Read Online Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin - Free Book Online
Authors: Kyung-Sook Shin
Ads: Link
you wanted a book was that you would read books your brothers brought home from school, but they always took the books away from you before you read them to the end. The school library had different books from the ones that Hyong-chol brought home. Books like
Mrs. Sa Goes to the South
or
Biography of Shin Yun-bok
. The book you chose, while Mom stood outside the bookstore, was
Human, All Too Human
. Mom, about to pay for a book thatwasn’t a textbook for the first time in her life, looked down at the book you’d picked out.
“Is this a book you need?”
You nodded quickly, worried that she would change her mind. Actually, you didn’t know what this book was. It said that it was written by Nietzsche, but you didn’t know who that was. You’d just picked it because you liked the way the title sounded. Mom gave you the money for the book, the full price. On the bus, clasping the book against your chest instead of the puppy, you gazed out the window. You saw an old, stooped woman looking at passersby desperately, trying to sell the bowlful of sticky rice that remained in her rubber bin.
On the mountain path where you could see your grandparents’ old village, your mom told you that her father, who drifted from town to town, digging for gold and coal, came home when she was three years old. He went to work at a construction site for a new train station and got in an accident. Villagers who came to tell Grandmother about the accident looked at Mom, running and playing in the yard, and said, “You’re laughing even though your father has died, you silly child.”
“You remember that from when you were three?”
“I do.”
Your mom said she was sometimes resentful of her mom, your grandmother. “I’m sure she had to do everything herself as a widow, but she should have sent me to school. My brother went to a Japanese-run school, and my sister did, too, so whydid she keep me at home? I lived in darkness, with no light, my entire life.…”
Your mom finally agreed to come to Seoul with you if you promised not to tell Hyong-chol. Even when she left the house with you, she kept asking you to promise this.
As you went from hospital to hospital to find the source of Mom’s headaches, a doctor told you something surprising: your mom had had a stroke a long time ago. A stroke? You said that had never happened. The doctor pointed at a spot on her brain scan and said it was evidence of a stroke. “How could she have had a stroke without even knowing about it?” The doctor said your mom would have known. Given how the blood was pooled there, she would have felt the shock. The doctor said Mom was in constant pain. That Mom’s body was in constant pain.
“What do you mean, in constant pain? Mom has always been pretty healthy.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” the doctor said.
You felt as if a nail hidden in your pocket had leaped out and ambushed you, stabbing the back of your hand. The doctor drained the blood pooled in Mom’s brain, but her headaches didn’t get better. One minute Mom would be talking, and the next minute she would be holding her head gingerly, as if it were a glass jar about to break, and she would have to go home and lie down on the wooden platform in the shed.
“Mom, do you like being in the kitchen?” When you asked this once, your mom didn’t understand what you meant.
“Did you like being in the kitchen?Did you like to cook?”
Mom’s eyes held yours for a moment. “I don’t like or dislike the kitchen. I cooked because I had to. I had to stay in the kitchen so you could all eat and go to school. How could you only do what you like? There are things you have to do whether you like it or not.” Mom’s expression asked, What kind of question is that? And then she murmured, “If you only do what you like, who’s going to do what you don’t like?”
“So—what—you liked it or not?”
Mom looked around, as if she was going to tell you a secret, and whispered,
Mrs. Sa Goes to the South
or
Biography of Shin Yun-bok
. The book you chose, while Mom stood outside the bookstore, was
Human, All Too Human
. Mom, about to pay for a book thatwasn’t a textbook for the first time in her life, looked down at the book you’d picked out.
“Is this a book you need?”
You nodded quickly, worried that she would change her mind. Actually, you didn’t know what this book was. It said that it was written by Nietzsche, but you didn’t know who that was. You’d just picked it because you liked the way the title sounded. Mom gave you the money for the book, the full price. On the bus, clasping the book against your chest instead of the puppy, you gazed out the window. You saw an old, stooped woman looking at passersby desperately, trying to sell the bowlful of sticky rice that remained in her rubber bin.
On the mountain path where you could see your grandparents’ old village, your mom told you that her father, who drifted from town to town, digging for gold and coal, came home when she was three years old. He went to work at a construction site for a new train station and got in an accident. Villagers who came to tell Grandmother about the accident looked at Mom, running and playing in the yard, and said, “You’re laughing even though your father has died, you silly child.”
“You remember that from when you were three?”
“I do.”
Your mom said she was sometimes resentful of her mom, your grandmother. “I’m sure she had to do everything herself as a widow, but she should have sent me to school. My brother went to a Japanese-run school, and my sister did, too, so whydid she keep me at home? I lived in darkness, with no light, my entire life.…”
Your mom finally agreed to come to Seoul with you if you promised not to tell Hyong-chol. Even when she left the house with you, she kept asking you to promise this.
As you went from hospital to hospital to find the source of Mom’s headaches, a doctor told you something surprising: your mom had had a stroke a long time ago. A stroke? You said that had never happened. The doctor pointed at a spot on her brain scan and said it was evidence of a stroke. “How could she have had a stroke without even knowing about it?” The doctor said your mom would have known. Given how the blood was pooled there, she would have felt the shock. The doctor said Mom was in constant pain. That Mom’s body was in constant pain.
“What do you mean, in constant pain? Mom has always been pretty healthy.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” the doctor said.
You felt as if a nail hidden in your pocket had leaped out and ambushed you, stabbing the back of your hand. The doctor drained the blood pooled in Mom’s brain, but her headaches didn’t get better. One minute Mom would be talking, and the next minute she would be holding her head gingerly, as if it were a glass jar about to break, and she would have to go home and lie down on the wooden platform in the shed.
“Mom, do you like being in the kitchen?” When you asked this once, your mom didn’t understand what you meant.
“Did you like being in the kitchen?Did you like to cook?”
Mom’s eyes held yours for a moment. “I don’t like or dislike the kitchen. I cooked because I had to. I had to stay in the kitchen so you could all eat and go to school. How could you only do what you like? There are things you have to do whether you like it or not.” Mom’s expression asked, What kind of question is that? And then she murmured, “If you only do what you like, who’s going to do what you don’t like?”
“So—what—you liked it or not?”
Mom looked around, as if she was going to tell you a secret, and whispered,
Similar Books
