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Chapter 19
“During the day, I steamed too many potatoes. They’re potatoes we dug up from our field in the spring—nice and fluffy, really delicious. Have some later as a midnight snack.”
On Monday afternoon, Suna’s mom, who had come to pick up her child, left a whole basket of steamed potatoes behind.
Then came Yunji’s mom with savory pancakes, and after that Gyeongsu’s mom, who stopped by on her way home from work, brought a roll cake.
Every time another parent showed up with food in hand, Chaeyoon was flustered. She wondered how she was supposed to eat all of this by herself.
Still, it was also true that her heart felt warm.
Even though they lived in the same neighborhood, these parents rarely ran into one another face-to-face. The reason they were suddenly visiting like this was obvious—it must have been because of what had happened on Saturday afternoon.
Jinhee’s grandfather was infamous in the neighborhood as a heavy drinker.
Whenever he got drunk, no one could handle him, and the neighbors would all click their tongues in disapproval. Jinhee had once complained about him with her small face all scrunched up, so Chaeyoon roughly knew the situation.
Since that kind of grandfather had caused a drunken scene with the teacher who lived alone and ran the study room, everyone must have come out of concern, worried that Chaeyoon had been startled or traumatized. The potatoes, pancakes, and cake were merely excuses.
The last person to visit the study room was Jinhee’s mother.
Chaeyoon had already been worried because Jinhee hadn’t shown up, so she warmly welcomed Jinhee’s mom, who came alone after eight in the evening.
“I’m so sorry about Saturday, teacher. Everything was chaotic, so I couldn’t even apologize properly.”
“It’s all right, Jinhee’s mother. I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.”
“How can it be all right? I heard you were hit. My father’s hands are huge, and he’s incredibly strong—he still lifts sacks of rice with ease. To be struck by those hands…”
“Maybe because he was drunk, but he didn’t have much strength in his hands that day. It didn’t hurt at all.”
When Chaeyoon said this with a broad grin, joking lightly, Jinhee’s mom finally managed a faint smile.
“I’m really okay, so you don’t have to worry. More importantly, how is Jinhee? I was concerned since she didn’t come to the study room today.”
At that, Jinhee’s mom let out a deep sigh.
“She was too embarrassed to face you, so she didn’t come. She kept saying she couldn’t possibly look you in the eye after what happened, that it was all her fault…”
Knowing Jinhee’s personality well, Chaeyoon quietly nodded.
Jinhee was a deeply affectionate child. She wasn’t very expressive and didn’t talk much, but you could clearly see it in how she treated people and how she cared for her younger siblings.
“She must have been really shocked.”
“Yes. Things already seemed to be getting strained between her and her grandfather lately, and now I’m worried this incident might drive a permanent wedge between them.”
“……”
“She wouldn’t even eat dinner today, saying she didn’t want to see him. She’s usually not that stubborn, but she seems really angry this time.”
From Jinhee’s perspective, it was understandable. Having a family member’s disgrace laid bare for others to see was more than a girl just entering puberty could easily bear.
“You must be having a hard time too, being caught in the middle.”
“Well, I…”
Jinhee’s mom forced a smile at Chaeyoon’s words of comfort, then soon sighed again.
“We can’t separate households right away, so I feel terrible for Jinhee. I just wish my father would drink a little less, but that’s not something I can control.”
“If Jinhee is having a really hard time, I can feed her dinner here for a while and then send her home.”
At Chaeyoon’s suggestion, Jinhee’s mom looked startled and waved her hands.
“No, teacher. That’s not what I meant—why would you… I was just venting.”
“I know, ma’am. I’m only saying this because I’m worried. And today, people have been sending a lot of food over anyway.”
As Chaeyoon gestured toward the sink, an awkward expression crossed Jinhee’s mom’s face. It was the look of someone who already knew who had visited the study room and what they had brought.
“Sharing a few meals isn’t difficult. I’ll just do it until Jinhee feels a bit better.”
