Page 67 of Perfect Happiness

W hy did you get divorced?”

Yuna sometimes appears in Eun-ho’s dreams to ask him this. He hesitates before answering.

“She told me to get out of her life.”

Yuna cackles. A gust of snow scatters her laughter. Overhead, the sky sparkles with the vapor trails of falling meteors. He leans in to hear Yuna’s whisper.

“That’s unfortunate.”

*

“Why did you do that, honey?”

Yuna invades his dreams again. Eun-ho looks for Yuna with bleary eyes. He sees a dark figure beyond the falling snow.

“You’re just like my grandfather.”

Yuna lowers her head and looks down at him. Her headlamp blinds him.

“Oh, but you don’t know my grandfather, do you?”

The entire world is quiet. Eun-ho can’t see the Half Moon Marsh yet.

“My grandfather was a famous ornithologist. But he had a stroke and lost all his dignity. He couldn’t walk, he’d soil his pants, and started to slur his speech.

Anyway, he would go for a walk in the marsh every morning.

He would always take me with him. When we got to the Half Moon Marsh, he would tell me about the ducks.

I was happiest when I was there with him. Do you know why?”

Walking uphill, Wife stops talking as though out of breath. Eun-ho tries to move his fingers without Wife noticing. He only manages to wiggle the tips of his fingers.

“Because I was suffocated at the cabin with my grandmother.”

Eun-ho wanted to tell her that she could take it slow if she was out of breath.

“My grandmother used to be an elementary school teacher. And a wicked teacher at that. By the time I started living with her, she was old and retired. I was her last student. Every day, I had to follow the time schedule she set for me. I had to get up early in the morning, eat breakfast on time, and go to sleep early. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV for more than an hour a day.

She gave me homework and tests to do, too, and if I did poorly, she would punish me.

Tell me, Eun-ho, would you be able to take that kind of treatment? ”

The wheelbarrow stops. Wife waits a moment for emphasis.

“Well, I did. For two years. I was afraid that if I didn’t, Grandma would abandon me, just like everyone else had.”

Eun-ho feels the cold. His lower back shivers uncontrollably. Eun-ho’s numb face is covered in ice and snow.

“You look cold. Are you okay?”

Wife’s damp breath reaches his ear.

“I should have filled a thermos with some hot coffee. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

She talks as if they are on a picnic. Eun-ho can imagine Wife grinning at him under her rain cap. But he’s too afraid to open his eyes. It feels like it’s been an eternity since he last loved this woman. A sob escapes between the gap in Eun-ho’s lips—but a sob of pity, not fear.

“That was a nice break. Shall we keep going?”

Wife starts moving again.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. I was telling you about my grandmother.”

The wheels of the wheelbarrow roll well over the snowy path. The blizzard is getting worse by the second.

“I begged my dad to take me home every time he visited the cabin. I cried and clung to him, telling him how I hated living with Grandma. But no matter how much I begged, no matter how hard I cried, no matter how stubbornly I clung to his legs, he would always pry me off with his cold, unfeeling hands. After he left, Grandma would scold me. She told me I was a dumb girl, who didn’t understand what was going on.

I would lash out at her in anger. You think I’ve got a bit of a temper, don’t you?

But anyone who went through what I went through would develop a temper.

What she should have done was console me, not lock me in the attic whenever I let my temper show. ”

Wife pauses for a moment. Eun-ho tries to listen to his surroundings, but everything is dead silent. Eun-ho is beginning to feel like the police are never going to show up.

“But you know what? I resent my grandfather more. Because he said that he liked me better than her, my grandmother would lock me in that room while she slept in the master bedroom—like some fat pig. I later heard from my mom that I was there for two years because of my grandfather. He said my grandma was in good health, that I could stay there until it was time for me to start school. He said he would make me into a proper person before sending me back. When I found this out, I felt like I’d been stabbed in the back.

If I’m not a person, then what am I? A beast?

An insect? If I’d known this while living here, I would have pushed the old fucker into the marsh. ”

Wife continues to push the wheelbarrow up a steep slope. Eun-ho hears her heavy breathing.

“We’re already here. I lost track of time talking about the past.”

The wheelbarrow stops.

