“Come have lunch.”
My husband was in his study, looking at his phone.
The rest of us had already eaten.
He came out a little later and sat down at the table.
And the first thing he reached for was the mackerel.
It was the last of the two mackerel I had grilled two days earlier.
I was already cooking the second one when my husband said he had lunch plans.
“You always make something good when I’m going out,” he joked.
Then he left.
The mackerel went into the refrigerator that night.
The next day, I ate half of what was left, cold from the refrigerator.
It was good.
That evening, I warmed the rest lightly in a frying pan for my son.
He ate about half.
Later that evening, he asked,
“What about the mackerel?”
“It’s in the refrigerator.”
And now, there were only a few pieces left.
I didn’t know whether my husband would eat them.
So I broke them into bite-sized pieces with my hands, removed a few bones I could see, and put them on a small plate.
Then I placed the plate on the table with everything else.
He picked up a piece of mackerel and took a bite.
Oh. He’s eating it.
I found myself smiling.
He ate slowly, looking at his phone.
He put rice on roasted seaweed and added a few drops of soy sauce mixed with sesame oil.
He ate sautéed onions and shiitake mushrooms.
He ate the radish left at the bottom of the kimchi container.
The mackerel must have been a little bland because I saw him dip a piece into soy sauce.
He seemed to be enjoying his lunch.
I had seen this exact scene many times before.
My husband looking at his phone while eating.
And I used to have thoughts about it.
Why doesn’t he enjoy the food itself?
Why does he eat at home exactly the way he eats at a restaurant?
But that day, the same scene looked different.
He hadn’t changed.
He was still looking at his phone.
But for the first time, I thought,
He’s enjoying his lunch.
Just in his own way.
The Dough Was Taking Its Time
I left him at the table and went into the bedroom.
I set a timer on my phone for fifteen minutes and lay down.
There was bread dough waiting in the kitchen.
Nearly two kilograms of it.
It had been slowly fermenting in the refrigerator for almost forty hours.
Earlier, I had put on my headphones, turned on some lively music, and worked quickly with the dough.
I shaped my usual milk bread.
Then I finally tried something I had been putting off.
Cream cheese and blueberry bread.
I flattened a piece of dough in my palm, dropped chunks of cream cheese here and there, added a few blueberries, and closed it up however I wanted.
A rough little ball.
We don’t have air conditioning at home, so I had brought the fan from the bedroom into the kitchen to keep cool while I worked.
My son walked in and looked around.
“Oh. There are four fans now.”
He laughed and went back to his room.
The dough was now in the bread proofer.
I already knew it might take a while.
Dough that has spent a long time fermenting in the refrigerator doesn’t always hurry afterward.
Once, I might have wondered whether something was wrong.
Was the yeast too weak?
Shouldn’t it be rising faster?
But this time, I knew the yeast had been active when I made the dough.
So I let it take its time.
And I took mine.
I Heard It Again
As I lay on the bed, cool air came through the open window.
The fan was gone.
But I didn’t need it.
Then I heard something.
The wind.
It grew louder,
then faded.
Then it came again.
I could feel it moving across my body as I listened.
And suddenly, everything felt very quiet.
That morning, my husband had casually asked,
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
For a moment, I felt irritated.
I have bread to make.
Going out sounds nice, but then what about the dough?
A few thoughts had tangled together before I knew it.
But now, they were gone.
I wasn’t trying to make them go away.
I hadn’t solved anything.
I was simply lying there, feeling the cool air and listening.
And I thought,
How wonderful.
I can hear the wind again.
When we first moved into this apartment, I was fascinated by the sound of the wind.
One summer afternoon, I heard it while sitting on the edge of my bed.
After living in the middle of Seoul, I wasn’t used to hearing wind like this.
I remember standing near the window and recording it on my phone like a child who had discovered something new.
I loved it.
And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped hearing it.
The wind hadn’t disappeared.
It had probably been there all along.
Maybe I had noticed the cool air more than the sound itself.
Or maybe I had simply become used to it.
But that afternoon,
I heard it again.
“Did you book the train tickets?”
My daughter walked into the room.
We were planning a little trip to Seoul together.
“Yes, I did.”
Then I said,
“I brought the fan into the kitchen, so there isn’t one in here. I’m fine, but you might be hot.”
She stood there for a moment.
“The wind is blowing.”
Then she went back to her room.
I smiled.
Yes.
The wind was blowing.
A little later, I got up and went to check the dough.
And there it was—
one of the rotating fans was blowing directly toward the proofer.
Haha.
I turned it off.
Then I went back to the sofa.
I didn’t keep checking the dough.
It could take its time.
After a while, my daughter looked at it and called out,
“I think the bread is ready.”
I got up.
I turned on the oven.
Later, my son asked me again,
“What about the mackerel?”
“Dad ate it.”
He grinned.
And that was the end of the mackerel.
The oven was warming up.
The wind was still coming through the open window.
I could hear it again.
