Til Death Do Us Part

Chapter 17

“I’m not an invalid, Greta.” I brush away her arm, frosty persona back in place, sighing heavily as I walk up the concrete path to the beachy feel waterfront seafood restaurant she showed me in pictures the last few days. She’s been by my side at every opportunity and mothering me like she rescued a wounded duck with only one wing. Apparently, walking is now something I cannot handle alone. Along with the constant cheerleader efforts and pep talks about ‘pulling through.’

“Did you just give me the ice queen routine?” She stops dead in her tracks and slaps her hands to her hips while eyeing me up and down, and I glare her way. “We talked about that, missy. I’m your boss…. Your caregiver. … Your…..”

“Giver of headaches.” I finish her sentence bluntly and push on ahead. Healed mostly, but still a little fragile all over and carrying a brutal cold, a leftover symptom of my hypothermia. Dressed in her clothes, so we match, in jeans and flannel ugliness, but at least it’s warm and fits because we are similar in size. I’ve never been so unfashionable or unpulled together in my life, and I haven’t gone without make-up for this length of time since I was sixteen.

Caring not for my manner.

“I liked you better when you were near death.” She points out, lifting a sassy brow, and marches past me to unlock the door.

“So does everyone.” I self-mock, knowing I’m being grumpy and temperamental, but all of this is confusing and has been messing with my head these past few days. I made a decision and thought it would be easy, but I doubt and agonize over it every day and torture myself thinking about what they might be going through, not knowing where I am. I thought of sending them a letter from somewhere, away from here, so the postmark hid it, saying I was okay and needed time alone, but I knew Mother would stop at nothing to bring me back to heel. She would find me somehow.

I have no courage to reach out to them now. It’s been a week, and that time slot for contacting them is gone. I’ve hurt them already, left them to think me lost forever, and I can’t find an excuse for not reaching out, so I may as well stick to what I’ve done. I know it’s cowardly, but I’m not who I was when the car went over that cliff. I don’t have it in me to face them anymore, not like this.

Sohla Park is dented and cracked, and I am scared to return to them because I don’t have the strength to pick it up again. I need time to find my courage and a good reason to give them for staying away.

“You have to work on that attitude. I only have so much patience, and I will start throwing things at your head.” Greta unbolts the pastel-painted door protectors and hauls them off the front of the glass doors. Seemingly irritated with me, I eyeroll at her back. It’s not like I asked her to coddle me. I feel ungrateful while being like this, but a leopard can’t change its spots overnight, and I’m used to being the queen of my castle and not bowing her head to some uppity girl who has taken on the role of mother.

This will be home for the near future, and as rustic and quaint as it seems, I still cast a critical eye over it. It’s like a cutesy Chinese drama, seaside café. All fairy lights in the windows and colorful tacky fish décor as far as the eye can see. Lots of wooden benches, tables, and handmade touches. Only bigger.

It’s three stories high—a restaurant on the ground floor with many windows for a fantastic sea view. The second floor is more of a lounge and chill-out version for people who want a cozy dining experience, and she told me the third is home—a small apartment up there with two rooms and modest living space. We use the kitchen down here and bathrooms to live in, and I guess I need to learn domestic things.

It’s not the Hilton, not even a two-star at a push, but I can’t put my nose up at her genuine kindness and an offer of shelter and care.

“Here.” We walk inside, and she moves off to lift a counter that runs the expanse in front of me, pings open the cash register and holds a badge toward me. Gesturing with it impatiently.

I venture forward, slow and annoyingly lax, to rile her a little, glancing around my humble new abode, taking the little white enamel pin, and frowning at it in confusion.

It’s a rectangle badge with little fish around the border in a blue cartoon style and Anna's name in bold black letters in the center. Tacky in matching the theme of this place.

“What’s this?” My expression remains blank.

“It was here when I bought this place. Sat in there for five years. I figured you could use it, and we finally can stop calling you no-name.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that. The hospital staff called me Jane Doe.” I point out with a bland tone.

“You can’t keep that name. It doesn’t suit you, and calling you Cruella seems a bit mean.” She jests, pasting a witty yet sarcastic smile, and I know I’m being told off for my frostiness. It’s been up and down the last few days.

