Kimchi & Calamari(13)

Dad took the chicken from Mom and wrapped his arms around her. “Aristotle said beauty is a gift from God. Let me behold the present He’s bestowed on me!”

“Oh, spare me your Greek philosophy and kiss me,” she said.

They kissed, this drawn-out smooch that made me feel embarrassed. Mom and Dad may be over forty and set in their suburban ways, but they still act like they’ve got raging hormones.

Luckily my sisters didn’t see them lock lips. That always gets them squealing and making “yuck faces.” They were in the family room, working on a thousand-piece Noah’s Ark puzzle—which, of course, would never get assembled without a fight and pathetic pleas for help.

Dad opened the back sliding door. “I’m going to water the tomato plants.”

“I’ll set the table,” I said.

“That would be nice, Joseph,” Mom said, looking surprised. I don’t usually jump up at the chance to help in the kitchen.

Alone at last with Mom. I could ask what she knew about the day I was born. Seeing Yongsu and his parents got me wondering even more. Plus, I still had to give Nash some more info for the search, since my talk with Dad was a bust.

“Can I ask you a few questions, Mom?”

She gave me a curious look. “Ask away.”

“Do you know my birth parents’ names, or where the adoption agency found me?” I folded the napkins in triangles, concentrating so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

Mom started to say something, then paused. “I planned on sharing this with you at a special time. When you were…well, a bit older.”

“Sharing what?” I asked.

“The information the adoption agency gave us. But it isn’t much, Joseph.”

“I really want to know whatever it is,” I pleaded. “Now.”

She took a breath before she began. “They told us they found you in the south of Pusan, by the waterfront, in a police station parking lot. An old woman was walking back from the fish market in the afternoon when she heard a baby crying. You were lying in a basket, wrapped in a blanket.”

This sounded like the Baby Moses story. Had I floated down a river in Pusan too?

“What was my birth mother’s name?”

“They didn’t give us any names.”

“What day did the old woman find me?”

“May seventh,” Mom said, rubbing the top of my head with her fingertips.

“Well, since my birthday is May fifth, that meant my birth mother took care of me for two days. Maybe she felt torn and didn’t want to give me up,” I said.

Mom nodded. I noticed her eyes were watery. It made me feel kind of guilty.

“Move, Frazer!” Sophie yelled from the family room. That old boxer loved to park himself in inconvenient places, like right on top of the puzzle.

“What’s got you thinking about all this, honey?” Mom asked.

Should I tell her about the essay? I wanted to, but she was practically crying already. I didn’t want to make her feel like she wasn’t a good-enough mom.

“I just met this new kid at school today, and he’s Korean. That’s all.”

She nodded and started scooping mashed potatoes from the plastic container onto the plates. She didn’t seem as upset anymore.

I kept imagining how it all happened in Pusan fourteen years ago. “Maybe it was a baby-snatching conspiracy and the lady who found me was in on it,” I said. “She could have kidnapped me, realized she was going to get caught, and then dropped me at the police station with that story so they wouldn’t suspect anything.”

“I don’t think so,” Mom answered. “The adoption agency told us that’s just the way babies are left in Korea. Birth mothers pick spots where they know their babies will be safe and get discovered quickly.”

Then Mom continued, as if trying to convince me she was right. “Unmarried Korean women can’t keep their babies, Joseph. Having a child before marriage is taboo there, much worse than here. Mothers without husbands are outcasts. Sometimes they can’t even find jobs or homes. I think your birth mother knew you both would have had a difficult life if she’d kept you.”

“Why do Koreans make the mothers feel so bad?” I asked. “That’s dumb.”

“I’ve read that Koreans have mixed feelings about adoption. Some think it’s unnatural, but others feel terrible that they don’t do a better job taking care of children in their country. I think it’s so sad, especially for the birth mothers.”

I thought about Mrs. Han’s face when I said I was adopted. I must have been a breathing reminder of all those abandoned babies back in her country. “Well, maybe my birth mother was married to my birth father and they just didn’t have enough money to raise a kid,” I said. “Or she could have gotten sick. Isn’t that possible too?”