Ever since I was very young, there has always been one or two missing places in our house. They are among spoons at the dinner table, cushions in family bedroom, shoes in shelves, laughs in front of a television. They are places that we are too busy in living our own lives to notice often. For me, they are places that have always been sitting there as some unwelcomed parts of our family, protruding like a nail in a wrong place.
At the moment, both of my parents are ‘good members of society’, an elder sister a hard-working university student and I am a fine (or so it seems) high school student. Pretty normal. Behind the scene, there is a slight difference. My parents are so-called 'weekend-couples' in Korean word, who have jobs in different province. My sister studies abroad alone. We manage to gather at one place for two times a year, during each vacation. After a few weeks or a month, we go back to our own posts.
It has always been this way. Since I was three, I was used to waiting for dad on every Friday night. He came accompanied with scent of the big city, Seoul, and tiredness that clung at the edge of his trousers all the way along. Cuddling myself with arms around my legs, I sat at the dark empty entrance and tried to gaze bravely at the door which licked out coldness. I waited. Not knowing whether or not he was having his 'very important conference' with 'very important professional people' even after the dinner hour or was too tired to come.
At some point, I noticed things were not always like how it was in my family to others. The kind of dad they had was 'week dad', not 'weekend dad'. On Mondays, our weekend dad went back to work wearing a suit and a professional face. As I was only elementary school kid, it was too difficult for me to understand. I sometimes screamed and cried, telling him not to go. Putting myself and his work in a scale, I childishly asked him to weigh us. However, in the end, he inevitably and sorrily chose the work.
But it was only the beginning in our dynamic family history. Another big separation was yet to come and make a chapter itself. It started off with my elder sister's simple announcement: 'I am going to live with dad in Seoul'.
Wonju, a city where we were leaving in, was a small town in the mountainous province inhabited with not a lot of people from different regions. As I had heard it since I was in elementary school, the chances were about two people in one class in high school would manage to go to universities in Seoul. Only six percent. Meaning, the other ninety four would not be able to get into a 'good' university. What did that mean to them? No chance of getting into good companies that only valued graduation certificates from in-Seoul universities(hey, who is going to employ you when you only wasted your four years in unknown rural universities even if you did a good job?). So the students had to be outstanding, outrunning, and outreaching. My sister had a clear notion of that. She wanted an environment that gave her higher chances for 'good' highschool and 'good' universities. She packed her things after elementary school graduation and left. From then on, father and sister together and mum and I together.
It was a weird sensation at first. No one to fight over puddings at dinner table. No one to argue with in bed. No one to guard against for my clothes.
I was feeling the freedom that crept from the toe to the neck like tickles, a thrill. It tolled like 'bell of freedom' that figurative rang in 1963. All those sufferings, paid back in full. But linger to the past no more, as there settled a peace at last.
My sister was a person I tenderly adored from the core of my heart or disliked madly at the same time. There had never been an 'in between' for us. A place without her was a paradise without natural enemy. Wind of peace prevailed. At least, that was how I felt. Weirdly, I had to admit I did not get too excited about the event for more than a week. And I found myself thinking about her unlike myself. Mum went on being busy and came in late. House was too quiet. Along with the so-it-seemed freedom and peace, what I saw again, was one more of that familiar missing place sitting in the corner.
Mum and I went to Seoul once a week to see them. At first, it seemed like a fun and a special thing that our family gathered only once a week. A new experience. Then it turned out to be a new experience indeed, quite soon enough. It was when our family was unnoticeably categorized into two groups.
At first, we started to use the words 'Seoul/Wonju family' or 'Seoul/Wonju house' to indicate each other's house. They seemed like handy words for grouping. I could say things like; 'Are we going to Seoul family's this weekend?', 'Seoul house is too hot in summer.' However, the use of the word change slightly. They came as a way to draw a tacit line between the two 'family'. I began to see them differently. 'I want to go back to Wonju house! I hate being in Seoul house!', 'I do not understand Seoul family. I don't know why they act like that.' Out of sight, out of mind. I had thought it would not be applied to me.
Even some parts of my unfailed love for dad had changed slightly. The relationship between he and I had changed. He looked different from the dad I remembered in the childhood. It seemed okay to live, seeing him only once a week. I not only got used to it but started to feel it had better be the way it was. He seemed to have nothing so special he wanted to talk about and neither did I. I once told my mum;
'Mum, I don't know why but recently, dad seems like a guest or something.'
'Oh, don't be like that! He will be so disappointed if he hears that. When you were young, he was only too sorry that he could not take you to many places with you.'
She replied.
And now?
I mumbled the question at my throat.
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