“Mr. Cha, you’ve arrived at your destination. Are you ready to disembark?”

*

The dream always ended just before he fell out of the wheelbarrow.

When Eun-ho opened his eyes, he was lying in an oceanfront house in Aewol as sea fog engulfed the horizon.

His face was still, as though he’d been crying all night.

His memories brought him back one year, to that day, to the moment a single car sped into the Half Moon Marsh with its high beams on.

Wife let go of the wheelbarrow and turned to face the car. Eun-ho tried to lift his head, which was hanging out of the wheelbarrow. But he had no strength in his neck. All he could do was twist his head to see the car noisily racing toward them.

The headlights were so bright he couldn’t tell who it was.

All he knew was it wasn’t a police car. The car wasn’t slowing down, even though it must have seen Wife.

It went up onto the embankment, and raced toward them as though it were going to run over Wife.

But Wife didn’t look like she had any intention of moving out of the way.

She didn’t even look surprised. She just watched the car barreling toward her with a blank stare on her face.

She seemed to think that the person who flinched first would lose.

Just before the car hit her, it suddenly changed direction.

The car turned at a ninety-degree angle, and slid along the snow-covered wetlands, kicking up snow until it stopped at the edge of the embankment.

Finally, Eun-ho realized whose car it was.

He didn’t need to try to look at the license plate. It was Wife’s BMW.

“There it goes again, touching my things.”

As she muttered this, her voice was filled with annoyance. Eun-ho tried to remember who in Yuna’s world was referred to as “it.” He could only think of two people: Jane and Jiyoo.

“I guess Jiyoo betrayed me again.”

Wife turned around, bent Eun-ho over, and took something out of the wheelbarrow. It was a kitchen knife.

“You wish I was dead, don’t you?”

Eun-ho couldn’t answer. He was too busy following the knife as Wife waved it above his head.

He winced as she swung the knife at his stomach.

Eun-ho opened his eyes to find that the rope on his hands and feet had been cut.

He was free, but he wasn’t really. His mind had already jumped out of the wheelbarrow, but his body wasn’t budging.

He mustered all his strength but only managed to slightly lift his head.

Wife tossed the knife and ropes into the bushes then lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow.

“I’ve got the worst luck,” Wife grumbled.

As the wheelbarrow was lifted into the air, Eun-ho started to hear sirens in the distance.

But he had no time to check where they were coming from.

As soon as he heard them, his body fell out of the wheelbarrow and into the marsh.

As he landed, the frozen surface of the marsh gave way without much resistance.

Eun-ho was sucked through the hole in the ice.

Ice water attacked his body like sharp knives. Every part of Eun-ho’s body, even his sweat-filled pores, froze instantaneously. Eun-ho felt like his heart was shriveling to the size of a peanut. A frightened wild beast was rampaging inside his head.

Eun-ho knew from Jiyoo that the marsh was shallow. He also knew that he shouldn’t flail. He knew he needed to hold his breath, relax, and think. The problem was that “knowing” and “doing” were two different things. Faced with death, Eun-ho’s instincts took over.

His mind went blank, everything went silent, and his body went limp like a dead water plant. Icy water was entering his stomach. Images of Noah’s thrashing as he suffocated flashed before Eun-ho’s eyes. All he could hear was the name that Noah called in his last moments.

Dad. Dad . . .

He could also hear Yoon-hee’s voice.

We can never run from the truth.

He was floating like a corpse as Yoon-hee’s voice invaded his ear.

You can’t run from the fact that you killed him.

Eun-ho could feel himself regaining his senses. He’d finally escaped what he’d done. He did it not to live, but to know the truth. He couldn’t die like this. At least not yet.

Eun-ho started to think. If the sirens he’d heard before were police sirens, if the police were coming to look for him, how long would it take them to reach the marsh? Two minutes? Three? Five? Could he survive underwater that long? Was there no way for him to pull himself to land before then?

Then Eun-ho remember the BMW, which arrived before the sirens.

If the driver was Jane as he suspected, if the sound from upstairs had been Jane, then that would mean she hadn’t come here to assist Yuna.

She was probably here to help Eun-ho. Just maybe she could save him.

There was only one thing he could do to help her.

He had to stay alive until she came for him.