-sin pink rubber gloves.
“Unless you want your hands to prematurely age and be shriveled into prunes by the salt, then be my guest. Use your bare hands.”
That gets me to slip the gloves on and begin slathering the salt onto the leaves like she’s doing. We lapse into silence, and the monotony of the task makes my mind wander. The coarse salt against the cabbage reminds me of body scrubs I used to get that would leave my skin feeling like a baby seal. Suddenly I’m deeply pining for my old life. And I’m not talking about spa treatments, tranquil music, and plush bathrobes. Although I wouldn’t turn those things down either. But before Blaire, our lives kept us busy in a way that didn’t leave us any time for one another. At least then I could blame the emotional distance between us on the physical one.
In some ways Mom understands me. She knows how much my appeareance matters to me. Once I was photographed checking the mail in my pajamas, and a tabloid printed it with the headlineIs Elena Ok O.K.?The article was as misguided as its impossible expectations of women. My way of dealing with an industry that scrutinizes women as harshly as the media does is by spending an ungodly amount of time on looking my best. Mom knows how to use what I care about (my appearance) to get me to do something she cares about (learning how to make kimchi). But beyond thesuperficial, she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her. Now that we are here, we have the opportunity to get to know each other. Be closer. Have a relationship. Andthisis how she chooses to spend quality time?
“Remind me again why this is important?” I ask.
“Kimchi is a staple in Korea. We eat it with everything.”
“I mean why do you think that I specifically need to learn how to make it?”
“Because,” she says, wiping her brow with the back of her glove, “I’ve let other people do things for you for too long.”
I let out a loud sigh.This again?
“It’s time for you to learn how to take care of yourself.”
That gets me to snap. Because I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now. Longer than she knows.
“You’re right, Mom.” My harsh tone makes her flinch. “By hiring people to do everything for me, you did me a disservice. But teaching me how to cook and make kimchi is not going to make up for that.” My words seem to knock the wind out of her. But instead of slowing down, I keep going. I need to tell her how I feel before I lose momentum.
“After theVoguearticle came out, I was humiliated. With the magazine’s circulation of 1.2 million copies a year, when I say everyone was laughing at me, it’s not an exaggeration by any means. And that includes Dad, Gavin…and you.” I look her in the eye. “I was fourteen, Mom. A kid. All the hired help in the world couldn’t give me what I needed most: my family.”
“Elena, I had no idea,” she says, genuinely shocked. “You seemed to enjoy the way the article portrayed you.”
“What choice did I have?” My voice grows defensively louder. “I had to find my way through it somehow. So I turnedWhat’s that?into my catchphrase. I figured I couldn’t be the joke if I was in on it. Right?”
For the first time, she doesn’t disengage at the mention of my catchphrase. Instead her face falls.
“But I realize now that I was only convincing myself that the catchphrase was what I needed. Because I didn’t want Carolina to take me to this gala or Kiki to book me for that party. Or for someone to buy me a new dress or a bag to make me forget I was sad. I needed someone to tell me it was going to be okay and wipe my tears away. I needed the unconditional support from my family. I needed you, Mom.” My voice cracks as the tears well up in my eyes.
Mom’s eyes are watery too. “I’m sorry for not being there for you. I did what I thought was best. Even now I’m trying to do what I think is best before it’s too late.” She pauses. “Elena-yah,” she says, trembling.
I give her a curious look. “You haven’t called me that since I was little.”
Even she’s taken aback. She blinks, releasing the tears from her eyes. With the kimchi gloves on, she wipes her cheeks with her shoulder. I do the same when my tears trickle down my cheeks. Like how the salt works to break down the toughness in the leaves of the Napa cabbage, our tears seem to break down the barrier between us. It relieves the heaviness from before, making it possible for the gap to close between us.
“Being here is reminding me of when I grew up on the farm,” Mom says with a lingering smile. “Every fall, the women of our village would get together for kimjang. It’s when we would make enough kimchi to survive the winters.”
“Survive?” I sniff. “Was it that bad on the farm?” For some reason I imagined my parents’ farming experience to have been similar towhat it’s been like here. And I definitely didn’t think hardship for them meant life-or-death.
“On the farm, losing a harvest to a harsh winter meant starving, and we relied on kimchi to survive, since it can last up to nine months. In a way kimjang symbolizes our resilience. It shows our determination to survive.” She blinks back to the present and turns to me. “I didn’t realize until now that losing everything and moving to Blaire sent me into survival mode. I’m sorry for putting my trauma on you.”
“Oh, Mom,” I say, overwhelmed with guilt. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I was frustrated because I thought you didn’t see the value in me. That I was always falling short of your standards. But now I know I was wrong. It wasn’t about me.” My head dips sheepishly. I should know by now that not everything is about me.
“But thisisabout you.” She motions to the cabbage. “Kimjang is more than just making kimchi. It’s also a time for mothers to teach their daughters for the first time. Every region has its own unique way of making kimchi, and my mom taught me to make kimchi with fresh oysters since our village was close to the ocean. While we preserve the cabbage, we preserve our fond memories. Every time I make kimchi, I think of my mother, and I hope one day you’ll think of me.” She peers over at me, her eyes filled with insecurity. “You think that’s possible?”
I nod, unable to speak. Mom wanting to share this time-honored tradition with me makes me overcome with emotion. All I ever wanted was to be included in the family.
