Zion's Garden - Chapter 10.1
Words escaped my mouth before I could process them. Professor Jung stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray, crushing it. The dim ember flared brightly for a moment before fading into gray.
“The contract was for three months, remember? Whatever happens to Zion after that, it’s no longer your responsibility,” Professor Jung said.
He probably meant to ease my burden, but all I heard was indifference—that Zion’s fate a month from now didn’t matter. The air in the room, already stifling, felt suddenly cold.
“I need time to think,” I said, rising from my chair.
I declined his offer to grab lunch together and hurried out of his office. My footsteps echoed down the corridor, quickening as my thoughts raced. A realization hit me, one I had avoided confronting until now: even if I wasn’t forced to leave, my role would end when the three-month contract expired. I would have to walk away from Zion, leaving him behind.
One month. That’s all the time I had left.
The AIDS ward was quiet, with few visitors. Visiting hours in the ICU were limited to once a day.
“My lover has come,” Aunt Annie said with a smile when she saw me.
She had lost a shocking amount of weight. Though not yet forty, her face bore the unmistakable shadows of death. Forcing a smile, I replied,
“Who’s your lover, Auntie?”
I pulled a chair closer to her bedside and sat down. Her dry lips moved as she spoke.
“You could’ve told me you were coming. I would’ve asked the nurse for some lip balm or something.”
“Auntie, you do look your best with makeup, but you’re fine now. It reminds me of when we all went to the bathhouse together.”
She chuckled faintly, her eyes softening. The weariness in her gaze spoke of a life that had been far from easy—much like my mother’s.
“Got a cigarette?”
“You know I can’t give you that.”
“What kind of doctor doesn’t have the pull for a cigarette?”
“The kind of doctor who got you this private room,” I teased gently.
She laughed, then struggled for breath. I quickly adjusted the pillow behind her. When she caught her breath, she continued.
“Thinking about the old days. You were so smart, even as a kid.
We’d all send you on different errands for cigarettes, and you never once got it wrong. Look at you now—our doctor. I’m so jealous of your mom. I mean it. If I see her in the afterlife, I’ll have to ask her: how did she manage to have such an amazing child?”
I shook my head.
“Auntie, if you meet my mom, don’t bring me up.”
“Still can’t forgive her, can you?”
“It’s not that.”
“Your mom loved you, Jeong-won. You were her whole world. No matter how hard life was, she kept going because of you. Whenever we joked about how she didn’t have anyone to lean on, she always said, ‘I’ve got my Jeong-won, and that’s enough.’”
Her words brought a phantom of my mother’s voice to my ears. I bit my lip. Aunt Annie’s frail, twig-like hand reached for mine.
“When you got into med school, she called me. Said she could die happy now, knowing her child would never be looked down on by anyone.”
A pause hung in the air.
“She said, ‘Jeong-won doesn’t need to carry the label of a prostitute’s child anymore.’”
I bowed my head, shaking it as tears streamed down my cheeks.
“That doesn’t matter, Auntie. None of that matters anymore.”
I hated my mother. I never once looked her in the eye after I grew up. Sending her a meager allowance each month felt like fulfilling my duty, but I wasn’t there when she passed away, lonely and abandoned.
“Do you remember the preacher your mom dated? The one from that small church near the U.S. Army base?”
How could I forget? The man who had promised to save her disappeared as soon as winter ended. For a prostitute, love was always a luxury.
“He proposed to her. Said they could live on a small plot of land his family owned, farming together. But until they could get married, he wanted you to stay in an orphanage for a while.”
“I never heard that before,” I said, looking up.
“Your mom cursed him out. Said, ‘What riches could I possibly gain by abandoning my child?’ She asked him how he’d make up for the pain of being left behind, even if he came back later.”
My mother was the most foolish woman in the world. Sorrow welled up in me, bursting into sobs.
“She laughed once, though. Said that because you turned out so well, her life felt redeemed. She probably felt that way until the day she died. So, Jeong-won, live for her. Live for all of us. You’re our star. And thank you… for making my last moments less lonely.”
I held her hand tightly as tears streamed uncontrollably. When she finally closed her eyes, I knew this would be our last meeting.
As I left the ward, the hospital’s white corridors felt unbearably empty. The sound of my footsteps echoed too loudly, filling the space like an accusation. Memories of my younger self, sprinting down these halls as an intern, flashed in my mind. Back then, I had believed that if I worked hard enough, I could avenge my mother against the cruel world that had broken her.
But she hadn’t waited for me. She died before I realized how futile my efforts had been. I should’ve held her hand, like I did with Aunt Annie. Instead, I made excuses about being too busy. I had lost the most important person in my life, not because of anyone else, but because of my own cowardice.
I stopped walking.
The hospital wall was as pristine as ever, its artificial sterility suffocating. Pressing my sweaty hand against it, I left a faint smudge, a mark of my existence. For a moment, it felt like I could breathe again.
That’s when I heard it—a ding from the elevator at the end of the hallway.
I turned, and my breath caught.
The fluorescent lights of the hospital seemed to brighten impossibly as Zion stepped out of the elevator, flanked by his black-suited bodyguards. His hair, which had been blonde yesterday, was now a striking pink, as if he’d stepped straight out of a magazine. His radiant smile seemed to pierce through the grim hospital atmosphere.
“Found you,” he said, beaming at me.
For a moment, I thought I was dreaming. Zion didn’t belong here, in this stark, clinical place. He belonged in his castle or on the screen, not walking toward me with that dazzling smile.