liv wrote:
My daughter has been acting strange. Ever since her return, her skin looks paler and her eyes look darker. She won’t speak to me. She was on a walk, she claims. A long walk. “What are those scratches, then?” I often think to myself. Although I never say it, I want her to tell me. I want my daughter to talk to me. She sits in her room and stares at nothing. She stares at her empty white wall for hours it seems. I watch her as I’m cooking, cleaning, dancing. “Hey, wanna go for a walk?” I cheerfully ask. This is the first time she’s looked at me in the eye since her arrival, “No, eomma,” she says softly. What is wrong with my daughter? When I walk in the room she jumps as if she’s afraid, as if she’s paranoid, as if I’m going to hurt her. I would never hurt her. “Come share some Jjajangmyeon with me.” I pat the empty seat on the floor next to me. I’ve been eating alone for days, has she even been eating? I feel like a bad mother for not making sure my daughter is eating, but she won’t even look at me. I admit I’ve snooped through her things. It’s hard because she’s always home these days but when she hops in the shower, I go in her room. I feel like a bad mother for going in her room. I look and look until I find a tiny card with shapes and numbers. She hid it well, I’ve been in here looking for answers for almost a week and never did I see it. Unless she just placed it here. Did she want me to find it? What is this silly little card? I hate that I don’t know what it means. I hear a creak on the floor. I look. It’s my daughter. She caught me standing with this card between my fingers. She simply smiles. My daughter has been acting strange.