—There’s a Union Jack on this blanket.

—Uh, yeah.

—Mr. Young really loves the flags of Western countries.

—Not really. I didn’t even notice that was there. You do know that you’re the one obsessed with flags, right?

—There you go again. You always sound so defensive.

—I do not. I just talk the way I talk.

The mood chilled between us. I slid off the bed and said I’d make him lunch. Pasta, which I had never eaten with him, ever. In the kitchen, I cooked the spaghetti, chopped the garlic, heated a pan with olive oil, and sautéed the peperoncini and clams. I must say I was enamored by this image of myself cooking for him, seeing myself wiping the occasional bead of sweat from my forehead. It gave me joy that food I had made with my own hands would become part of his body. That satisfaction would be enough, I thought, as I plated the spaghetti and placed it on the table. He stirred at it with his chopsticks, not even trying to taste it. Then he put down his utensils and looked down at the baby photos of me underneath the glass top of our dinner table.

—Looking at these photos makes me think that your mother truly loves you.

—Really, now.

—Yes. There is something different about the face of someone who is loved. And something different about a photograph taken by someone who loves. And that’s the thing, Mr. Young.

—What is, hyung?

—I think you should meet a good man someday.

— . . . What did you just say?

—Or maybe you should meet a good woman?

A thing as casually spoken as if he were suggesting we go for hwe instead of pasta. I couldn’t reply to that. What else could I do but stare? Who would say such a thing as if it were nothing at all? Who was this man that I had obsessed over so much, this man I had been so ready to throw myself at? Suddenly the whole world had stopped making sense, and all I could do was keep staring. Did I, in that moment, resemble Umma as she’d stared at Father and the Other Woman playing badminton? Why so suddenly . . . or was it not so sudden? Had he found out that I had used his computer and dug through his secrets, that I had tried to turn his life upside down and see what I could shake out? Was it impossible to go back to the way we were?

He sighed and spoke again.

—What did you think we were? The two of us?

—What are you saying?

I grabbed his arm as he got up from his seat. I couldn’t simply let him go like this—I wasn’t Umma. I held onto him tighter as he tried to shake me off. He stared down at me with that pitying gaze of his, the one I was so used to.