The freezer gets another resident

The building threat is sharper than the family threat. I know this the moment I read Im's blocky handwriting on the printout under the mat: we know what's on the wall. Maa's voice this morning was pitched higher than last time — 7:30, earlier than she usually manages. Da-eun's mother saw me at a hotel. Not Samsung. Appa is asking questions my mother cannot answer. Two fronts, two different kinds of knowing, and I cannot tell which one will cut first.

I ate ramyeon standing at the counter with the chain still on the door. I do not sit down when I am like this. I eat like a person at a station. The doormat was waiting the way I knew something would be, even though I cannot predict any of this. I opened the door for the trash and felt it before I saw it. The plastic bag was warm through the glove. The hair inside was my length. Mine. Someone cut it or already had it.

I slid it into the freezer next to the cream sweater from that week. The freezer is becoming a small archive of what has been done to me, and I am the curator and the only visitor. I emailed Bae Yu-jin: Tuesday confirmed. Two words. I did not write please. I did not write thank you. She knows what Tuesday is.

I did not cry. I sat on the kitchen floor and looked up at the counter and thought about my mother telling her friend I work at Samsung nine years ago and never being asked if it was true. I thought about the hair. I thought about which is worse — being lied about, or being known. I stood under cold water a long time and did not decide.