Page 60 of Perfect Happiness

When he opened his eyes, he was locked in a frozen lake—the same lake from his dream, the one in which he had been adrift the night Noah died.

Just like then, his body was immersed in water trapped beneath the ice.

A mysterious light was flickering above his eyes, and the wind was howling in the distance.

“Why did you do it, honey?”

Eun-ho could hear Wife’s voice through the wind.

“Why didn’t you keep your promise?”

She asked this question in an inflectionless murmur, as though she were talking to herself.

“I thought marrying you would make me happy.”

The water swept across his forehead like a heavy breeze. The undercurrent was dragging his limp body through water.

“Do you know how much effort I spent trying—”

Wife’s voice was momentarily swept away by the wind.

“—to make that dream a reality?”

Right. Effort. Wife’s effort. That horrifying effort that had driven their family to ruin. Suddenly, a violent rush of water put Eun-ho on its back.

“Do you know how hard I tried to protect you?”

Eun-ho’s body rose suddenly, hitting the ice, then sank deep into the lake. Wife’s voice drifted in and out with the motion of his body. Rising, then dropping, surging, then falling.

“When Noah died and the police suspected you, I did everything to clear your name. I endured you and your irritability. I tried to forget the pain you caused me these last few weeks. I did it because this was our new beginning.”

The wind swept away Wife’s voice again. Eun-ho wondered how much time had passed since he lost consciousness. Two hours? Three? Five?

“But you kept pushing me away.”

The wind returned with Wife’s voice.

“You avoided me, hid things from me, betrayed me. You pretended to be asleep when I came home. You looked through my phone while I was asleep. You drank with Jinu behind my back and then came home and asked for a divorce. I forgave you time after time, and you still don’t appreciate me. Do you know how much that hurts?”

Eun-ho tried wriggling his fingers. But he couldn’t. He tried to open his eyes, but they were glued shut. The wind was blowing across the top of his forehead again. He could more vividly feel the shaking of his body. Wife continued to talk to herself.

“Even as we arrived here in the country, I was still hopeful. I wanted to believe that you would understand me once we talked about everything. I wanted to believe that you were always on my side, like I was always on yours. I wanted to believe that you weren’t serious about getting a divorce, that you only said what you said because you were in a bad mood. ”

Eun-ho realized something. He wasn’t adrift in a lake.

He was being loaded onto something, being moved along a path above ground.

The illusion had disappeared, but he wasn’t completely awake.

He was aware, but his body was still asleep, as if he were suffering from sleep paralysis.

In other words, only his thoughts and senses were functioning.

“But if I was wrong to believe all these things, then why did you follow me here? Don’t tell me you came here with the intent of finding evidence?”

Whatever Eun-ho was riding in was rolled over a dip in the ground. Eun-ho was tossed into the air. When he fell back down, his neck and back bent backwards as though they were about to snap. But Eun-ho barely felt any pain. Wife continued to talk to herself without taking a break.

“Even if that’s why you’re here, I need to know your true feelings. Many times, I’ve found that reality is exactly the opposite of my expectations. Actually, not just many. Every time. Always.”

Eun-ho could guess that the thing he was riding in wasn’t a car. He gradually started to feel more directly the sensation of the fierce wind. It had to be something with wheels that could carry a person. Something like a stroller.

“When I found out the truth, and if you passed my test, I was planning to give you one more chance. We could have started over, a new life in a new place. All you had to do was follow me. As you know, I’m always well prepared.”

Suddenly, the wheelbarrow that had been in the shed flashed through Eun-ho’s mind.

It was one of those two-wheeled wheelbarrows that farmers used for transporting manure and tools.

It would be too small to carry Jinu, but just big enough to carry Eun-ho’s body.

His legs were probably hanging over the side of the thing.

Eun-ho didn’t need to guess who was pushing the wheelbarrow. It had to be Wife.

“I was so sure of myself. The test was easy enough for a child to pass. You like goulash. And you don’t like bread.

And I’ve never seen you touch peanut butter.

And yet, you didn’t even touch the goulash.

All you ate was bread and peanut butter.

Why on earth did you eat that? Were you afraid I had put something in the goulash? ”

Wife let out a snort. To Eun-ho, it sounded like a derisive laugh.

