Page 57 of Perfect Happiness

H oney, would you sit there?” Wife stood in front of the kitchen table and motioned with her eyes to the chair in front of the door to the living room. Without any reason to object, Eun-ho quietly took his seat.

“And Jiyoo, sit next to your father.”

Jiyoo sat in the seat Mother told her to.

Jiyoo’s complexion was pale, and her eyes were fixed to the table.

Eun-ho followed Jiyoo’s gaze. A long blue flower vase, a scented candle, and wine glasses.

Eun-ho could feel his jaw become rigid. These were the same objects he’d seen in the picture.

Even the three roses in the flower vase were the same color.

“I’ll sit here,” Wife said as she brought the salad bowl over and placed it on the table. Her place, which was across from Eun-ho and closest to the kitchen, was already marked with a wine glass.

“It’ll give me easy access to the kitchen.”

Eun-ho furtively glanced at his watch. 6:00. It was a little early for dinner.

“Night falls early here,” Wife said, reading his mind.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. Just sit. You can talk to Jiyoo if you want.”

Wife made several trips to the kitchen counter.

One by one, she filled the kitchen table—a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice, orange juice, bread, jam, peanut butter, and three plates with goulash.

As she did this, Eun-ho and Jiyoo sat in their seats without saying a word, like children in time-out.

Wife was more upbeat than she’d been the last several weeks.

She was almost gliding across the kitchen floor.

Her cheeks were rosy, and even the pitch in her voice was higher than usual.

She had twice as much to say, too. “It’s hard to bake the bread evenly with that old oven.

” “I can’t believe they didn’t have any fresher salad ingredients at the store.

” “We were low on ice, so the champagne might not be very cold.”

When she finally sat down, she explained her choice in champagne—how the name Belle époque meant “beautiful times,” how the champagne made a perfect “aperitif” because it was light-bodied and had gentle but consistent bubbling and peach overtones.

To Eun-ho, as someone who knew nothing about champagne, he had no idea what her explanation meant, nor did he care.

“As this is our first family vacation, we should celebrate.” Wife smiled as she looked at Eun-ho. “Honey, would you pour the champagne?”

Her tone smelled sickly-sweet, like overripe peaches. Eun-ho uncorked the bottle of champagne and poured two glasses. Considering the fact this was a fresh bottle, maybe that meant it was safe to drink. As he did this, Wife poured Jiyoo a glass of orange juice.

“A toast?” Yuna said as she held up her glass. “To our beautiful, first trip together.”

Both Eun-ho and Jiyoo lifted their own glasses.

“Actually,” Wife said suddenly as she got up. “Don’t move.”

Jiyoo and Eun-ho meekly put down their glasses. Wife bent over and brought her phone out from under the kitchen table.

“We should take a commemorative picture.”

Wife took several steps backward until she reached the kitchen sink.

“Honey, put your head against Jiyoo’s like you mean it. Cheese.”

Jiyoo glanced sideways at Eun-ho as he tilted his head toward her. It wasn’t that hard to touch heads. The problem was saying cheese. Eun-ho’s mouth spasmed, and a chill spread throughout his back. He realized that he, too, was now on the Yuna Shin Express bound for hell.

“Jiyoo, what are you doing? Look this way and say cheese.”

Wife raised one hand in the air and curled her finger. Jiyoo turned to look forward. There was clear worry on her face. She tried harder to say cheese, but the corners of her lips merely contorted in pain. Her eyes looked like she was on the verge of crying. Wife counted slowly:

“One . . . two . . .”

The flash on her camera burst with a click. Wife walked back to the kitchen table as she checked the picture.

“It turned out great. Do you want to see?”

Eun-ho took the phone as Wife handed it to him.

The moment he saw the screen, he was reminded of another picture that had been taken in this exact location.

A man and child with their heads touching, two dark doors open behind them, roses and scented candles on the table, a bottle of champagne.

The setting and structure of the two pictures matched perfectly.

The only thing that had changed was the man sitting next to Jiyoo. Eun-ho returned the phone to Wife.

“Looks great. Send it to me. I’ll save it to my phone.”

“Later. Now is the time to enjoy our meal.”

Wife turned off her phone and put it face down on the table. Lifting her glass, she proposed a toast.

“This time for real. To our happiness.”

Eun-ho clinked glasses with Wife. He chugged the champagne in hopes that it would calm his nerves. As he waited and imagined what was coming next, Eun-ho wondered where the peach overtones she’d been raving about were.