“Then… I hate to impose, but please, teacher.”
After repeatedly saying she was sorry and thankful, Jinhee’s mom went home, leaving behind a shopping bag with red ginseng in one corner of the study room.
“I don’t know when I’ll ever finish all this either.”
Smiling faintly, Chaeyoon opened the bag—and then a small exclamation slipped from her lips.
Next to the box of red ginseng was a large stack of medicated patches for bruises. Perhaps what Jinhee’s mom had really meant to give her wasn’t the ginseng, but the patches.
“Ha, honestly…”
With a wry chuckle, Chaeyoon pulled out a patch and shook her head.
In front of Jinhee’s mom she had acted like she was fine, but in truth, the shoulder that Jinhee’s grandfather had struck hurt quite a bit. When she’d showered that morning, she’d seen a dark bruise blooming there.
Taking the opportunity, she took off her shirt and stuck a patch over the bruise.
As the familiar medicinal smell spread and warmth seeped into her shoulder, Chaeyoon let out another quiet laugh.
She thought she might understand now why her grandmother had never been able to leave her hometown.
Her grandmother, Mrs. Song Jaesuk, had lived a hard life.
Less than ten years after getting married, she lost her husband in an accident and raised her only daughter alone, with great difficulty. That daughter went to Seoul right after graduating high school to earn money, then returned to her hometown a few years later, pregnant.
The daughter, who said she could never reveal who the child’s father was, disappeared when the baby was just two years old, leaving the barely toddler-aged child with her grandmother.
That child was Chaeyoon.
Her grandmother cherished and raised Chaeyoon with great care. But she didn’t indulge every wish just because Chaeyoon had no mother; if anything, she raised her granddaughter far more strictly than she had raised her own daughter.
Fortunately, Chaeyoon had a gentle disposition and was quick to read the room.
She realized relatively early that she had no mother or father, and that aside from her grandmother, there was no one else to take care of her.
Chaeyoon did exactly what her grandmother told her to do, and never did what she was told not to.
Without even realizing it herself, the belief that she had to be a good child in order not to be abandoned by her grandmother had etched itself deep into her heart.
But being good, obedient, and perceptive didn’t mean Chaeyoon wasn’t hurt. In fact, it made her even more sensitive to people’s gazes and whispers.
Even before she understood the literal meaning of phrases like “the daughter of an unwed mother” or “a child without a father,” Chaeyoon sensed that they were used with negative intent.
“Isn’t that her? Jeonghee’s daughter.”
“Oh, the one who came back after becoming an unwed mother… What’s Jeonghee doing these days?”
“No idea. She disappeared two years after giving birth. That poor older sister—raised her only daughter alone with such difficulty, and in the end, the daughter leaves behind a fatherless child and vanishes… tsk, tsk.”
As a child, Chaeyoon found it hard to accept that the people who pointed fingers at her like that were the very neighbors who smiled and chatted with her every day.
As a result, she grew to prefer staying at home reading fairy tales and playing with dolls rather than spending time with kids her own age.
She envied her friends whenever they talked about their parents, and she had no answer when asked where her own mom and dad were.
As she grew older, Chaeyoon set a firm goal: somehow, she would leave this neighborhood behind. No matter how she thought about it, the only way was to get into a good university, land a job at a company in Seoul, and move away.
In the end, she was accepted into a prestigious university in Seoul, taking one step closer to her goal of “escaping Yangpyeong.”
After passing the teacher appointment exam and being assigned as a contract teacher, she even briefly fulfilled her dream of leaving her hometown.
But Chaeyoon returned to Yangpyeong in tatters after only three months away.
And yet—
The ones who embraced her after she was falsely accused of being a gold digger and unjustly driven out were, unexpectedly, the very villagers who had once pointed fingers at her.
As soon as they heard that she was opening a study room, they showed up carrying stacks of rice cakes to congratulate her.
And without hesitation, they entrusted their children to her.
The people didn’t know the exact reason she had been expelled from her school, nor did they try to pry.
