chulsWealthy men had wives and mistresses, sometimes even in the same household. She couldn't be his mistress, however. Her crippled father had loved her mother, who had grown up even poorer than most; he had treasured her. When he was alive, after the boardinghouse guests were served their meals, the three would eat together as a family at the same low dinner table. Her father could've eaten before the women, but he'd never wanted that.
At the table, he'd make sure that her mother had as much meat and fish on her plate as he did. In the summer, after finishing a long day, he'd tend to the watermelon patch because it was his wife's favorite fruit. Each winter, he'd procure fresh cotton wool to pad their jackets, and if there wasn't enough, he'd claim his own jacket didn't need new filling.
"You have the kindest father in the land," her mother would often remark, and Sunja had been proud of his love for them, the way a child from a rich family might have been proud of her father's numerous bags of rice and piles of gold rings.
Nevertheless, she couldn't stop thinking of Hansu. Whenever she'd met him at the cove, the cloudless sky and jade-colored water would recede from her sight, leaving only the images of him, and she used to wonder how their time together could vanish so quickly. What amusing story would he tell her? What could she do to make him stay even a few minutes longer?