“I’m sorry. It’s all a little hard to digest, and I’m having a hard time.” I admit with a still dull tone, the words alien from my mouth, and it’s a bit like chewing nails to admit something like that to anyone. To apologize.

I’ve always had to push everything down inside and present the unwrinkled, unbreakable mask at all times. Mother insisted. Greta went crazy at me for doing it in the first couple of days, so I’m trying to verbalize my feelings enough to stop her persistent nagging.

She makes a sucking noise through her teeth, props her chin on her hands, and leans on the counter with an exaggerated expression. She is eyeing me up and shaking her head.

“That had to have hurt. Like chewing glass. I can see in your face that you hate yourself right now.” She mocks me, and I roll my eyes and turn away, dumping down the small bag containing the items she gave me for the hospital on the nearest table. She’s infuriating, but despite myself, I still like her. Even if it comes with this cheeky personality, she’s the first human in the world who never actually wanted anything from me except my company.

“So where do I start? Don’t you have customers at all?” I ask, changing the subject, and wave my hand around airily. She’s been closing shop and spending hours with me, which seems a little counterproductive for a business. Mainly as she works here alone. Judging by the lack of people outside the street, I don’t think she turned away any customers by not being here. It grates on my Vice President Park self to see something run this poorly.

“I told you. It’s off-season. Locals don’t really eat here, so I have to make all my money in peak and make it last. I sell jarred cold dishes on my online shop, like marinated soy crab, but not so much. This town is only good when we have visitors, and we have to find other means of getting by the rest of the time.”

“Why stay here if it’s this desolate? You can only make money half the year?” It sounds like my idea of hell, and I curse at my inability to access the millions of dollars in my bank accounts that I haven’t dared confess to her I have. It seems like rubbing it in her face when she uses duct tape to keep her rucksack in one piece.

“I like it. I came from a pretty messed-up background with no stability, and my kid died when she was two. I needed somewhere pressure-free to go and find a reason not to end it all. This island is like a healing balm and resembled nothing in my past to give me bad memories.”

“Your kid…. ?” The words catch in my throat, and my heart somersaults. Pain splices me, and I turn my head to see the sadness in her eyes. A mirror of how I feel anytime I think of Tia. It’s another layer to things that make me connect to her, and I want to hug her suddenly. We share so many scars that it feels like I found someone I could honestly talk to.

“Hmmm. She ran out of my front yard and got hit by a car. I took my eye off the ball in one second of careless parenting, and my kid isn’t here anymore.” Her voice trembles, even though she states it so matter of factly, but she swallows it down and shakes it off. “She would be four now.”

My eyes wash with intense sorrow at the same age as Tia would have been, and I have to turn my back on her to blink it away. I am churning inside at what she said and sympathizing with the loss and guilt for letting down our babies and not protecting them.

“I’m sorry.” The vibration of emotion in my voice matches hers, and there’s a long silent moment between us before I feel her tap me on the shoulder, and I jump. Unaware she had even walked over to me. She doesn’t seem to linger in the past of hurtful memories as I do, and she’s already bright-eyed and back to being invasive. I wonder if this is how it is when you face your grief and learn how to process it healthily.

“You talk about her in your sleep, you know.” She says it softly, but it side-swipes me.

“Huh?” my eyes widen, trying to pull out of my brain who she’s referring to as I blink at her in question.

My mom? Mother? Claire? I don’t even know, as I usually don’t remember my dreams. Besides the nightmares since the accident, I don’t think I dream about anything else.

“I’m guessing she’s your daughter…. You call her Tia. You tell her you're sorry and love her and miss her. YOU call yourself mommy.”

It knocks me for six like a sucker punch, and a weird breathy shocked noise escapes me that sounds like a laugh or a cough. I blanche at her, numbed instantly by this revelation. I can’t believe she got that much from my dream, and I’m stupid enough to say things out loud in front of strangers.

“I didn’t know how to ask you.” She seems awkward suddenly, and I look away and push my hair back to try to control the inner war kicking off inside me at being disarmed this way. It’s the last thing I expected when I’m over here trying to conceal my real identity.

“Yeah, she died. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m going to look at the kitchen and see what this place is like.” I answer coldly, deflecting, and don’t wait but instead march off towards what I assume is the adjoining door—brushing her off, closing up, and putting the wall back in place. It’s a hard habit to kill and as natural as breathing.

