Page 14 of Perfect Happiness
It took a few seconds for Eun-ho to recognize the name.Jane was Wife’s older sister, someone whom he knew existed but had never actually met until now.He thought of the family photo hung in the living room of Wife’s mother’s house.Was this woman the person smiling next to his late father-in-law?In some ways she resembled her, but in some ways she didn’t.
“I see—”
Eun-ho looked down at his feet.He didn’t know how to react.Should he welcome her with open arms and invite her in?That would be the right thing to do, but not what he wanted to do.Eun-ho thought about why his sister-in-law would come to see him.Soon, he realized that his shameless wife must have sent Jane here to do her bidding.
This wasn’t the first time Wife had run away to her Mother’s house without warning.But she didn’t do this as some form of impulsive, enraged protest.No, this was for leverage.It was something she did when she wanted him to get on his hands and knees.Eun-ho was usually notified of Wife’s sojourn after she had left, via text message.
—I’m spending some time with the kid.
By “the kid” she meant Jiyoo, the daughter she’d had with her ex-husband.Because Jiyoo lived at her mother’s house after the divorce, “I’m spending some time with the kid” was synonymous with “I’m spending some time at my mother’s.”And “some time” really meant “until things change.”And things would only change when Eun-ho got on his hands and knees and begged for her to come back.
Usually, “some time” was over in a day or two.Actually, it had never taken Eun-ho more than forty-eight hours to produce a written apology or to reaffirm his vows.Technically, he could let his temper flare or try to get back at her by giving her the silent treatment, but he knew that he didn’treallyhave a choice.Eventually one of them would have to bend to the other one’s will.And that person was invariably Eun-ho.Not only did Eun-ho always take the easy way out, but he was also afraid.Afraid of ruining his second marriage and establishing a pattern of failure in his life.
The problem was that Wife did this too often.This was already her fifth time, and it had only been a year since they got married.Roughly extrapolating, this meant that this routine would repeat itself fifty times over the next ten years, and one hundred times over the next twenty.Considering his Wife’s personality as a woman who vacillated between extremes of fire and ice and always found ways to take things to new extremes, the probability that this routine was going to continue, if not get worse, was very high.For the rest of his life, it seemed Eun-ho was destined to live in hell.
Right now, he was desperately fighting the urge to beg.Despite not being a “real man,” he wasn’t foolish enough to be dragged to hell.But there’s always a price to defiance.The first price that Eun-ho had to pay was his health.Every night he lay in bed sleepless, fluctuating between the extremes of wanting to teach Wife a lesson and wanting to run to her like a scolded puppy.
His night would always start with anger directed at Wife’s bullying.Next came regret for acting like an idiot and upsetting Wife.Then there was fear about the looming possibility of divorce, which made him anxiously consider getting in his car and driving to his mother-in-law’s house before it was too late.When morning came, Eun-ho would sit on the toilet pulling at his hair, desperately trying to regain the will to fight.
He knew that there was no way Wife hadn’t recognized his slow reaction.The fact that she sent her sister Jane was proof that she was anxious now, too.She must have coerced Jane to come here and scout Eun-ho out, to see what he was thinking.Or, she might have been sent here as a sort of vanguard meant to pressure him into folding so that Wife wouldn’t have to hurt her pride by coming back before he begged her to.
The appearance of his sister-in-law in the batting line-up ignited a fire in him.It disgusted Eun-ho to see how Wife’s family always received her with open arms, to see how blood bonds trumped everything, even right versus wrong.But his conviction hadn’t just been reignited; it was blazing stronger than ever.Now, it wasshewho was going to have to beg to come back home.
“I’m here to see Yuna,” Jane finally said.“Can you call her for me?”Her tone was unbearably arrogant.
“She’s not home,” Eun-ho said.“You should know that.”
Jane lifted her chin and stared at him.The expression on her face was like that of a difficult chess opponent, stubborn and hard to read.
“And why should I know that?”Jane paused as she pursed her lips.Her mind seemed to be hard at work searching for her next words.Eun-ho could wait.
“Then deliver this message to Yuna,” Jane continued.“Our mother is out of the country now, so don’t bring Jiyoo over to the house.I’mnotgoing to look after her.”
Eun-ho cracked a smile.Who would be dumb enough to believe that she came all the way to Cheongyeon from Incheon to deliver this short message.It wasn’t the 19th century anymore; telephones were a thing.It seemed Jane wasn’t as smart as the rumors made her out to be.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but if that’s all you came here for, a phone call would have—”
“Yuna’s not answering her phone.”This was the second time she had cut him off.“Her office told me she was on vacation since this Tuesday.”Despite Jane’s apparent composure, each word was dripping with anger.
But something else was bothering Eun-ho now, causing the smile to disappear from his face.Vacation?What vacation?
“Your landline says it’s disconnected, and I tried calling your cellphone, but I couldn’t get through.”
Eun-ho remembered that he had only reconnected the landline to the wall just moments ago.His cellphone, too, would still be in the drawer of his desk at the office.He’d left it there intentionally on Tuesday, early that week, afraid that his will might falter as he spent the long night by himself, afraid that he would end up calling his wife as he lay in bed missing her.For similar reasons, he had unplugged the landline and hid it from view.
“Please give her my message.”
Jane left without waiting for Eun-ho’s response or for him to say goodbye.She turned around and jogged across the street with her long grasshopper-like legs.After getting into the Jeep and starting the engine, she backed up at high speed toward the gate to the neighborhood.When she reached the forked road past the gate, she spun her car around and disappeared.Her reckless driving matched her short-tempered personality.
Eun-ho got into his car and sat in the driver’s seat as he went over the conversation with Jane.At the time, he had been too preoccupied with her hostility to pay much attention to the content of what she was saying.But nothing that she said had made sense to him.What bothered him the most was her message to Wife:Don’t bring Jiyoo over to the house.
Eun-ho and Wife got the children together on the weekends.Eun-ho’s son from his first marriage, Noah, would come from his grandmother’s apartment in Hanam, and Wife’s daughter from her first marriage, Jiyoo, would come from her grandmother’s house in Incheon.This weekend, however, Jiyoo would not be coming because Noah’s grandmother was going to be there.Eun-ho had hoped that the five of them could spend a happy weekend together, but Wife rejected the idea.Jiyoo, apparently, felt uncomfortable with Noah’s grandmother.Thus, it was decided that Jiyoo would stay at her grandmother’s house.
Eun-ho couldn’t just dismiss what Jane said as nonsense.If she really needed an excuse to come here, she would have come up with a better story.Eventually, Eun-ho decided to take her words at face value.According to what she said, three things had to be true: Jiyoo’s grandmother was out of the country, Jiyoo was with Wife, and Wife wasn’t at her mother’s house.But if she wasn’t at her mother’s house, then where was she?
Eun-ho’s mind went blank for a second.This last question hit him like a golf club to the head.As he drove to school, the same question was bouncing around in his head non-stop.Where was Wife?
Eun-ho had no answers.It felt like he was trying to squeeze water out of the air.Just before he arrived at school, he realized the focus of his questioning was all wrong.He shouldn’t be asking about his missing wife.He should have been asking about Jane.That’s where he would find answers.
