“You have your father’s face,” Wansu says, breaking the silence.

My hand drops to my throat. I apply some pressure, maybe instinctively, maybe subconsciously, so I don’t scream or vomit. It’s hard to get the words out past the giant lump, but I manage to say, “I guess so.”

Wansu steps aside and pushes the door open. “Come in.”

“Eomma?” Yujun is confused. His mind is trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together but he doesn’t like the picture they’re forming so he scatters them and tries again. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like is happening as Yujun’s gaze ping-pongs from me to his stepmother and back again.

“I’ll see you at home tonight, son. Please, come in,” she repeats to me.

I grab onto Yujun as if he’s a life raft in the middle of a hurricane. Don’t leave me, I plead silently. I don’t know what I’m doing here.

Yujun laces his fingers through mine. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Yujun-ah, when your father brought me home that first time so many years ago, he left us alone so that we could talk. We needed that time together. Do you remember?”

I can feel the pressure lessen on my hand, so I grip him harder. Wansu somehow senses he’s wavering, too, that mother’s intuition, and presses forward. “I promise to bring your friend for dinner tonight. It will be a celebration.”

“No.”

Yujun squeezes my hand and then releases me. “Eomma is right. You should talk by yourselves. I’ll wait here, though.” He points to one of the white leather chairs.

I want to haul him back by my side.

“It will be a long time,” Wansu interjects. She doesn’t want him to stick around, which makes me instantly suspicious. Does Wansu plan to get rid of me somehow? Have the office assistant drive me to Incheon and shove me onto the first flight back to America? Or maybe she will just toss me out the window.

“I’ll wait here.” He says it with a slight smile and a brief nod, but the tone is firm. He walks over to one of the white leather chairs, flips back his suitcoat, and seats himself. He’s not moving and it reassures me in a hundred different ways. I won’t be left behind—at least not by Yujun.

The two stare at each other for a long, silent moment. A whole conversation takes place that I don’t understand because I don’t have the years of familiarity that these two have built. I’m on the outside of their family circle even though Wansu is my blood mother and Yujun’s stepmother. The unfairness of it is like a slap across my face, and bitterness fills my mouth.

Wansu’s lips tighten almost imperceptibly. She’s annoyed, maybe even angered, but other than the slight twitch of her lips, none of it shows. She turns away dismissively and gestures me inside the office again.

My limbs are heavy and the drumbeat in my head thuds loud enough that I’m certain everyone in a twenty-foot radius can hear it, but I move forward.