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Twenty-Four Hours

by H H Pak

Six hours left.

“What do you want to eat sweetheart?” She looks at me expectantly, holding out her phone to show me the menu. “It is your special day. I’ll get you anything you want.”

I smile, shake my hands. “Eomma, it’s fine. You don’t have to do this.”

“I know. But this is your favorite restaurant. Why not indulge a bit?” She hums as she scrolls through the options. “It must have been hard to get anything authentic out there. I can’t imagine the cafeteria on the base was giving you anything half edible.”

“It wasn’t bad,” I laugh. “Mostly processed stuff. They couldn’t import very often across the desert.”

She sighs.

“Well, you’re here now and that’s all that matters. You’re here, and I’m going to get you anything you want. How about this set?”

She points out a four-course barbecue menu.

“See, it comes with kimchichiggae and kalbi. Your two favorites.”

“Mom, that’s too much food! You can’t finish all that.”

“Aigoo. If there’s leftover, I’ll just take it home,” she hisses between her teeth, meaning I’m not allowed to argue further. A server comes by.

“Chogiyo,” she calls. “Can I have combo number three please?”

“To go?” The ahjumma barely looks up from her notepad.

“No, for here please.”

The older woman looks up then, staring with a baffled frown.

“You want the grill?”

“Yes, please.”

“Are you expecting anybody else?”

“No, just me and my daughter.”

The server shrugs it off and lights the charcoal grill between us. She disappears into the kitchen, then returns a minute later with a jug of iced barley tea and banchan dishes in covered metal plates.

Eomma raises a finger, “Can we also have two bowls of rice, please? In stone pots. And gyeran-jjim.”

The server, again, glances at her for a moment, but writes it down and returns to the kitchen.

“Mom,” I sigh.

She shoots me a stern look. “You can’t have kimchichiggae without rice. I’m not going to get another chance to spoil you like this. Oh. Did you want purple or white?”

“Whatever she brings out is fine. She would have asked if there were options.”

“True, there is a rice shortage. It might be nothing but barley. Do you mind?”

“Of course not.”

Eomma places a napkin in front of me then one in front of herself, setting the table with the chopsticks and spoons from a box on the table.

“I’m so glad this place hasn’t closed down,” I say as she pours me a cup of tea. “Whenever I visit it seems like more and more restaurants are going under. But this one is always here.”

“It’s the war,” she says. “So many small businesses are dying out with everyone evacuating from the cities—but I’ve told you before, we’re a stubborn people. The last restaurant on the face of this planet is going to be a Korean one.”

I chuckle. “The bombs won’t ever hit this one because it’s so tiny! They haven’t expanded at all in all the decades they’ve been here. I told my friends back at the base about how you can always tell the authenticity of Korean restaurants by how unassuming they are on the outside. All the best K-town restaurants have graffitied peeling windows and paper signs written in Sharpie and only five sticky tables, but then you know the food is going to be amazing.”

She chuckles. “Tell me more about your friends from the base. Sue’s the sassy one who likes to gossip but does nice things for you right? Like dropping off meals when you work late. And who’s the engineer who listens to old Bangtan covers while they work?”

“That’s Puja. I’ve already told you everything about my coworkers. I don’t have any new stories.”

“I want to hear you tell them again.” She leans on her hand and smiles. “I’m just so glad you’re home.”

“Eomma, please don’t cry.”

“Sorry.” She wipes her eyes. “Have I told you how good it is to see you?”

“Yes, like every five minutes.”

The server comes out bearing a tray trembling with stacked plates. She pushes silverware out of the way and arranges serving trays piled with meat, a bubbling pot of kimchi stew, steamed eggs, dipping sauces, two covered rice bowls, and a plate of raw vegetables.

“I can take it from here,” Eomma says, and the server hands her the cooking tongs before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Chadobeggi first,” I say. “And marinated last. You taught me that.”

“That’s right.” She places the thin slices of meat on the grill—they sizzle as they cook, the fat dripping between the slots and the brown edges curling as they crisp. She tries to flip them, but her hands quiver and the meat skids into a scrambled pile across the surface. One greasy chunk flips up over the lip and onto the table.

“Ha,” I tease. “You can build microchips, but you can’t cook meat?”

She smiles to herself, sliding the lost slice of brisket back onto the grill.

