A Gesture Life (35 page)

Concerning Sunny, who didn’t protest that I was selling the house but did ask quite worriedly and sweetly if I were going to move very far away, I’ll place her name on the legal title to the store and building along with mine, and ask if she’ll accept this one thing from me, if she’ll sell the remaining medical stock and inventory and open whatever shop she wants and—if she and Thomas please—come live in the apartments above, which Liv’s contractors are presently reconfiguring and remodeling into one.

And with what remains, if Liv is right and all goes well, I’ll have just enough to go away from here and live out modestly the rest of my unappointed days. Perhaps I’ll travel to where Sunny wouldn’t
go, to the south and west and maybe farther still, across the oceans, to land on former shores. But I think it won’t be any kind of pilgrimage. I won’t be seeking out my destiny or fate. I won’t attempt to find comfort in the visage of a creator or the forgiving dead.

Let me simply bear my flesh, and blood, and bones. I will fly a flag. Tomorrow, when this house is alive and full, I will be outside looking in. I will be already on a walk someplace, in this town or the next or one five thousand miles away. I will circle round and arrive again. Come almost home.

While writing this novel, I was fortunate to meet with a number of people whose help was invaluable. I would like to thank Prof. Yun Chung Ok, the Rev. Kwon Hee Soon, and Kwon Hyuk Ju of KBS-TV in Seoul. Also, for her help in contacting surviving comfort women and for her translations during our interviews in Seoul, I wish to thank Son Hi-Joo.