“Ne.” Boyoung grabs my hand. She doesn’t realize she’s spoken in Korean, but it’s that kind of moment.

Boyoung once told me that ne in Korean doesn’t merely mean “yes,” but that it is a word of acknowledgment with its meaning changing with how one emphasizes it, what kind of emotion one puts behind it. And, today, I understand. Yes, the couple was young. Yes, it was tragic. Yes, this is terrible. Yes, I know you are full of grief and hearing about this is very hard. Yes, I’m here with you.

It’s a good word. Ne.

I clutch her hand tightly as we walk down the long hallway, the scent of flowers making my stomach clench. The pretty decorations seem more macabre than comforting. At the end of the hall, the decorations grow sparser; the mourners are fewer. It begins to feel more like a hospital and less like a graduation ceremony.

A woman dressed in a knee-length black sheath, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, sweeps by. Boyoung stops so abruptly I almost trip over her. My friend’s eyes linger on the elegant figure for a long, strange moment. There doesn’t appear to be anything remarkable about the departing woman other than she seems like she should be visiting the rooms at the front of the hallway, not down here in the antiseptic, spare part. Her clothes fit her well. I admire the hat. It’s a nice accessory.

“Do you know her?” I ask.

Boyoung doesn’t respond, but my voice appears to jolt the shorter girl from her trance. She gives herself a brief shake and then dips her head toward a small room at the end of the hall. “Your father is over here.”

“Over here” is a tiny rectangle of a room, with a plain table at one end. On the table is a picture of a man with a ribbon wrapped around the top corners. In front of the picture is one small bowl of fruit, a wreath of white flowers, and a pot containing three incense sticks. The smoke curls off the ends, dancing in the still air. It’s the only movement in the room, as the two women kneeling to the side with their heads bent don’t stir.

Boyoung motions for me to slip off my shoes and then urges me inside. I balk. My feet want to turn and flee, run after the lady in black and use the big black hat as a shield all the way to the airport.

This was a mistake—coming to the funeral, coming to Korea, believing I was going to find something from a stranger. There are no answers here, and the sense of belonging that infused me when I was at the airport has curdled into a rock in the pit of my stomach. I should go back home where I understand what everyone is saying and the losses in my life are still at one. I’m twenty-five. I should be mourning a romantic breakup, not the death of my second father—or my first one. I don’t know anymore.