Only after all this time was she able to understand why Yeong-hye had said what she did. Yeong-hye had been the only victim of their father’s beatings. Such violence wouldn’t have bothered their brother Yeong-ho so much, a boy who went around doling out his own rough justice to the village children. As the eldest daughter, In-hye had been the one who took over from their exhausted mother and made a broth for her father to wash the liquor down, and so he’d always taken a certain care in his dealings with her. Only Yeong-hye, docile and naive, had been unable to deflect their father’s temper or put up any form of resistance. Instead, she had merely absorbed all her suffering inside her, deep into the marrow of her bones. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, In-hye could see that the role that she had adopted back then of the hard-working, self-sacrificing eldest daughter had been a sign not of maturity but of cowardice. It had been a survival tactic.

Could I have prevented it? Could I have prevented those unimaginable things from sinking so deep inside of Yeong-hye and holding her in their grip? She saw her sister again, as a child, her back and shoulders and the back of her head as she stood alone in front of the main gate at sunset. The two of them had eventually made it down off the mountain, but on the opposite side from where they’d started. They’d hitched a ride on a power tiller back to their small town, hurrying along the unfamiliar road as darkness fell. In-hye had been relieved, but not her sister. Yeong-hye had said nothing, only stood and watched the flaming poplars kindled by the evening light.

—

Had they run away from home that evening, as Yeong-hye had suggested, would it all have been different?

At the family gathering that day, if she’d been more forceful when she grabbed their father’s arm, before he struck Yeong-hye in the face, would it all have been different then?

And what about when she first took Yeong-hye to be introduced to her future husband, Mr. Cheong? He’d come across as somewhat cold; she hadn’t taken to him at all. What would have happened if she’d acted on instinct and refused to let the marriage go forward?

There’d been a time when she could spend hours like this, weighing up all the variables that might have contributed to determining Yeong-hye’s fate. Of course it was entirely in vain, this act of mentally picking up and counting the paduk stones that had been laid out on the board of her sister’s life. More than that, it wasn’t even possible. But she couldn’t stop her thoughts from running on to her ex-husband.

If only she hadn’t married him.

He called her, just once. It was around nine months ago, and close on midnight. Perhaps he’d been calling from somewhere far away, because there was a brief lag after the sound of the coin tumbling.