“And Jyeon?” She annoyingly follows me, and I trip over the threshold at the mere mention of his name, stomach tensing, and I almost curse aloud at her. Rattled at hearing it from someone else’s mouth. She has the ability to fly kick you in the face without even exerting any effort.

“No one. I mean…. no one important anymore.” I snap at her, my hands trembling, and look around the steel and wood interior of a bog-standard café kitchen, looking for something to distract her, grappling with myself to find something to change the subject and her dog-like latch on it.

“He doesn’t sound like he’s no one. You call for him. I mean, you’re practically running away and have the good old ‘fuck off’ aura on again. That’s a good pointer that he’s a very sensitive subject.” She points out, relentless in her pursuit no matter where I walk in this tiny claustrophobic space, and after doing one round of the countertops, I end up back facing her at the door. This tiny little body of invasive annoyance. I'm fuming that I can’t outrun her; I hate how smug she looks because she already knew that.

“You said you wouldn’t ask questions or probe. This is asking a question and fucking probing.” I bark at her. My temper is simmering, but not with anger. It’s this blast of pain and suffering I didn’t expect to come at me so easily at just hearing his name. I’m taking it out on her because I don’t know how to put it back inside, and lately, I have been shit at trying to control my emotions. It feels like some epic fallout or aftershock of my accident, and the cold indifference of before is hard to bring back. Sohla Park is not as good at what she used to be because of one little swim in the freezing sea.

“Hmmm, I did. I also told you I was a nosy bitch, though.” She smiles, her little cheeky ‘you know you love me’ face that she pulls out of her ass anytime she gets me this worked up, and I wipe my face before realizing it's because I’m crying. Silent tears escape by themselves, and I hate all these after-symptoms of near-death experiences.

“You’re infuriating.” I sniff it out, feeling stupid at snapping at her when she’s looking at me this way, and guilt soars up from somewhere inside. I’m a bag of conflicting feelings and messed-up emotions since I was scraped off that road, and this wench adds to the weight it brings me. It’s like she wants me to break all the way.

“We have a lot of work to do on you, puppy.” She pats both my cheeks at once, and I slap them away, scowling at her handsy and cutesy response to my having another mental breakdown over the slightest thing. She is a pain in the ass.

“Why don’t you just kick me out and tell me to go home? It’ll be easier on you and me.” I blurt out, furiously wiping the tears from my cheeks, and I don’t even know what I’m crying for.

“Yahhhh, what do you take me for? There’s only room for one heartless crazy woman, and it’s not me. I need a dishwasher. I have sensitive skin, and I like them done by hand …..see, I have to keep you.” She winks, pats me on the head, and slides by to head for the refrigerator as though she didn’t just reduce me to tears. “Ice cream? It’s Ben and Jerry’s! I only buy the real stuff!” She ignores my sour face and pulls out two flavors before rifling in a drawer for spoons. She’s like a whirlwind that blows in, rattles your brain around, and then wooshes out to observe the chaos she stirred up.

I can’t believe I thought of her like Yoonie at first when she’s nothing like him. The sweetness and cute look, yeah, but she’s a little devil who pushes you and drills into your hard outer shell to suck at your softer inner core with her persistence and eternal optimism.

Despite myself, I laugh. A crack in the ice maiden routine at something that isn’t even that funny. This is the magic of Greta though. She’s goofy and bold. She has zero boundaries, but her heart is pure and kind, and everything she does is for the benefit of those around her. She takes my bitch mode with a pinch of salt and is not afraid of me. She challenges me right to my face and gives zero shits about it, unlike all those OLO employees who quaked in fear and always shriveled with intimidation.

“I’ve never washed a dish in my life, so I won’t apologize if I break any or make a mess. I’ve never cooked, cleaned, or done anything domestic. I can’t even use a microwave. So good luck with me being your staff.” I admit, turning and heading for a stool at the counter where she stays perched with no intention of coming to me and gratefully taking a spoon. Pointing out I will be a burden and probably a cranky one with it.

“I knew it!” She exclaims and gives herself a high five mid-air as though she broke some fantastic code. “Famous!! ….. I got your number, gurly.” She winks at me and smacks me on the forehead with her ice-cream-covered cutlery.