“In Korea, because we believe in honoring our elders, most people refer to others by titles, not names,” she continues after a sip of coffee. “Teachers and doctors are not Mrs. Lee or Mr. Choi but seonsaengnim. The older woman that works with you is sunbaenim. But among friends, it is fine to call us by our first name.”

“And if we aren’t friends?”

“Samonim or seonsaengnim if you want to be very formal.”

“Yujun calls you Eomma.” It’s starting to make sense. To Yujun, Wansu is the mother figure that he lost when he was very young. So what is Wansu to me? She is not my mother exactly.

“How about imo? It is what a young person would call the mother of a close friend. It’s a type of aunt in Korean.” Then she smiles, an almost imperceptible curve of the corners of her mouth upward. “Or michinyeon. It means crazy bitch.”

An involuntary laugh escapes me at this unexpected level of perception from Wansu. “I’m okay with Wansu.”

Her response is to drink her coffee. I notice that her knuckles are white. She’s not as cool and unaffected by our interaction as she makes herself out to be. Oddly that puts me at ease. I sag against the cushions and drink. For a heartbeat, a breath, there’s only the sound of our china in the still room.

“Hara-ya. Look at me.”

I raise my eyes to Wansu’s. Her emotionless gaze steadies me in a way that I find surprising.

“I will tell you this not because I want your sympathy or your forgiveness, but because you do deserve to know. When I was in high school, I met your father. He was very kind to me.” He was a predatory jerk who took advantage of you, I think. “I was lonely. My parents worked very hard, very long hours, and I did not see much of them. I became enamored of Lee Jonghyung and we made you. When I told my parents . . . my father . . . he did not understand.”

The pause said a lot. He beat her. I know this without her saying it. There’s a shadow of pain in her eyes that I recognize. I see it sometimes when I look in the mirror. There’s a stain that the betrayal of your parent leaves on your heart. Pat never raised a hand against me, but he hurt me nonetheless. Sympathy stirs and I try to quash it. Sympathy leads to forgiveness and I’m not there yet. I don’t want to be there yet. Still, I want to know more. I’m so thirsty for every morsel of information that I’d do anything to keep Wansu talking. “Your mother? Did she understand?”

That ghost smile appears again. “She understood even less. I told them that I would raise you myself but I did not know what that meant. There are not many jobs for girls who have no education and no skills. I tried for twelve weeks but I could not feed you enough. You were sick and tiny. A church family I cleaned for had fostered a baby that was adopted by a foreign family. The foreign family was very well off. The foster mother would show the infant pictures of the foreign family’s large home and many cars. I thought, if I cannot have that life, my daughter can, so one night I went to the police, and when no one was looking, I set you at the gate. I watched for forty-two minutes until a police officer came out for a smoke break and found you.”