“How were the wetlands?” Wife asked as she put down the glass.

“I’m not sure. There was nothing out there. Jiyoo says there are usually lots of ducks.”

Jiyoo flinched and turned to look at Eun-ho. Her eyes were asking, When did I say that? It appeared Eun-ho had made a slip of the tongue.

“The ducks will come back in the spring,” Wife mumbled to herself as she spooned some goulash into her mouth.

Eun-ho didn’t touch his goulash. If Wife wanted to give him something special, it would be in the goulash.

He had voluntarily walked up to the guillotine, but he had no intention of lying down and sticking his neck out, too.

He picked up a piece of bread and spread peanut butter on it.

He didn’t particularly like peanut butter, but he had no other choice.

Jiyoo had already taken the small amount of jam that was on the table.

Wife’s gaze was fixed on his hand as it spread the peanut butter. Her elated mood from just a moment earlier had disappeared without a trace. Cast across her face was the shadow that always appeared when she was upset and feeling down.

“Has the Half Moon Marsh frozen over?” Wife asked out of nowhere.

Eun-ho nodded.

“Is it frozen solid ?”

Eun-ho tilted his head in confusion. Why was she asking?

“Don’t give me that look. What’s so hard about just saying yes or no?”

Wife’s voice was suddenly dripping with irritation.

Eun-ho waited a second before answering.

“The surface of the marsh was covered in snow. But I’m not sure if it’s ‘frozen solid.’”

Eun-ho put the bread in his mouth and started chewing. It was so dry that he would have been happier taking off his belt and chewing on that. He was incapable of tasting anything and felt like a prisoner on death row eating his last meal.

Wife didn’t say anymore. The house was quiet.

All he could hear was the clinking of dishware on the kitchen table.

Suspicions were accumulating in his head like frequent flier miles.

He wanted to know what the source of that sound earlier was.

And why had Wife sent him and Jiyoo to the wetlands as soon as they heard the sound?

Oddly enough, they hadn’t heard that strange sound since.

Wife said it was the roof, but he didn’t believe this.

If that were true, wouldn’t they still be hearing it?

The wind hadn’t stopped blasting the house.

There was also something mysterious about the way Jiyoo called it a loon.

It almost seemed like the loon was code for something or someone.

That would make more sense. Could it possibly be referring to her father, Joon-young?

Eun-ho thought about the car at the abandoned house they had seen on their way here.

That was an odd place to park a car. The village was barely populated, and no one lived in the old house, it seemed.

Nor did it look like a junk car. Judging from its outline, it looked like a large SUV or jeep.

The blue hue of its chassis had been just visible through the snow.

“Thank you for dinner.” Jiyoo was the first to put down her utensils. The goulash on her plate had hardly been touched. The only thing she had eaten was two pieces of bread with jam and her glass of orange juice.

“Yes, thank you for dinner,” Eun-ho said as he put down the butter knife in his hand. He, too, hadn’t eaten much: only the champagne and two pieces of bread with peanut butter.

Wife showed no reaction. Her eyes were cast downward as she pushed the goulash around the plate. She looked even gloomier than before. Judging from the way her pursed lips were focused to a point, she seemed distracted by something.

“I’ll do the dishes,” Eun-ho added.

Wife looked up and made eye contact with him, looking like she had just been taken out of a dream.

“Would you? I’ll take Jiyoo upstairs and tuck her in.”

Jiyoo glanced over at Eun-ho. She looked flustered. As far as Eun-ho remembered, Wife had never tucked Jiyoo in. At least, not at their house in Cheongyeon. If anything, it was Jiyoo who had the honor of bidding Wife goodnight.

“Jiyoo, shall we go upstairs?”

Wife put down her utensils and stood up. Jiyoo hurried to her feet. A few moments later, the two disappeared upstairs.

Eun-ho started clearing the table. Even as he moved all the plates to the kitchen sink, his ears were sifting through the sounds upstairs.

It seemed like they still hadn’t entered Jiyoo’s room.

He could hear intermittent murmurs, but their voices were so quiet that he couldn’t tell what they were saying.

As Eun-ho turned on the kitchen faucet, his brain became muddled from images popping in and out of his mind, as though he were about to fall asleep.

His eyelids felt scratchy. He blinked several times, but it didn’t help.

It felt like his eyelids and cornea were stuck together.

The room was starting to spin, and his sense of distance disappeared, as though he was looking at everything through a mirror.