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⁜ Episode 1. The Secret Garden
I was sick of it.
“I’m going to live at Grandma’s house.”
The sound of rain was cold. Mom, holding her umbrella alone, stared at me standing in the downpour.
Shouldn’t a mother cover her daughter with an umbrella if she’s standing there getting drenched? The thought came automatically, absurd enough to make me scoff inwardly. When had Mom ever shared her umbrella with me?
“What are you going to do alone in that haunted house?”
Through her glasses, Mom’s eyes were icy.
Haunted house?
At that moment, I was glad I had nothing in my hands. If I’d been holding my phone, I would have thrown it for sure.
“Haunted house? Do you even know where this is, Mom?!”
I screamed like a foolish child. People passing by turned to look at us, but neither Mom nor I gave them the satisfaction of turning away.
I shouted for them to hear.
“This is Grandma’s columbarium you’re talking about! She’s been laid to rest here for less than an hour and you dare call it a haunted house? And you call yourself her daughter? You call yourself human?!”
This was the same woman who had never once brought me an umbrella on rainy school days.
I had endured it, because she was busy. Because she was the great top instructor Oh Soohee. She never came to my entrance ceremonies, not in elementary school, not in middle school, not in university.
I thought it was too much, sure—but I endured it. I had Grandma. She had always been there, arms open, comforting me whenever Mom abandoned me for her precious career.
Grandma used to say:
“Your mother just has too soft a heart. But she’s really a good child. She loves you very much.”
I had believed it.
Mom loves me—she’s just busy. She doesn’t apologize because she’s too soft-hearted, afraid she’d crumble if she admitted it in front of me. That’s what I told myself.
But then Grandma died. And for three days of funeral rites, I watched Mom breeze in only to handle paperwork, pay money, and vanish.
I realized the truth.
Grandma had told a kind lie.
Mom didn’t love me. She didn’t love Grandma either. Mom didn’t know love at all.
Even as her daughter wept in the rain, she clung to her umbrella alone.
“I think it’d be best if we don’t contact each other for a while.”
“Why? You worried you won’t have money to live on if it’s forever?”
Her sneer was unbearable.
I stared straight into her face. Tears streamed from my eyes, but she didn’t see them. Perhaps the rain masked them. No—sunshine wouldn’t have changed anything.
Her face was cold, as if not a drop of blood would flow even if pierced with a needle.
“Fine. Let’s just never see each other again.”
I didn’t want to call her “Mom” anymore.
I turned my back and walked away. They said a bus from here would take me back to the funeral hall. Good. Mom had driven here separately, so she’d leave separately too. I wouldn’t have to see her again.
Grandma was the one who had passed, but it felt like I was parting forever with my mother.
It wasn’t easy to get to Grandma’s house.
I was soaked through, and people on the bus and subway gave me disapproving stares.
Ah. I knew better than to act on emotion—but sometimes I just couldn’t stop myself. Muttering curses at myself, I trudged on until I finally arrived at Grandma’s place. By then, night had fallen.
The walk was terrifying: no streetlights, just rain, darkness, and my imagination whispering about serial killers behind me.
Grandma’s house was in rural Gyeonggi-do. Quiet, but close to a subway station. Maybe she had chosen the spot thinking of me. Still, it was a good half-hour walk from the station.
When I got inside, I unpacked my bag and checked the envelopes of condolence money. At the funeral I’d been too busy as the sole mourner to look. Thankfully, friends had helped by greeting visitors in shifts.
Mom had paid the funeral costs, so before we left for the burial site I’d given her the condolence money.
“Forget it. Keep it yourself.”
She hadn’t even touched it. Then she left in her car, while I rode the bus.
Some of Mom’s acquaintances pressed money into my hands, pity in their eyes. They weren’t shocked that Mom hadn’t been there—apparently, that was normal.
Counting the money later, I grew uneasy. Over 50 million won. Should I really keep this? I almost called Mom, then shut my phone off again. I couldn’t stand the thought.
In the end, I counted it all. Money smelled stronger than I’d ever realized.
The total: 86.75 million won.
I deposited it in a city bank. My hands trembled all the way there. No one knew I carried that much cash, but I felt exposed. Afterward, I sat inside the bank just to calm down.
When I stepped outside, the heat of August hit me like a wall. Grandma’s town was thirty minutes from the city. By the time I trudged back with a melting ice cream, I was drenched in sweat.
I showered, changed, grabbed water from the fridge. From the kitchen window, I could see Grandma’s garden.
Should I call it a garden or a yard? It wasn’t large, but lovingly arranged. Grandma had always kept a garden, wherever she lived. With me, she’d sit there for tea, sunlight pouring down, the world warm and safe.
The garden was the same as ever.
Strangely, it didn’t feel real that Grandma was gone. If I went out, she’d appear with a cup of cocoa, smiling, telling me it was the dog’s favorite.
But she wouldn’t. Ever again.
In summer, she’d make lemonade. Sure enough, I found lemon syrup and sparkling water in the fridge. I mixed a drink and stepped out the back door. My slippers waited neatly, just as always.
I slipped them on and sat in the iron chair, waiting. It felt like Grandma would join me. But she didn’t.
“Grandma.”
No answer.
Tears fell. Pathetic, maybe—but what was I supposed to do? This was my first loss. And she had been the one who loved me most—perhaps the only one who did.
What do you do, when your world’s only light goes out?
Wandering the garden, I stopped before Grandma’s vegetable patch. I laughed despite myself.
A tiny wooden fence, barely 15cm high, surrounded it—and it even had a little gate.
Who would ever bother opening a gate in such a fence? I never had. Just once, I’d tried.
“Why did you put a gate here, Grandma?”
She had slapped my hand playfully.
“It’s for style. Don’t touch it, you’ll break it!”
Grandma always cared about style.
Now, squatting there, I remembered—and opened it. No one could stop me anymore.
I stepped through. At that exact instant—
Flash!
The world turned. Suddenly, I stood in endless grassland, the sky vast and impossibly high, the wind whipping tall grass flat.
Behind me, a dense, shadowed forest stretched out, so thick that even in daylight the inside was swallowed in darkness.
Grandma’s house was gone.
Where was I? My mind went blank.
