When Last Night Didn't End: Before Story

18

Hye-jin hurried through the house, her phone in hand. She punched the code as fast as her shaking fingers could. The lock chimed and the door swung open. Without kicking her shoes off, she dashed inside. It's dark. It always was.

She rushed past the living room, her periphery never once lingering on the shut laptop over the dining table. There's no time for her pitch even though the deadline for it crept closer faster than a slug. To hell with it.

The door to the guest room flung open with a bang. The usual spot where her mother-in-law usually sat was empty. Where would...? She gripped the door frame to haul herself off the room. The plastic rings clinked against the rod when she yanked the curtains open. Her eyes ran across the roads, cars and people whizzing by at varying speeds. The colors, the crowds...

There's no way she could pick up where her mother-in-law went from here. Shit.

The sound of an infant wailing caught her attention. That's why she was here in the first place. She got a call from the neighboring room about the noise. When she got to the crib, her heart almost stopped. The rancid smell of vomit hit her nose. What...

"Oh, God," she picked the baby up and began rocking him, just to get him to shut up. Bright yellow stains trailed down his bib and clothes. There's some on the quilt as well. What happened? He was fine before she left. She padded to the table where his supplies were and plucked a couple of paper towels. She began dabbing it to clean his face.

"It's fine. You're going to be fine," she whispered—more to herself than the baby. "You're going to be fine."

The baby answered by hurling more of his lunch. Straight into her clothes and face. Something's wrong. She touched his forehead. Hot. Way hotter than he usually was. A fever? Rin. She had to call him. Maybe get him to rush his brother to the ER. Weren't babies with fever a dangerous case?

She palmed her phone on the way to the door. With one hand, she tapped away until the call to Rin's number was underway. Then, she put it on speaker and moved to give the baby some fluid. Something. Anything.

As she dribbled water into his mouth, the call went straight into voicemail, telling her to leave a message after the beep. She wouldn't. She needed Rin now.

She cut the call and tried again. Voicemail. Again. Voicemail.

Again.

Voicemail.

"Damn it, Rin," she screamed at the ceiling. "Fucking pick up!"

She tried again.

Voicemail.

She rocked the baby again. Her phone lit up with an incoming call. She couldn't have snatched it farther from the counter. "Hello?" she rasped into the phone. "Why aren't you picking up?"

It was her father instead. "Hye-jin-ah," he said. His voice was thicker than usual. What's going on? "Eomma-ga..."

Her phone slipped from her hand, falling to the floor with a hearty clatter. The sound startled the baby and he began crying again. She might as well join him. Because her father's words still rang in her ears, bouncing across the chambers of her mind until it became true.

Your mother is gone.

"Hye-jin-ah?" her father's voice croaked through the speaker, muffled by the oppressing silence of the house. She crouched and retrieved her phone, placing it again by her ear. She caught her father in the middle of saying something. "...plan her funeral. Can you come?"

She couldn't speak, even when she fought so hard to. Her father, unable to tell if she was still on the other side, told her he's going to hang up. Within a second, the dull beeps of a call that ended blared in her ears.