Chapter 2: The Name His Assistant Recognized
The staff wouldn’t tell Daeho where I was.
I looked at the hospital door anyway. It was closed, and I knew the nurses would ask before admitting a visitor. Still, my body had learned to expect him whenever a door opened.
“Did he say why he called?” I asked.
“He said he was your husband.”
For three years, that had been enough to get him into every room of my life.
Han pulled up a chair. “The hospital has your instructions. If he calls again, they won’t give him information about your care.”
“Could he come here?”
“I can’t promise he won’t try. If you see him, or hear that he’s here, tell the staff. I’ll stay reachable.”
I wanted her to promise he would never find me. Instead, she told me what we could do if he did. I breathed slowly until the pain in my ribs let me think.
“You said my grandfather knows I’m safe.”
“He does. Nothing more. I told him you would decide when to speak with him.”
The last time I had seen my grandfather, he had stood at his front gate while I drove away. He had wanted me to take my father’s place in the family business. I had wanted one ordinary decision that belonged entirely to me.
Neither of us had imagined where that decision would lead. That didn’t make it his fault.
“I’ll see him today,” I said. “But there’s something I want to do first.”
Han waited.
“Tell the family office I intend to start the trust process.”
She took out her notebook. “I can do that. Starting it won’t give you control of the votes today, and it won’t appoint you to any position at Haneul.”
“I know.”
“Do you want the office to keep your return private for now?”
I thought of Daeho telling me my family could never earn what he had thrown onto my dress. Once he learned my name, he might try to reach me through someone else. But staying hidden had not kept me safe. I wanted any announcement to say only what I had chosen to say.
“They can confirm who I am and that I’ve asked to begin the process. No mention of the hospital or my marriage. No title.”
Han wrote it down, then looked up. “They have an old photograph of you from a family event. Do you want them to use it?”
“Yes. Let me approve the notice first.”
After she left to make the call, a nurse came in to check on me. She helped me shift against the pillows and waited while I worked through a breath that hurt from beginning to end.
“Any change?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
She adjusted the cup so I could reach it, then hurried to another patient. I watched her go. Nothing about my father’s company would make my next breath painless. It could pay for help after I left this room, though, and give me choices other patients might not have. I thought about that as I waited for Han to return.
By late morning, she brought me a draft on her phone. The photograph showed me at a charity event years earlier, wearing a plain black dress and squinting slightly into the sun. I remembered my father standing just outside the frame, making me laugh when the photographer told me to be serious.
The notice was short. Seo Yuna, daughter of Haneul Group’s late chairman, had asked counsel to initiate the formal process concerning interests held in trust for her. Further steps would follow the trust’s requirements. It named no office I held and gave no account of why I had returned.
“That’s enough,” I said.
Han sent my approval. A little later, she showed me the notice on the family office’s verified page. Seeing my face there felt strange. It was the same face I had seen in the bathroom mirror at the Kwon house, though Daeho had never known its name.
A call came through to Han’s phone. She glanced at the screen.
“It’s Daeho’s office.”
My hand tightened around the blanket. “Don’t tell them where I am.”
“I won’t. Would you rather I take it outside?”
I shook my head. I wanted to know what he was saying, even if I was afraid to hear it.
Han answered and gave her name. A man spoke quickly on the other end. I recognized the voice after a moment: Park, Daeho’s assistant. He had brought papers to the house often enough to know what I looked like.
“I’m sorry to call directly,” he said. His voice shook. “Mr. Kwon asked me to connect him. I saw the notice, and I told him—”
He stopped.
“What did you tell him?” Han asked.
“That the woman in the photograph is his wife. He thought I’d opened the wrong page. I checked the notice twice.”
Behind him, Daeho said something I couldn’t make out.
“He wants to speak to you,” Park said.
Han looked at me. I nodded once. She put the call on speaker and gave Daeho no greeting beyond his name.
“Where is Yuna?” he asked.
“I won’t disclose her location.”
“I saw Haneul’s announcement. Is it her?”
“The statement identifies Seo Yuna.”
“That’s not what I asked. My wife’s name is Lee Yuna.”
I stared at the photograph on Han’s phone. He had said my wife as though that answered every question he had refused to ask about me.
“If you have matters to raise,” Han said, “have your attorney contact my office.”
“She called you to arrange this?”
“I’m not discussing my client’s instructions.”
Daeho let out a short breath. “Then tell her to call me. We have papers to settle, and Sora’s accusation hasn’t gone away because of some family notice.”
At Sora’s name, I pressed my free hand against the mattress. Han saw me do it.
“Do not contact her directly,” she said. “Send any proposed papers to my office.”
For a second he was silent. Then he said, “I need an explanation.”
I wanted to ask him why he had needed none before he hurt me. The words stayed behind my teeth.
Han ended the call without promising him one.
Park had warned Daeho. Daeho had seen my photograph. My name was no longer mine to reveal or withhold from him. I had agreed to the notice, but hearing his voice still made the room feel smaller.
“Are you all right?” Han asked.
“No. I’m glad you answered.”
She sat beside me until I could let go of the blanket. When I finally looked at the phone again, the notice had not changed. It did not say where I was.
In the afternoon, Han asked whether I still wanted to see my grandfather. I did. She arranged the visit through the hospital and asked him to come alone.
He arrived carrying nothing. No driver followed him into the room, no aide waited with a folder. He stopped near the door until I asked him in.
For a moment he just looked at me. I knew he could see the bruising above the hospital gown. His eyes filled, but he did not make me manage his grief.
“I’m here,” he said.
“I can see that.”
He pulled a chair close enough for us to talk, leaving space between it and the bed.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come back,” I said.
“You asked me to wait,” he answered. “This morning, at least, I managed to listen.”
I remembered our argument at the gate. For years, I had believed he would hear any visit as an admission that I had been wrong to leave.
“Did Han tell you about the trust?”
“That you want to begin. She told me not to mistake that for a decision about anything else.”
“That sounds like Han.”
He managed a small smile. Then it faded.
“What help do you want from me, Yuna?”
I had expected questions about Daeho. I had prepared myself to defend why I had married him and why I had stayed. My grandfather asked none of them.
“I need somewhere safe to go when the doctors discharge me,” I said. “I don’t want it announced. Han should know where it is. I’ll decide who else does.”
“Of course.”
“And please don’t send anyone to confront Daeho or Sora. There are people at that house who work for him. I don’t want my name making their lives harder.”
He nodded slowly. “I won’t send anyone.”
“I’ll need time before we talk about Haneul. I meant what I told Han about the trust, but I haven’t agreed to take an office.”
“You don’t owe me one.”
It was a sentence I had wanted to hear three years ago. Hearing it now did not undo the years between us, but I believed he meant it.
He stayed while I grew tired. We talked a little about my father. When he rose to leave, he asked if he could come back, and I told him to ask Han tomorrow. At the door, he turned.
“I’m glad you called home.”
“Han called you,” I said.
“You told her she could.”
After he left, I slept. I woke to Han’s voice asking the nurse whether I was ready for a visitor. The light outside had begun to fade, and she had a thin packet in her hand.
“Daeho’s attorney sent this,” she said when we were alone. “You don’t have to read it tonight.”
“Is it the divorce?”
“Yes. There’s a letter attached.”
May you like
I asked her to show me. The divorce papers were on top. Beneath them lay a separate statement, with a space for my signature. Han held it where I could read without sitting up.
Daeho had agreed to let the marriage end—if I signed a declaration that I had taken his company’s confidential documents and that Sora’s accusation was true.
