Mom and I stayed up all night with our eyes wide open, and our conversation was interrupted several times due to the flowing tears.

Outside the window, the dark sky began to brighten as if the faint dawn was seeping in.

“So Hee, you have to go to work today, right?”

“Yeah, I have to go to work.”

“I have to work today too, so let’s go to the gynecologist together tomorrow. It’s Saturday morning, so you’ll have time too, right?”

“…Okay. Mom.”

Mom, who worked for a building cleaning service company, was still paying off the debt left by Dad and spending each difficult day.

My plan to lighten Mom’s tired shoulders a little by working as a nurse seemed to be faltering, facing rough waves and reefs due to the sudden pregnancy.

“Call Hyun Woo again, and if he doesn’t answer, at least leave a text message.”

“If he had feelings for me, he wouldn’t cut off contact like this. I don’t want to cling to Hyun Woo, whose heart has left, saying I’m pregnant.”

“You’re saying you’ll give birth alone and raise the child alone?”

“…Yes, Mom.”

“What about work?”

“I’ll have to think about it. I need to find out if I can take parental leave since I haven’t been employed for long.”

Mom let out a deep sigh, as deep as the day when Dad, who was a truck driver, fell off a cliff on an icy road.

On the day I brought home my nursing license, I was so happy looking at that license as if I was seeing a ray of light in my long, dark life, but my sudden pregnancy became a dark cloud blocking that ray of light for Mom.

“Let’s think about it step by step. So Hee, you have to go to work, but you haven’t slept a wink, what should we do?”

“I’m young. Mom, be careful too when cleaning the building stairs. If you feel dizzy, take breaks while working, and if it’s too hard, tell the team leader.”

“Don’t worry about me and do well at the hospital, So Hee.”

That day’s work was so hard for both Mom and me.

Time passed slowly and painfully as if it was adding a millstone to the load of a difficult life.

I thought about sending him a text message, but I didn’t.

I didn’t want to hold onto his heart that had drifted away as far as the distance, with the news of pregnancy.

With a doctor’s license in his hand, he had plenty of opportunities in the world to choose from.

Entering the doctoral program at Ha*vard, the world’s top university, he would seize even more life opportunities in just a few years.

With the stairs to money, honor, and success right in front of him, he must have felt that my existence, having nothing, was a stumbling block.

At one point, I thought that the night on Baengnyeong Island was also an expression of his apology.

My beloved Hyun Woo was a kind man.

I couldn’t erase the child gifted by the night on Baengnyeong Island, where he expressed his apology with his whole body without being able to say a single word of apology.

He was my first man, the one who left me with my first breakup, and the one who gifted me my first child.

I wondered what the child in my womb would think of me, who foolishly understood even his changed heart.

I remembered the night when I cried and tried to understand Mom when she remarried after Dad’s death when we were struggling with debt.

I inquired about maternity leave and parental leave at the hospital’s general affairs department.

Fortunately, I could take maternity leave for up to 90 days, and since my period of employment at the hospital would be 6 months or more until childbirth, I could also take parental leave for up to 1 year.

I was also advised that I would receive a salary during maternity leave, but I would have to apply for unemployment benefits during parental leave.

Fortunately, perhaps because I took after Mom, I had almost no morning sickness.

As I entered my 4th month of pregnancy, physical changes would also come, and working at the hospital would not be an easy task, and economic problems would not be easy either.

Even while attending university, I consistently worked part-time, but even while receiving national scholarships, I had to pay off my father’s debt together, so my balance increased slowly like a turtle’s pace.

I hated the idea of informing him of my pregnancy and seeking financial support from him, who must also be struggling in the US, more than death itself.

Rubbing my belly so that the child inside wouldn’t notice Mom’s anxiety, I comforted myself, saying let’s be strong.

*****

Arriving in Boston, Hyun Woo took a taxi and headed to the small studio apartment he had pre-booked in the R district.

He thought about contacting Ha Yeon for help, but he didn’t want to show her the shabby rental apartment in the slums of the R district.

Hyun Woo’s small pride wouldn’t allow it.

The Longwood Medical Area, where Ha*vard Medical School was located, was one of the expensive areas in Boston, making it too costly to rent a studio apartment or studio.

Medical school graduate tuition also exceeded $50,000, and although there were school apartments for graduate students, Hyun Woo couldn’t afford the annual cost of over $20,000.

Graduate students in medical school receive a salary from their advisor’s research funds and are exempt from tuition when researching in the lab, but that salary was barely enough to survive.

Hyun Woo contacted the Korean student community at Ha*vard Medical School and was recommended the R district as the cheapest area.

The R district was known for having a majority of black residents and a high crime rate in the Boston area, but the rental apartment prices were the lowest.

And the distance to Ha*vard Medical School was close enough to reach just by crossing Huntington Avenue, where the Green Line subway runs.

The black driver who took Hyun Woo from Logan International Airport looked at Hyun Woo again in wonder when he showed the R district address.

