Loving someone is not always easy, and sometimes factors outside of your control can affect your relationship. Whether it is society’s double standards or a stroke of bad luck, our protagonists realize that life can be cruel and unfair even to kind and diligent people. Though they try to steel themselves from pain and heartache, in the end, to truly love means being vulnerable, too.
EPISODES 15-16 WEECAP: Young-ok, Jung-joon & Young-hee; Choon-hee & Eun-ki
Young-ok and Jung-joon adjust their lives to Young-hee during her short visit, and contrary to his first reaction, Jung-joon welcomes her with warmth and kindness. However, Young-ok warns him to maintain a bit of distance since, eventually, Young-hee will have to return to the care facility and live apart from them.
While hanging out and enjoying some drinks with her friends, Young-hee and Young-ok get into an argument and dredge up old wounds. Young-hee remembers the day her sister abandoned her in the subway, and the revelation leaves the others speechless. Masking her own shock with indifference, Young-ok tells Jung-joon that they have experienced worse days than this.
In bed, Young-ok asks to see her sister’s drawings if she is an artist, but Young-hee keeps her notebooks a secret. She pretends to sleep to avoid more of Young-ok’s questions, so Young-ok whispers goodnight to her and apologizes for leaving her on the subway. Once her sister is asleep, Young-hee gets out of bed and draws her.
Unaware of her son’s accident, Choon-hee wonders why her daughter-in-law would leave Eun-ki in Jeju, and her suspicions worsen when another lady at the market asks if they abandoned their child. Choon-hee shouts at the nosy lady when she comments on her cursed fate — she lost her husband and children — and the fight causes Eun-ki to cry.
Choon-hee takes her outside to calm down, and seeing Dong-suk at his truck, she orders him to babysit. Like a game of hot potato, Eun-ki gets passed along to all the people working in the market from Ho-shik to Jung-joon, and her mood brightens as she realizes that everyone here knows her dad and calls her grandma the boss.
Eun-ki ends up on the beach where she plays with another girl her age, but their friendship is short-lived as the other girl describes them both as abandoned children. Eun-ki throws sand in her face, claiming that her parents will come back for her, and at home, she gets scolded by Choon-hee for fighting.
In the evening, Ok-dong notices Choon-hee wrestling with her doubts and advises her to call her daughter-in-law to ease her mind. Though it is only a quarter past nine, Eun-ki’s mom does not answer her phone, and we see her at the hospital, watching her husband be resuscitated. Of course, Choon-hee has no way of knowing this, and she starts to wonder if they truly abandoned Eun-ki.
While I understand why Eun-ki’s mom is unwilling to share the bad news with Choon-hee, I think this is a situation where knowing would be better than staying ignorant. Death and grief are painful things, but running away from them is a fool’s errand. Even if the truth might crush her, I think Choon-hee would prefer seeing her son regardless of his current state than being left alone to wonder in agony about what is happening. In the terrible (but seemingly likely) chance that her son dies, Choon-hee should be given time to be by his side as well.
It’s clear that Choon-hee has experienced deep sorrows, and I can already tell that the coming arc will break my heart because losing someone is one of those things that never gets easier. Thankfully, she and Eun-ki make an adorable pair, and the little miscommunications and reconciliations between them are fun to watch. It adds a nice air of lightness to the show, which I’m sure will be much needed in the coming episodes.