“And when I came back after putting Jiyoo to bed, you were going through my bag. Are you happy? You found the sleeping pills. You must have thought turning on your phone would save you. You must have thought turning on the voice recorder would give the police enough evidence to put me away. That’s what you thought, right? ”

Suddenly, the wheelbarrow flipped over, launching Eun-ho’s body through the air. He fell to the ground, and rolled several times, eventually coming to a stop with his face in the snow.

Again, he barely felt any pain. But he did gain one more piece of information: his hands and feet were tied with something.

But thankfully, his hands were tied in front of him and not behind his back.

Had wife used the climbing rope she bought online?

Or perhaps duct tape, which would have been easier to work with?

Whatever it was, Eun-ho doubted he could free himself on his own.

He lay with his face buried in the snow. Listening to the sound of crunching snow, the sound of his wife’s footsteps approaching him, the sound of death drawing near.

“Whose fault do you think Noah’s death was?”

Wife’s voice was right next to Eun-ho’s ear. Following this question, a white light shined on the side of his face.

“You think it was my fault, don’t you?”

Wife lifted his head by a fistful of hair and shined the light in front of his eyelids.

“It wasn’t.”

Wife brought her cold, moist lips to Eun-ho’s earlobes. Eun-ho could feel his eyelids twitching.

“It was your fault.”

Wife didn’t sound angry. Nor did she sound like she was laughing at him.

In fact, Eun-ho felt no emotion in her voice.

He had seen her lose it several times before, but he had never seen her snap like this.

It was as if a critical part of her brain had experienced a fatal error—the part of her brain that made her human, that gave her a soul.

“My poor little Jiyoo. You should have adopted her as your own daughter when I asked you to. I told you I would take on the task of convincing Joon-young. I was still planning to do it, even when your bitch of a mother told us to take him back. You knew he couldn’t live with us until we changed Jiyoo’s last name.

And yet you had the audacity to say you would bring Noah to live with us. ”

That was why she killed Noah? That was it? Eun-ho needed to ask her this, but his mouth wouldn’t open. All he could feel was his wife’s breath pounding at his ear.

“Why do you only care about your son?”

Wife pulled his head even further backward, as though it were the lid to a rice cooker. Eun-ho could hear his bones cracking.

“He’s not the only child in this family, you son of a bitch.”

Wife then slammed his head back into the snow. This time, he felt pain that was close to shock. It felt like his face had shattered. A low groan escaped his throat as his body started to shake. Finally, it seemed like he could sense pain.

“I have the worst luck.”

Wife rolled Eun-ho onto his back. He could feel his bound hands being lifted above his head. At the same time, he was able to crack open his eyes just slightly. A black shadow glimmered through the haze in his narrow vision.

“No matter how much I do for people, they always betray me. Even my own father.”

Wife grabbed Eun-ho by his bonds and stood up. Dragging him behind her, she started walking somewhere.

“For some reason, I thought you’d be different.”

Eun-ho was being dragged through the snow with his hands above his head like a sled. He could see the bright light extending into the darkness and stopping on the wheelbarrow.

“I guess I believed you were more honest than those other men.”

The wheelbarrow was standing upright, with its hull facing forward. It looked like its wheel had snagged on a rock or gotten stuck in a puddle.

“But now I know—you’re the worst of them all.”

Wife pushed him with her heel as she stuffed him into the wheelbarrow. A sharp pain pierced his stomach. As his head bent out of the wheelbarrow, he let out a sharp groan.

“Oh, you’re finally awake.”

This was the first time he was able to get a good look at her. Black boots, a black raincoat and hat, and a headlamp. Behind the light of her headlamp, Eun-ho could see two black, emotionless eyes.

“I know it hurts, but just wait a little longer. We’re almost there.”

Wife walked to the back of the wheelbarrow. She grabbed the handles and jumped up to let her weight lift the wheelbarrow with Eun-ho inside it. Once the wheelbarrow was upright again, they continued their journey. Eun-ho’s head bobbed with the jostling of the wheelbarrow.

“Earlier, I borrowed a play from your book. You know, using someone’s thumb while they’re sleeping to unlock their phone. But I shouldn’t have. Had I not looked at your phone, I might not have snapped like this.