“Microchips are easy. I have an electron microscope to be my eyes. Without it, I might as well be a bat. Here—” She takes a lettuce leaf, smears it with samjang paste, adds bean sprouts, kimchi, and piles it with brisket. When she wraps it, the lettuce tears.

“Eomma, you should have the first ssam.”

“Out of the question.” She wraps it more securely in a perilla leaf and places it on my plate.

“It’s all yours. I made it with love.” She puckers her lips and makes a heart with her fingers, making me laugh.

As I expected, we don’t get through much of our dinner. I see the ahjumma pass by every so often with a judgmental squint as most of the food remains untouched. When we ask for to-go boxes, she has to bring about six and doesn’t look too happy packing everything.

“Mom, you ate more than I expected,” I comment when the server leaves to get the bill. “I don’t think I’ve seen you eat that much in a while.”

“It’s because you’re here,” she jabs a finger at me. “Don’t you know I always gain weight when you come home?”

“I do too. We always eat so much together. Why can’t we exercise and lose weight whenever I visit?”

“You said that last time,” she snorts. “And I’ve told you before, I’m too old to keep up with you. You work on a military base; if I tried to work out with you, I’d die.”

“How about yoga? Yoga is low stakes. We can do yoga together.”

“Is that what you want to do for the rest of today?” She leans forward. “This is all for you agga. My baby. I want you to do all the things you couldn’t do before—you started working on the base.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I can’t really think of anything I never got to do. Home is home—it’s not really a place for bucket lists.”

“I know.” She pulls out her phone again. “I know you can’t tell me anything new. So I thought we could just keep pulling from your list of favorite things. We went to your favorite brunch place this morning—and got to see that movie you were looking forward to—we walked in the park, or what was left of it—barbecue at your favorite restaurant—how about pabingsu next?”

“It’s winter!”

“You know there’s that saying that cold deserts taste best in the winter. That’s what my wehalmony told me when I was your age. Wait, never mind,” she crosses it out. “I forgot, the family that owns that place moved a month ago. They went to Iowa.”

“Iowa?”

“Ah, right. While you were gone, they built several new bunker towns there. Out in the countryside, where they’re less likely to get bombed.”

“Oh.”

I watch her, my mother with the deep dark bags under her eyes and her hands trembling as she scrolls on her phone. Her clothes are too thin for the weather.

“Mom, why don’t you move out too?”

“Hm? Why would I do that?”

“I mean—you don’t have family anymore in the city. You told me samchon’s family evacuated. You should go be with him.”

“No no, we’ve talked about this before. My brother has three kids and there’s already too much to worry about. I can’t burden him. Besides,” she looks at me. “This is the city you grew up in. This is where I raised you. I can’t leave it.”

“But it’s dangerous.”

She shakes her head. “What’s an old engineer like me going to do anywhere else? If my time comes, it comes.”

“You know I hate it when you talk like that. Your life is precious Eomma. You shouldn’t be so flippant with it.”

“Aigoo. When were you so argumentative?”

“My whole life. We used to fight all the time; don’t you remember?”

“Did we?”

She puts down her phone.

“I just realized. We never got to go furniture shopping. You were so looking forward to having a place to yourself after graduate school. Remember you almost—almost . . . ”

She squeezes her eyes closed, then opens them with a smile.

“Well, it’s a shame you couldn’t stay near home. Rent’s been going down in the cities.”

“Because no one wants to live here. It’s too dangerous,” I say. “But none of that matters anymore. That was all before I got the job offer and moved onto the base instead.”

“True. But that’s not a permanent situation. You’re young. You’ll need a place of your own someday. Let’s go furniture shopping. We don’t have to buy anything. We can just browse. Think about the future, you know?”

She shuffles through her wallet—I notice how she pays in cash, counting every last bill twice.

I say, “Maybe we should pick a less shopping-based activity. You’ve been spending an awful lot of money on me today.” I peer at the check. “Meat costs more than gold these days.”

“It’s worth it,” she scoots it away as she signs. “My daughter’s home, money is of no consequence. Since when did you start worrying about money?”

“Since I became an adult,” I smile, a little helplessly. “It came with growing up.”

“Then don’t grow up. I’ll buy you meat and ice cream and anything you’d like whenever you want.”

We both laugh as we step out into the cold.

---

Three hours left.

