Our Happy Time Read Free

Monica. I could tell by her scent. Where did that scent come from? Back when I was a kid, whenever she came to the house, I would press my face against her habit and sniff.
    What is it? Do I smell like disinfectant?
    No, not disinfectant. You smell like church, Aunt Monica. Like candles and things.
    Aunt Monica told me that she had graduated from nursing school and worked at a university hospital before suddenly deciding to join a convent.
    I cracked my eyes open, as if I were just waking up. Aunt Monica was sitting in the chair beside my bed and quietly watching me. The last time I had seen her was right before I left to study abroad in France, back when I was a pop singer who wore a miniskirt and sang and shook my ass on stage like—as my mother put it—I knew no shame. She had come to see me briefly in my dressing room backstage, so that meant almost ten years had passed. Her age was already showing back then: the hair that peeked out from beneath her black veil had turned gray, and though her shoulders were still square, her back was stooped. Even allowing for the fact that it’s hard to tell how old nuns are, her age showed. For a moment, I almost thought about the sad fate of human beings who must live, grow old and die. Aunt Monica’s eyes were fixed on me, and I could see that they were filled with a strange fatigue. Her small wrinkled eyes seemed to hold both a slight annoyance and a certain warm maternal love—something my mother had never showed me. There was something else in her eyes, as well, that had always been there for as long as I knew her. It was the kind of look a new mother gives to small living things—a combination of boundless compassion mixed with the curiosity of a mischievous child looking at a newborn puppy.
    Since she was being quiet, I smiled and said, “I’ve gotten old, haven’t I?”
    “Not old enough to die,” she said.
    “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I told her. “I wasn’t trying to die. I just had trouble sleeping. Drinking alcohol didn’t help, so I took a few sleeping pills… I guess I was too drunkto count the pills. I just took whatever was there, and the next thing I knew, all this happened. Mom came to see me and told me that if I want to die, I should just die and not worry her, and now I feel like I’m some kind of juvenile delinquent who tried to commit suicide. But you know how Mom is. Once she makes up her mind about something, you can’t argue with her. I’m sick of it! She’s always treated me like I’m defective. I’m over thirty…”
    I had intended not to say anything, but the words spilled out of me.
    Seeing Aunt Monica after all that time made me want to act like a child and throw a tantrum. She seemed to guess what I was feeling, because she tucked my blanket around me like she would for a baby. I felt the secret joy that only grown-ups who are being pampered like a baby can enjoy. Aunt Monica’s small rough hand caught my own, and I felt the warmth that radiated from her body. It had been a long time since I’d felt another person’s warmth.
    “I mean it,” I said. “I don’t have the energy to die. You know I’m not that kind of person, you know I don’t have the will or the courage to die. So don’t try to tell me that if I have the will to die then I also have the will to live, or that I need go to church. And don’t pray for me either. I’m sure I’ll just give God a headache, too.”
    Aunt Monica started to say something and then stopped. My mother had probably told her everything. I bet she had told her,
Yujeong said yes to the engagement but now she doesn’t want to go through with it. Her brother says this man went to the same school as him and graduated at the top of his class from the Judicial Research and Training Institute, so we know he’s a good person with a good academic background. He’s a decent man. His family isn’t much to speak of, but she’s over thirty. Where does she think she’s going to find