Page 110 of Perfect Happiness
“Okay.You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Stepfather went out of the room and came back a while later with a wet towel.He perched himself on the edge of the bed and wiped Jiyoo’s face.
“Does it hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.”Jiyoo just barely was able to get these words out of her tight throat.But feeling like she should thank him, she opened her throat one more time.
“Thank you for helping me.”
Stepfather had a strange look on his face as he stared at Jiyoo.She had never seen someone make this face before.All at once, he looked sad, angry, happy, and like he had something to say.
“Should I turn off the lights?”Stepfather asked as he pulled the blankets over her.
“Yes.”
“Goodnight.”
Stepfather picked up the receiver, turned off the lights, and left the room.Jiyoo pulled Dad Puppet close to her.She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t fall asleep.Mother never let things go.And she never forgot.Stepfather had only delayed Jiyoo’s punishment.This wasn’t the end of it.She felt anxious and afraid.Mother had gone down to the kitchen.But what if she came back with a knife, just like before?
Chapter 8
Eun-ho waited for Wife inside his study.It had already been thirty minutes.When he came down the stairs, Wife was sitting on the sofa in the living room.He had no idea what she was doing.Not only was she sitting with her back to the stairs, but she had turned off all the lights, making everything pitch black.The only thing he could make out was the back of her head, which was dimly lit by the light shining in from the balcony window.
Even though she should have sensed Eun-ho coming down the stairs, she didn’t turn around.He didn’t call out to her or speak to her.He figured she would find her way to him eventually.But she did not.Nor did she march off to bed.Wife’s personality was such that she had to resolve this before going to bed.But Eun-ho was nervous for a different reason.Tonight, he had something to tell her.
It was almost ten by the time Eun-ho left Jinu’s apartment.He decided to leave his car at Jinu’s and walk home.He did this for two reasons.Not only did he need to sober up after drinking for much of the day, but he also needed to organize his mind, which was scattered from shock and disbelief.Wife’s voice was repeating itself inside his head the whole walk home.
Happiness is subtraction.It’s getting rid of the possibility of unhappiness until life becomes perfect.
The possibility of unhappiness ...He walked up from the riverside path onto the main road.As he stood waiting at the crosswalk, Wife’s voice whispered to him again.
I’ve lived my whole life striving for that perfect happiness.
The light changed several times, but Eun-ho just stood there blinking.Wife’s college boyfriend, Wife’s Russian boyfriend, Wife’s father, Wife’s ex-husband—and then there was Noah.Wife believed that a flawless family was a happy family.There was a sudden rattling sound in Eun-ho’s head.As though two broken gears had suddenly interlocked.
Synthesizing what Min-young and Jinu had told him, Eun-ho realized that the four men had all made Yuna unhappy for one reason or another.Breaking up with her, divorcing her, firing her.Noah was flawed in that he came from another womb.She must have believed that Noah was a threat to her happiness.Or perhaps she just couldn’t accept his mere existence.
Bracing against fierce winds, Eun-ho started to shake.It wasn’t the physical cold that made him shake, but the chilling nature of this realization.He could see something that he had been blind to.Those men were the focus of Wife’s “efforts.”And so were Jiyoo’s adoption and Wife’s insistence on having a child together.Everything was connected, like branches from the same tree.
From the beginning, the families that he and she imagined were incompatible.A flawless family to Wife would be her, Eun-ho, Jiyoo as Eun-ho’s adopted daughter, and a child of their own.There was no room for Noah.These were the conditions of the perfect happiness that Wife dreamed of.
Even after arriving home, Eun-ho couldn’t go inside.He just stood outside and stared up at the house in reluctance.The upstairs and downstairs windows were illuminated, but their light didn’t reach him.What he was looking at didn’t feel like a house but an abyss.Eun-ho was afraid to go inside.He was so afraid that he was trembling.
Eun-ho had to decide whether to go in.Turning around and leaving would be no different from running away.And such a decision would be consistent with the way he had lived his life until now, always ignoring the unbearable truth.Going in meant offering himself up as bait—something he’d never done before.
And going inside would ultimately lead to the same outcome.He would either die of old age in prison for murdering his wife, or he would be murdered in his sleep.Either way, walking through that door was suicide.
Eun-ho started toward the front door.With each step, Eun-ho could hear blood rushing through his ears.His body was pulsating, the back of his neck was prickly, and he was hearing bells inside his head.He wondered how he was going to confront Wife in such a pitiful state.
As soon as he opened the front door, he was met with the sound of Jiyoo crying.A few seconds later, he heard Wife’s screams.
This had never happened before.He had never heard Jiyoo cry or seen Wife throw a tantrum because of Jiyoo.Eun-ho walked through the living room toward his study.He didn’t want to get involved in their mother-daughter problems.
Eun-ho opened the door to his study but was unable to push himself inside.Jiyoo’s cries had turned to screams.She was screaming like a child who was terrified.Eun-ho finally threw his bag down and ran upstairs.
When Eun-ho got to the door of Jiyoo’s bedroom, he heard a loud thud.He opened the door to find Jiyoo on the ground with a heavy nosebleed.Wife grabbed Jiyoo as she started shouting.
“Open your eyes.Wake up.Before I kill you.”