There are wilting red and green streamers tacked onto the store shelves. The aisles are littered with glitter and plastic pine needles that stick to her shoes.

“Sloppy job with the holiday cleanup,” I comment as we walk side by side. “But it’s nice to see people made an effort despite everything.”

“It would have been nice,” she says with a hollow wilt to her voice, “if we could have gotten together earlier. At least for New Year’s. They couldn’t light the streets at night because of the bomb warnings, but I heard the indoor decorations were lovely. This was always your favorite time of year. If I had just worked faster . . . I could have brought you home to see it.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I laugh. “It would have been difficult navigating the holiday crowds with—you know. This is better.”

“You think so? Oh agga, look at this desk chair.” She heads for an office display on a podium.

“This is perfect for you. We should ask them if they have it in stock.”

“I thought you said we were just going to window shop.”

“I know but,” she runs a hand over the armrest, “this one’s so nice. It’s exactly the kind I wish you’d had throughout high school.”

“I didn’t need a desk chair. Or a desk. I studied at the kitchen table all my life. And, might I mention, did pretty well.”

“But still. You used to say your back hurt.”

“Mostly because I was dumb and loafed around with terrible posture. No chair would have fixed that.”

“What about this desk?” She opens and shuts the many drawers. “It’s pretty long so you can spread out your work.”

“I work in a lab,” I protest. “You work in one too, you should know. I haven’t used a desk like that since grad school. And I mostly studied off campus anyway.”

“Then let’s go check out bed frames,” she heads to a different aisle. “What kind of bed do you have on the base?”

“It’s a cot. I’ve told you it’s a cot.”

“Aigoo, my baby hasn’t felt a real mattress in years,” she sighs. “I won’t accept anything less than queen-sized. This one looks nice. I like the headboard.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, neseki?” She looks up at me.

“Can we go home? We should spend some time at home before I leave tonight.”

Her face falls immediately.

“There’s time left.”

“Yes. Plenty of time. But the store closed ten minutes ago,” I gesture to the employees lurking in the aisles, looking more exasperated by the second. They’ve already asked her to leave twice.

“I don’t want them to think you’re crazy. Talking to yourself late at night.”

“Oh. Okay.”

---

She’s getting the shattered look again, the one I saw briefly when I first arrived. It disappeared the moment she saw me, but I caught sight of it then—the haunted shadow over her brow and the deepened lines around her mouth. They are returning, slowly.

On the way home, I distract her as much as I can.

“Your hair looks so nice Mom,” I say. “And I don’t think I mentioned this, but I like your hat too. Whoever picked it out has great taste.”

Bright pink, short-brimmed, a creased plastic flower covering a dent on one side.

“You made it for me,” she says quietly. “For my birthday.”

The cab driver’s eyebrow quirks in the mirror, but he doesn’t say anything.

I make a silly face at her. Lips puckered, eyes squinted. “I know. I’m good with my hands. I get that from you.”

She smiles, but only slightly. Her knuckles are growing white clutching her too-small hoodie like she’s trying to bind herself together. It’s mine, I remember. One from middle school.

The closer we get to the apartment, the more she shrinks. By the time we get to the door, she is hunched over like an ancient woman. She has trouble getting the key into the lock; it rattles repeatedly until she finally gets it open.

She turns on the light and stares into the space as if it is a new place, as if it is unfamiliar and overwhelming her.

“You should put all the food away first,” I say. “It’s good you ordered so much, actually. Now you won’t have to cook for a while.”

I lead her to the kitchen and watch her put the to-go boxes in the fridge one at a time. Every time she sets one down, she looks up at me as if I’ll vanish the moment she’s turned around.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “There’s still two hours left. Let’s do chores to pass the time.”

The apartment is a mess. There’s a year’s worth of ramyeon boxes and takeout containers piled by the door. The floors are caked in dust, only clean where she’s swept a path between the bathroom, the kitchen, and her office with its reinforced door. Every time we pass by its gleaming keypad, she stares at it with a desperation that grows with every passing minute.

“I’m proud of you Eomma,” I say as I coax her to wash crusted dishes. “You’ve worked so hard on this project. I used to brag all the time to my friends, about how my mom is a genius. The way you made me is really incredible.”

