The Man on the Bench

The man left home at eleven forty.

He left the entryway light off. It took him a while to get his sneakers out of the shoe cabinet and put them on. Not because his hands were shaking. Because it was dark. He made a point of looking at his hands to confirm that they were steady.

He hadn’t decided what to take. He couldn’t leave the things in his study behind. Taking them with him would be worse. In the end, he took only his wallet and car keys. He left his phone on the dining table. That was what he’d been taught. What he’d taught someone else, too.

Twenty-three steps to the parking lot. He knew the number. He’d lived here for eleven years.

He sat behind the wheel. Before starting the car, he looked back toward the apartment complex’s main gate.

One of the three streetlights was out. He couldn’t see much on that side.

No one was there.

He started the engine.

Four years earlier

The rice bowl fell at eight ten.

Sang-geun was at the sink. When he turned at the sound, Mi-gyeong was still sitting at the table. Her right hand hung in the air, fingers still curved around the bowl that was no longer there. Rice lay scattered across the floor.

“It’s all right,” she said before he could speak.

He took a dishcloth over and knelt to gather up the rice. The bowl hadn’t broken. They’d switched to stainless steel four months ago.

“I’ll get it,” she said.

“Stay where you are.”

“It’s just my hand. It’s been acting up for a while.”

The ends of her words dragged a little. That had started about four months ago, too.

He finished gathering the rice, got up, and brought her a fresh bowl. She moved the spoon to her left hand and went on eating as though nothing had happened.

He returned to the sink and turned on the tap. Behind him, the spoon struck the bowl. Once. Twice. Not at regular intervals.

Lately, he woke around three in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. He lay staring at the ceiling, listening to her sleep beside him. Some nights her hand moved even then. On top of the covers, her hand kept closing as though grasping something, then opening again.

On those nights, he lay there until morning.

He’d been out of work for two months.

Twenty years at the same company. It made car parts; he checked that they matched the drawings. That was all he’d done for twenty years. He’d been neither good nor bad at it.

That spring, the company had announced a voluntary retirement program. His manager called him in. The man had joined five years after him.

“If someone with your seniority volunteers, it’ll make things a little easier for the younger staff...”

Sang-geun volunteered. There was a payout, but no farewell dinner. The people in his office pooled some money and gave him gift certificates. They were still in a drawer.

In two months, no one from work had called.

Hyun-woo had died five years ago. He was twenty.

The first signs came at seventeen. His handwriting grew unsteady. He bumped his shoulders against walls when he walked, then lost his temper. They said it was adolescence. The school said so, and Sang-geun believed it. Six months went by that way.

At the hospital, the doctor gave them a name Sang-geun had never heard before. He wrote it on a piece of paper. Sang-geun looked it up when they got home. Mi-gyeong didn’t sleep that night.

Hyun-woo was ill for three years. For the last six months, Sang-geun carried him from room to room. A twenty-year-old boy weighing forty-something kilos.

Eight steps from the bed to the bathroom. Sang-geun had counted those, too. As he carried him, Hyun-woo tried to hold on around his father’s neck, but his hands wouldn’t obey. His grip kept slipping. Each time, he said he was sorry. By then he could barely speak, but he could still say that.

About two months after the funeral, the doctor suggested that Mi-gyeong get tested.

It was hereditary, he said. It came from one of the parents.

The day the results arrived, she opened the envelope. After a long time, she spoke.

“So it was me.”

Sang-geun said nothing. For five years he’d thought about what he should have said. He still didn’t know.

It had happened in the wrong order. His son got sick first. Only after he died did they learn the cause. Now that cause was sitting in the kitchen, eating rice.

Sang-geun didn’t blame Mi-gyeong.

The appointment was on Tuesday.

Since morning, Mi-gyeong had asked three times. What day was it? What time was the appointment? What should she wear? That was a symptom, too, they said.

The hospital was forty minutes away by subway. Sang-geun held her left arm as they walked. Her right side wasn’t working well. They stopped twice on the stairs.

The neurology waiting room was crowded. Patient names appeared on the display with the middle syllable replaced by a circle. Sang-geun sat watching it. An old man beside him kept saying the same thing to a man who looked like his son. The man kept giving the same answer.

Mi-gyeong rested her hands on her lap. Her right hand moved a little. She pressed her left hand over it.

Her name came up after an hour and ten minutes.

The doctor was young. Thirty-something, by the look of him. He spoke while looking at his monitor.

“The rate of progression is within the expected range.”

“So...”

“We’ll keep her on the same medication. It’s for managing the symptoms, as you know.”

Sang-geun knew. He’d known for five years. The disease could be slowed, but it couldn’t be stopped. He’d heard it all when Hyun-woo was sick. Now he was hearing it a second time.

“Caring for her must be difficult for you, too. Have you considered talking to a counselor?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you getting any sleep?”

“Yes.”

It was a lie. The doctor didn’t ask anything else. There was another patient waiting.

As they left the consulting room, Mi-gyeong caught his sleeve.

“How many times did I ask you?”

“Ask what?”

“What day it was.”

He thought for a moment.

“Once.”

Mi-gyeong smiled. Smiling still worked.

By the time they’d paid the bill, it was eleven.

Mi-gyeong went to the restroom. She would be a while. Sang-geun sat on a bench beside the flower bed in front of the main building.

It was warm for November. People in padded jackets over hospital pajamas stood smoking at the end of the flower bed. One had wheeled an IV stand outside. None of them spoke to one another.

Sang-geun sat doing nothing. He didn’t even take out his phone. For two months, he’d had no reason to.

Someone sat down beside him.

He didn’t look. It was a long bench. There was plenty of room.

“Oh Sang-geun.”

He turned.

The man looked about fifty. He wore a gray coat and carried nothing. An ordinary face to see at a hospital. Someone looking after a relative, perhaps. A visitor.

“Who are you?”

“No need to be alarmed.”

The man didn’t look at him. He spoke facing the flower bed.

“Would you mind if I sat here for a while?”

“...Go ahead.”

Sang-geun tried to place him. He wasn’t from work. Had he seen him at the hospital when Hyun-woo was sick? That didn’t seem right, either.

“Have we met?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know my name?”

“I know it.”

That was all he said. His voice was low and unhurried. He spoke like a man who didn’t know how to get angry.

A gust of wind brought the smell of cigarettes from the flower bed.