Waiting for Bones the Tigers Left

Every year, the ocean pulls itself to either side so that mothers can be reunited with their children. So, that is where we waited, Yi-Jin and I—on Jindo Island. Hundreds of years ago, the small island across from Jindo, called Modo Island, became overrun with tigers that viciously attacked the villagers. Everyone fled to Jindo, leaving the tigers to resort to cannibalism and eventually starve to death. Unknowingly, the villagers left one woman alone on Modo with the tigers, and she prayed and prayed to Yongwang, the god of the ocean, to reunite her with her children. Yongwang told her to wait for a rainbow, and then follow it to them. When the rainbow finally appeared, the sea parted, and she walked to her children, who were waiting for her on Jindo.

“That’s not how it happened,” Yi-Jin said quietly, gesturing to the statue of the woman and tiger near the site of the miracle.

She’d claimed a low, flat rock encircled by yellow canola flowers overlooking the beach. Her black hair was tangled, half in and half out of her white sweater. I’d been trying to get her to eat the seaweed rice triangle I bought on the train or drink some water or show any sign that she would choose to keep breathing and living now. “No? How did it happen?” I asked, relieved that she’d spoken.

“Her children were trapped on Modo, not her. They were trapped there with the tigers, and her love parted the water and led them home to her. Safe. And alive.” Her voice was low, but there was strength there.

It was only late May so I knew we might be waiting on the beach for a while, maybe months. Her husband set up a tent and brought us food, like all the other mothers whose husbands did the same, until the beach became its own village of eerily similar people.

I hugged my friend tightly, as we stared out across the sea to the little island, broken by the desperation of her retelling and the reason we were sitting there. Yi-Jin was a biologist who knew better than anyone that the reason the ocean “parted” once a year was because the tides lowered the entire sea around the Myeongnyang Strait, which created a path to walk between the islands. But she was also a mother.

It was only late May so I knew we might be waiting on the beach for a while, maybe months. Her husband set up a tent and brought us food, like all the other mothers whose husbands did the same, until the beach became its own village of eerily similar people. Couples of the same age from the same part of Korea living in colorful tents began to slowly accumulate amenities—light strings, hot pots, even music. Local restaurants set up free food tents so that the smell evolved from salt and sand to grilled beef and kimchi. The low tables in those tents changed more than the smell. Instead of silence, families started talking. Around the smoke from the tabletop grill, parents passed photos of their children that the police instructed them to bring and told their stories, sometimes discovered their children knew each other.

Yi-Jin refused to join them. I didn’t have children then so I could only feel her pain from a distance, from my love of her son, Ji-Ho, and my love of her. Still, the mood around our makeshift village was lifting as everyone shared the lives of their missing children, and I wanted her to have that, too.

“I am not like them,” she said, defiantly. “They are mourning, saying goodbye, but Ji-Ho is coming home.”

So, we waited for the rescue divers or police to ask to see his photo or for the sea to part, whichever came first. Sometimes, she talked about him, but only to me. “He was always a good swimmer,” she said once from the rock we spent our days on. “I’m sure I’ve told you that.”

She’d never said that, but I nodded.

“And he has a secret weapon.”

“For swimming?”

She shook her head and smiled, but it looked haunting and scary on her gaunt face. “His name. It means virtuous tiger.”

I smiled encouragingly. “And tigers swim well?”

She stopped smiling. “No. He is a tiger. So they won’t kill him.”

Every part of me wanted to drag her to the other mothers who would understand what she was going through, whose own son or daughter was also 16 years old and was also told to stay inside the ferry as it sank, obediently sitting in their cabins as the halls flooded instead of jumping overboard “the way you Americans would.” Those women were coming back to life all around me, while Yi-Jin seemed to decay, her face gray, the books her husband brought untouched, her bones becoming more defined. “I taught him to obey,” she said, crying into her sweater.

The other mothers probably felt the same way, but I understood the fear of sharing her guilt, her grief, even her hope. I was the part of her life in which Ji-Ho walked back to her through the sea, away from the tigers. So, we waited on our rock, trying not to tense when someone in uniform walked our way.

Eventually, the water began to part the way it did every single year, gradually revealing a path to Modo island, while the mostly mothers of nearly every 16-year-old in Ansan held their breath, waiting for them to walk home on the path God made for them. “If he doesn’t walk to me, at least I’ll find his bones when the sea parts. I know they’ll wait for me, even if he couldn’t,” Yi-Jin said.

It wasn’t until I returned to the US and had my own son, until I cared for him when he was sick, until I held him when he cried, until I celebrated his joys, until I gave up my life for his, that I became the friend Yi-Jin needed me to be ten years ago. My son’s bones are my bones, made by my body. Of course, Yi-Jin would want his back. How could she be whole without them?