“Yes,” she scrubs the same plate over and over. She won’t stop looking at me. “I was in labor with you for fourteen hours. But it was worth every second. The day I had you was the happiest one of my life.”

“Ha. That too.”

When I convince her to vacuum, I say, “Make sure to get under the couch. If the dust accumulates there you can get sick. And you have to remember to get the chip removed after I leave. It won’t hurt you when it deactivates, but it’s not good to leave foreign matter in your head for too long.”

“How do you know that? I didn’t tell you that.”

“I’m programmed to act based on your memories. I have access to everything you know. You also programmed me to tell you when time is nearly up.”

Her bed is rumpled, hardly slept in. I ask her to wash the sheets and sit next to her on the floor as we watch them spin in the machine.

“You should sleep as soon as I leave,” I say. “I can tell you’ve been awake long before I arrived.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to,” she whispers. “When I wake up and you’re—” She can’t finish. She closes her mouth so tightly, her lips disappear.

“I’m sorry I can’t help,” I say once everything is out of the dryer. “I know getting the fitted sheet on is a pain.” When I smooth the bed, the wrinkles remain. “We used to do it together.”

“And—” she smiles. “And you’d try to crawl under it when I snapped it out—it floated down over you, giggling—you lying there under the sheet, lying. Under the—” she stops. Her smile vanishes.

“Yeah, getting it grubby again,” I say. “Kicking until you pulled me out by my sweaty ankles and tucked it over the bed. I remember.”

The house is clean at last. It looks livable but the desolation is still there, clinging to the walls, odorous without a scent, felt but not seen. There is no warmth nor comfort on the couch as we sit side by side. Her eyes are fixed on me. Then, ever so slightly, I see her gaze shift to the office door.

“Eomma,” I say. “You were working so hard to make this day happen, but you have to take care of yourself too. I wouldn’t have wanted you to live like this. There’s ten minutes left.”

“No. No, no.” She’s trembling. “Not now. I need more time.”

She stands. She shuffles to her office.

“Mom, no.” I appear between her and the keypad. “That’s why you set the timer. You knew this would happen—you knew you wouldn’t be able to end the program yourself.”

“I know. I know. Please get out of my way.”

“I’m not here.” I keep my arms extended. “You can reach through me if you want. I’m not stopping you.”

“Please—” her voice is getting shrill and desperate. “Please move.”

“You don’t have the door code,” I say quietly. “It’s randomly generated and encrypted. You knew this would happen.”

She sweats like she has the flu. She suddenly walks off into the kitchen and scrabbles in the drawers. Her hands tremble so much she drops everything she touches—knives and spatulas fall to the floor.

“Eomma, please stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

She pulls out an electric lighter and rushes back to the door.

“Mom.”

She snaps the flame and holds it, quivering, against the wood.

“That’s not going to work.”

“It’s okay agga,” she looks at me, directly into a face only she can see. “I’m going to fix this. I was stupid, one day clearly wasn’t enough. We barely got to do anything. I should have thought of that. I’ll reprogram it so you’ll be here for just one more day. Just one more day, okay?”

“This isn’t healthy.”

I kneel down next to her. The lighter flame flickers in her eyes, refracting against the tears blooming down her cheeks.

“That’s why you did this. To grieve and say goodbye properly because it happened so suddenly. If you have me for one more day, you’ll never end it. You have to say goodbye.”

She holds the lighter closer, but we both know it’s not going to work. The wood isn’t even warm—she coated it herself. She thought of everything.

With a short scream, she throws the lighter away from her—it skitters under the couch. She snatches my jacket and stalks to the front door.

“No,” I rush in front of her.

“My lab—” she tries to reach around me. “I need my lab.”

“It’s late. Even tomorrow, the company won’t let you in. You designed this system. You’ll have access to your home office and your lab only once you pass a psych eval. And that won’t be until you’ve grieved properly.”

She makes an animal sound deep in her throat and rushes about the house clawing through closets and pantries. I watch her.

“Eomma, we don’t have that much time.”

She stops before a door opposite the kitchen. My room. I reach a hand out.

“Can I see it again before I leave?”

She opens the door. It’s dusty in here, but everything is exactly the same. Band posters on the walls, books on the shelves, stuffed animals, peeling stickers on the window, and clothes in the closet. I am eleven years old again, coming home from school.

“Have you gone in here at all since I died?”

