The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim

Author:Crystal Hana Kim [Kim, Crystal Hana]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Sagas, Literary, Psychological, Asian American, Multiple Timelines
ISBN: 9780063310971
Amazon: 006331097X
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2024-04-02T07:00:00+00:00

Eunju

Warden’s scent lingered on my skin all day, while Teacher left me with a cooler anger, an ice pick to the temples. As we ate dinner, I shook myself like a wet dog, trying to unlatch these men. My mind fumbled toward the women, the ways we had changed. Beside me, Mina sank her spoon into her broth. For weeks after Inspection Day, she had refused to eat, grief whittling her, until Ajumma Lee spoke to her in private. Of what, Mina wouldn’t say, but now she ate. She tried.

Nabi turned picky overnight, hating the eggplants’ slick texture, whining spinach stained her teeth, while Areum ate anything we were given, scarcity making her an undiscerning eater, every dish licked clean as a winter branch. I knew them. Ajumma Lee preferred fried mackerel. Halmoni ate less and less, complaining of a stone in her stomach.

Umma—I watched her most of all. At first, I thought it was shock that squeezed her appetite, made her seek water, fruit, simple jook. Months later, I saw—how her face paled when accosted by the scent of meat, brows tight as she inhaled through her nose, her deepening yawns, increasing headaches.

We had done nothing as Bora was sent off to some foreign country, with nuns who would sell her baby. “She’s better off there than in this place,” Halmoni had insisted. We assented too easily, wanting a gentler truth to wrap ourselves in. It was only in her absence that we understood—how we had failed her so wholly.

I wouldn’t let that happen again.

I chewed on a piece of gristly meat. Gulped thin soup, sesame seeds. I needed to harness my floating mind. I was sixteen now, nearly woman. I could protect her. Umma looked the same, and yet I knew: her body had betrayed her. Her belly filling with seed.

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