The driver kept looking at Hyun Woo in wonder, saying it was the first time he saw an Asian man with a small travel bag going to the slums of the R district while driving a taxi.

The yellow taxi Hyun Woo was in drove along Storrow Drive, which stretched along the Charles River.

The Charles River, which he had seen while watching the Boston Marathon in Korea, and M*T University across the river also caught his eye.

Hyun Woo had almost memorized the Boston map before coming to the US, so seeing the road signs, he could familiarly grasp the directions.

If he went further behind M*T, Harvard Square would appear, and the Ha*vard humanities building where Ha Yeon would be studying would be there.

He thought he should contact Ha Yeon once he settled down a bit and got used to lab life.

The taxi driving along Storrow Drive changed direction and entered the Longwood area, soon driving along Huntington Avenue where the Green Line subway runs.

With 85 colleges in the Boston area, new colleges appeared whenever he passed an alley.

The sight of the Green Line subway running and stopping in the middle of the road was so new.

Hyun Woo soon reached the point where Ha*vard Medical School and its affiliated hospitals were visible.

The taxi turned left and entered an alley in the slums of the R district, where the atmosphere was starkly different just one street away.

Each small building was graffitied with spray paint, and even in broad daylight, some black people in shabby clothes were staggering, seemingly drunk and drugged, unable to walk properly.

Although the R district apartment was only 300 meters away in a straight line from the Ha*vard Medical School building, it seemed like heaven and hell coexisted just one street apart.

The taxi soon stopped, and Hyun Woo got off with his luggage and rang the doorbell at the apartment entrance.

After a while, a huge black man, shorter than him but seemingly weighing twice as much, came out with a key.

Giving a warning to avoid going out at night if possible, he guided Hyun Woo to the room.

The room was dirty and small as expected, but it was enough space for Hyun Woo’s body to rest.

Putting the bag in the corner, he laid his tired body on the bed.

The bed mattress was so old that the cold springs were felt against his back, and there was a musty smell.

Hyun Woo thought he should take care of some things while the sun was up and went outside.

It looked rough even from inside the taxi, but when he actually tried to walk the streets, it was scary.

There were people drinking from paper bags in broad daylight, and there were even kids throwing rocks and picking fights with Hyun Woo.

Hyun Woo thought he should change into black clothes first and never foolishly carry cash, and immediately open a bank account.

He went to the bank, opened a new account, and received a cash card. Then he bought milk, bread, cereal, and a few daily necessities and returned home.

The thought of contacting Ha Yeon and asking for help kept popping up, but Hyun Woo decided not to tell her about his arrival in Boston for the month of March.

He turned on his laptop, wrote an email to his advisor saying he had arrived safely and would come to the lab starting tomorrow, and sent it.

He thought of So Hee.

He also thought of the night they shared love on Baengnyeong Island.

But now it was a past that had to be erased, a fate.

He had to study like crazy for 4 years and devote himself to research.

If he kept sending texts and emails to So Hee out of loneliness, it would reduce his immediate pain, but it would only prolong the cruel time of making her hold onto the thread of hope.

He thought it would be better to cut off contact harshly, even though it was hard for both of them at the moment.

Worried that she would be very concerned, Hyun Woo sent So Hee a brief text message saying he had arrived safely in Boston and lay down on the bed.

It was a small 4-story apartment, and he rented a cheap studio-style room, but he had to pay $400 a month.

Still, he thought he could endure all the inconveniences, thinking he could manage at a quarter of the price compared to school apartments.

Hyun Woo had 30 million won that Madam had given him as Do Yeon’s success fee, but he decided to keep it as an emergency fund and try to get by with the salary his advisor gave him as much as possible.

He inserted the USB full of music files that Ha Yeon had given him when she left for the US into his laptop and played Bach’s Cello Suites.

It was a piece included in the album by ‘Donki Anbi’ that Ha Yeon had recommended.

Ha Yeon said that although it was a cello piece that lasted over two hours and was a reproduction of a mono recording, the performer’s strength, restraint, and tension could be felt.

At first, only the familiar parts caught Hyun Woo’s ear, and the long performance was sometimes noisy and even hard to listen to, but as he kept repeating it, he began to like his honest performance without flashiness.

Although he had never been to a classical concert hall, ‘Donki Anbi’ playing the Cello Suites drew Hyun Woo in with only the tempo and dynamics of the performance, seating him in the audience.

As he listened, the years leading to his poor life, his father’s illness, accident, and death, and his mother’s thickened knuckles from hardship unfolded like a panorama in front of Hyun Woo’s closed eyes.

Hyun Woo thought that he would definitely succeed, gain both money and fame, and somehow live a different life from his father, and fell asleep.

Occasionally, gunshots that he had only heard in movies were heard, and each time, the sound of police sirens scattered through the alleys.

.

.

.

Until that night, he never dreamed that a moment would come when a gun would threaten Hyun Woo.