She doesn’t answer. She falls to her knees, looking up at me with despairing eyes.

“Please,” she whispers. “Please, don’t go.”

“I have to.”

I sit across from her.

“It’s how I was designed. We still have five minutes left. Let’s talk. Let’s talk about anything.”

She wipes her face but it’s useless—it’s so wet she looks like she’s melting.

“When—when you were six we were shopping for your friend’s birthday and you wanted a toy, it was—” her words are blurring together, her hands gesturing weakly. “It was a toy radio that played different songs. And you wanted it so badly, but I said no because we were shopping for your friend and I wanted to teach you a lesson in self-control but—I should have gotten it for you. I should have bought it when you asked. It made you smile and it was pink—you used to love pink. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay Mom. I don’t remember, so I must not have wanted it that much.”

“Haaaa,” the sound she makes isn’t a laugh or a sigh, it’s something in between and much emptier.

“When you were fourteen, you went to your first school dance. And I was working two jobs then; we were a bit tight that month, and I couldn’t buy you a dress. So then you went to the formal in your hanbok,” she chuckles, wheezily. “The—the hanbok wehalmony bought you.”

“It actually went really well,” I say. “It was a little hard to dance in, but it made a statement. And I told you, I made a lot of new friends that night because people kept asking about it.”

“Even so. It made my heart ache when I saw the pictures you took. You, in that old-fashioned traditional outfit, while all your friends were wearing cute short skirts—” she clenches her arms around her stomach. “I wish I had gotten you all the pretty dresses in the world. I should have done more for you. Remember—when you were in that holiday play in second grade, and I promised you I’d go, but I couldn’t that night because I was stuck in a meeting with my director? I rushed over as soon as I could but by the time I got there it was already over and you were sitting—” she shudders. “You were sitting on that stage with your backpack and you looked so disappointed, but you said it was fine—that’s one of my biggest regrets. I should have quit that night and seen that performance. I asked all the parents for recordings, but you weren’t in any of them—of course they’d zoomed in on their own kids, and I couldn’t see you, I never saw what you looked like in your costume—” She can’t speak now. She is on the floor. I can’t see her face; she is hunched over as if there is a building on her shoulders, like she is sinking into quicksand.

“Tell me what you were again?”

“You already know Eomma. I know everything you know.”

“Tell me again.”

“I was a snowflake. The costume was too big and when I turned around I knocked over Thomas Hao in the middle of the play.”

She laughs. And then she chokes and then she can’t speak for a long time.

Two minutes left.

“You were a great mom. Please don’t doubt that; I couldn’t have asked for anybody better. You raised me on your own. It wasn’t perfect. We’re different people. But Eomma,” I lean forward, “I loved being your daughter. You inspired me to pursue my research degree. The programs you’ve made have changed lives. And now this one,” I point to her head. “The way you made me? This could help a lot of people. Especially now.”

Behind her is a halo of kitchen light that slices through the door and lights her from behind.

She mumbles, “When you got that job offer, I should never have let you go—I was scared for you, but you said you were going to do your part to help people during this terrible time, you said it was a remote location and the government would protect you—” she groans. “But then they didn’t—and the bomb—and this stupid pointless war—I told you it was dangerous, I told you not to go—”

“But I went.”

I kneel down in front of her.

“I went. And I helped develop the life-support systems that keep bunker towns stable. And Sue developed immunity boosters for the people moving there. And Puja developed preventative insulation against geo-scanning tracking systems. Our base was targeted because we were doing important work. And we’re all gone now, but we got to help a lot of people, so I don’t regret it.”

Silence.

“Mom, please retire. Rest. Go to samchon. I saw all the missed messages on your phone. They’re worried about you.”

One minute left.

“Mom, I have to go now. But I love you, and that doesn’t leave with me, okay? When I tell you I love you, that means forever.”

“You took my line.” She finally looks up at me. “Neseki. My baby. I love you forever.”

Ten seconds. She hugs me, and I hug her back although neither of us can feel each other. I am nothing but code and wiring and cells in her hippocampus, but she squeezes like she can really feel me. She kisses my invisible forehead.

“Bye, Mom.”

The last thing I see is her waving—it’s the same wave from when she used to drop me off at elementary school. Elbows low at her side. Fingers clenching and unclenching like she’s trying to hold something that isn’t there.