I'm Sorry

“Are you Sungyoon Kim? This is police investigator Dosuk Park. I’m calling to inform you of important information regarding your father, Shinyong Kim.”

Too late. I was already in a world without my father. Three hours ago, he threw himself from the twelfth floor onto the rugged concrete. He jumped at 4:00 AM and was found thirteen minutes later by a young woman entering the apartment.

“Can I talk to the person who first witnessed him on the ground?” I asked.

“Ma’am, I’m afraid that would be impossible. She doesn’t want to recount the scene anymore. She told us not to contact her ever again.”

Dosuk continued talking, but I couldn’t hear him any longer. I imagined Dad barely breathing in the darkness, his head bleeding, fingers twitching, reeking of the five bottles of soju in his system.

“I want you to come down here to Yangsan as soon as possible. I believe you are his only family left, right?” Dosuk said.

“Father and I haven’t been close for a long time. I need some time to think about it.”

“If you don’t come in a week, the police are obliged to cremate his body and bury him in the public cemetery. Please understand that.”

I said “sure” and hung up the phone. I scrolled down through my Messages. I called my wireless carrier to check if he had really never sent me a message before killing himself. I wasn’t sad he was gone forever. I was in disbelief that he never apologized for what he had done to me.

“Are you gonna visit him in the hospital?” Jungmin asked.

“I’m not sure. If I go there, that means I acknowledge that I’m his daughter. I’ll have to prepare for his funeral too. What about meeting the extended family? I can’t put on my sad face for my scumbag father.”

Jungmin massaged my shoulders with her two rigid hands. “You always get a knot in your shoulder blades when you’re stressed.” She knew I was about to burst into tears.

“You know, I didn’t talk to him for fourteen years. He said I wasn’t his daughter anymore when I decided to live with you. Why the fuck do I have to take care of his dead body? I don’t owe him anything. He’s a monster.”

I scratched my head and sighed like the eighteen-year-old me who failed to get into a university in Seoul. I could not turn my brain off, as if his fractured body inside a coffin was calling me. I couldn’t erase the memories of him either. It was like his DNA in my body was screaming, “Help!”

Three days later, I called the police. Dosuk told me I could “pick up” his body at the police funeral. First, I was asked to check his frozen face in a metallic coffin. “Yes, that’s him.” His bones were shattered, but I could spot a birthmark on his right cheek.

The funeral happened the week after. His colleagues and cousins came. They seemed to know nothing about what had happened between us. “Oh, you’re the daughter Shinyong talked about. He was really proud of you. You live in Seoul, right?” I never knew how to respond to all this nonsense. I wanted to grab them by the neck and ask, “What did he tell you? Why do you say he was proud of me? Back it up with some evidence, you son of a bitch.”

Unlike my anger, the funeral was calm and quiet for three days. Most people came alone and left after finishing a bowl of yookgaejang. I prostrated when the guests bowed to me. Someone told me to stay by the altar, but I walked outside the building for a cigarette. He liked being alone anyway.

Dad was smiling in his portrait. Some guests might have wondered why I used a picture from fifteen years ago. Maybe they didn’t even notice the difference. I couldn’t tell if they had come to mourn or to celebrate his death.