June 19th, 2006

"Okay, can anybody just tell me again exactly why she needs to be in a wheelchair?"

"Tsk, tsk, ChoongJae, do you think I would rather limp around on crutches than to have MinWoo push me around in this baby while he's soaking up in guilt? I don't think so." Ferica looked perfectly fine and content. And don't forget about evil.

I laugh under my breath, supporting my mom into the house. The doctor had said she could go home, but she has a horrible headache that the doctor can't explain. But as I look at her again, I dropped the smile off my face realizing why this small accident had affected her so much.

"Umma, are you alright?!" JungHyuk rushed to mom's other side to help her up the stairs.

Though inappropriate at the time, I found it really cute how he was so worried. The last time I saw him care about something so much was when I threatened to flush his goldfish down the toilet in grade 3 for eating my share of ice cream while I had gone to the washroom during our Lee Family reunion. I was a young girl who knew her authority. I also knew that appa wouldn't be coming back to my rescue, I had to take matters into my own hands. So I grabbed Goldy, whose name reflects JungHyuk's creativity greatly, and held him up above the sparkling clean, white toilet with my other hand placed dangerously on the flusher.

And where was JungHyuk when all this happened, you ask? On the newly scrubbed tile floors of our ground-floor washroom, bawling his eyes out.

My uncle, who was also my father's older brother, had rushed in to see what all the commotion was. He made me return Goldy to its fish tank and made JungHyuk stop wailing. He had gently shut the door and talked with us for what seemed like hours. He sat down on the toilet cover with JungHyuk and I on either sides of his lap.

Though it was years ago, I could still hear his voice lingering in my head. Uncle ChilTae's gentle eyes creased as he blinked his tears away when he explained to us how much my mother had been hurt from our appa's death. We both looked at our tiny feet, swinging in the air with guilt. We knew umma had been snappy and super-sensitive ever since the incident, and yet we weren't helping the situation at all by being annoyingly little brats.

I clearly remember that it was father's day. Appa had been rushing home to his loving family, knowing that he was returning to his favourite place in the world for a dinner umma had been preparing for for days. JungHyuk and I both knew that he wouldn't have traded us for anything in the world, appa had said so. At that time, JungHyuk had been playing soccer on the front lawn with our dog, Dax, as umma and I were desperately trying to usher him back into the house.

JungHyuk had given the soccer ball a finally, hard kick, sending it rebounding onto the street. Dax quickly ran after it; that was when it happened. Appa had turned onto the street with Dax in the middle of street. He quickly swerved the car, but it was too late. And appa had ran right into the streetlight. It had all happened in an instant. Dax was no longer moving, lying in a pool of blood with JungHyuk crying next to him, not realizing what else had happened. Blood was dripping from the open car door, a single hand stuck out. The streetlight was no longer standing erect and umma fell to the floor at the sight, only a few feet away from the mashed-up car. And me; I was standing there, beside umma's body, numb. Frozen. I could only stand there with my eyes wide open, trying to understand everything that had just happened.

I only blinked when our neighbours had rushed out, telling me that they were calling the ambulance. And from that blink, the tears never that should have never stopped, never came. I went to go hug JungHyuk and tried to stop him from crying. I told him that nothing happened, that this was just another one of appa's tricks. That everything was going to be alright. That both umma and appa would come and laugh at us when the ambulance came. I knew myself that it was all just a trick.

But the ambulance came and went, and appa never came back to laugh or smile at us, ever. From that traumatic incident, umma, Junghyuk and I had to go see a psychiatrist. JungHyuk and I put it behind us after a few years, but umma had never been able to accept her loss. Kim DaeHee was no longer the same person, and could never be. I knew that umma was only pulling herself together for us, not showing us her pain because she didn't want to upset us. We knew, yet there was nothing we could do.

A few months after the accident, umma sold the house and we moved into a new condo that had just been built. We bought the penthouse suite that had two levels and was located on the 23/22 floors. Well technically 22. All of us had agreed to move, because it hurt to look at the new streetlight that had been put up everytime we stepped outside.