“Father?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Erase that and put your phone away.”

“But, I wanted to show your brother what you are capable of when motivated.”

“Father…” came the first and last warning.

“Yes, dear,’ said a defeated father. He closed the app and set the phone down. Yeji saw that he had not erased the file that he had taken of Seulgi laying into her mother. She smiled internally, making a mental note to request a copy later.

Yeji surreptitiously placed her hand on Seulgi’s thigh in silent support. Seulgi needed that support just now. Friends could be magical as she was confirming tonight. Seulgi squeezed the hand back in confirmation of receipt of the support.

“Now, dear father, what you were talking to Sonja about, does it have any relation to why you are here? About Jackson? Or perhaps something unrelated that I don’t need to know about?”

Alfred took a second to think how to answer.

Seulgi’s mother took this moment to try and speak up, only to be silenced by a glance from her daughter. Sufficiently cowed, her daughter was pleased with her conduct. For now.

“Well, it was a mixture of things. She has found out more about what happened. She wanted to come by and give her personal thanks. But…” a glance at his wife, “…it seemed that we were in a family way and didn’t want to intrude more than she had to. She specifically said…” glare at his wife, “…dinner smelled divine and would like a rain check for a later dinner.”

“If you speak to her first, please let her know that she…” emphasis on that particular ‘she’, which made another woman still present wince, ‘…is always welcome. She just needs to…” a second glare in as many minutes, “…let me know in advance so I can make a proper dinner. I would sure hate to make something unworthy of her.” The blistering sarcasm nearly peeled the paint off the wall.

Alfred made sure not to hear the sarcasm. Yeji only barely kept her face from twitching. Alfred's side eye glanced over at his wife to check to see how much hair she had left after being burned so badly.

Seulgi’s mother was doing her best carp-on-land impression. It’ll be a bit before she recovers from this.

Seulgi was unconcerned by her mother’s wellbeing. Having someone try to murder you will change your priorities, she guessed. The fact that one of her benefactors was sitting next to her helped. Her father’s obvious support was also integral to her newfound strength.

Seulgi takes a deep, cleansing breath. Exhales gustily. She stands up and starts clearing the dishes from the table. Yeji stands up to help. So does Alfred. Seulgi’s mother is still too stunned by the evening’s events to do much other than be shocked.

However, as with most narcissists, she has an iron sense of self and can shake herself back to her ‘self.’ While she is resetting herself, her husband quietly says something that he would never say at home, “It’s pretty late. Why don’t you go ahead and leave this for me?”

Instead of responding, she just kisses his cheek and heads off to the bedroom. Much to her astonishment, Yeji gives him a side hug and a kiss on the cheek as well, to which he responds with one of his own as she follows Seulgi to the bedroom.

The mother’s head is like a metronome, going back and forth between this unknown man and the girls. When the women disappear into the bedroom, she focuses on her husband of many years who has rarely ever offered to do the dishes.

Once she has recollected herself, she starts with “So, Alfred…” This is where Seulgi gets that acidic waspishness tone, he thought.

“Don’t you start. And keep your voice down. She was serious about throwing you out if you do not behave. And this time, I won’t stop her. It is her house, it’s her right to make and enforce rules.

“Now, I know you have questions, I will answer any civil question that you have, but let me start, I might answer enough of them before you ask. OK?” He was up to his forearms in sudsy water, scrubbing hard on a particularly stubborn dish.

“Okay. And this had better be good, Alfred.”

“Do you remember all of those business trips that I took thirty to forty years ago?”

She nodded.

“Let’s just say that some of them are more interesting than I let on. As in things that I still am not legally able to tell you about them. As in the ‘I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you’ variety. And I am not joking.” This coming from the man with suds up to the elbows and a tiny bit on his cheek.

“So, ‘Alfred’ was a working name. Obviously, it is not my name. Just like Sonja is not her real name. And don’t ask, I don’t know it. Just like she does not know mine. And yes, she and I used to work together. That’s how we met. I have not seen her in nearly 20 years. Ours was not a business that encouraged keeping in touch.”

He was rinsing the pile of dishes as he talked.

“All I can really tell you is that our daughter and her son work together. As contrary as it might sound, it really is purely by coincidence. Something bad happened recently. Really bad. Worse than you’d believe. Worse than I believed. It took Seulgi to tell me, Yeji to confirm, and Sonja to verify just how bad it was.”

He paused and took a deep, steading breath before continuing.

“We nearly lost her. We nearly lost our little girl. This was about a week ago. So, she is not very stable at the moment. And before you ask, I don’t have all the details. So, there are a lot of things I cannot - not will not, but cannot - answer for you. The main one I can answer is that the one who tried to harm her is no longer able to do so.

“That girl with our daughter, Yeji, was one of those who kept her alive. So, you will be treating her with the respect that she deserves.” This was not a request. “We do not know if the danger is completely over yet, so Yeji is staying with us.”  Again, this was not a request. “We think it is, but cannot be sure yet. But that is why we are both here as I cannot be with her at work. Oh, yeah, Yeji also works with Seulgi.”

He screwed up his face in concentration. He was trying to think if there was anything else his wife needed to know before giving her a turn to talk. He thought that he covered enough.

He nodded at her. Now, it was her turn to talk.