Unen was completely exhausted by the time they finished hiking up the hill and arrived at the woman’s house. She weakly sunk to the ground as soon as she handed the bucket over.
The woman looked down at Unen with a complicated expression that seemed to mix anger and sadness.
“…Good job. Here’s a little something to thank you.”
Unen stared absently at the tiny roll offered to her. Some time passed before she came to her senses with a start and shook her head back and forth in a panic.
“It’s fine. You can eat it. You must be hungry.”
Mommy will get mad again if I accept food from anyone else. Unen scooted her butt backward away from the roll like her life depended on it.
The woman sighed. “You threw out the dried potato I gave you last time, too.”
Remembering how ungratefully she had tossed the dried potato the woman had given her onto the side of the road when her mother had gotten angry, Unen threw herself down on the ground to apologize.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again…!”
Protecting her head with her arms, Unen curled into the tightest ball possible to prepare for the incoming impact. But nothing happened. Finding it strange, she apprehensively lifted her head from its safe position.
The woman stood there, carefully watching Unen with the same mix of anger and sadness on her face.
“I’ll forgive you if you promise you’ll no longer throw away good food ever again.” She forced Unen’s hand open and placed the bread in it. “You helped me fetch water from the river. This is payment for that. You must accept it.”
“But—”
“Your ma won’t know if you eat it right here and now.”
This auntie here will be the one to yell at me if I don’t listen to her. Unen quickly chomped on the bread, for she had no other choice.
Her first bite of bread in a long while tasted surprisingly sweet. With each bite, the savory scent filled her mouth and nose, and before she knew it, she was eating with abandon. Her mouth was watering so much that even wiping it with her hand several times wasn’t enough. Not having had anything to eat since the wild-oat rice gruel that morning, Unen devoured the bread in no time.
She licked the bread crumbs off her fingers with rapt attention, but the moment she finished, chills ran down her spine. Her eyes bulged as she realized the crime she had committed.
Mommy must be starving too, but I went and ate all the bread myself without telling her.
Feeling crushed under her guilty conscience, Unen staggered to her feet. The woman seemed to be saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear her over what felt like wind roaring in her ears.
“I’m sorry…” she somehow managed to squeeze out in a thin voice, and turned her back to the woman. Then she ran down the hill as if a wild dog was nipping at her heels.
Unen instinctively stopped just as her hut came into view past the brush. Unsure of how to proceed, she froze in place.
Eventually, the door creaked open, and a man exited the hut. With a dirty smile on his lips, he hollered back inside the hut, “Until next time!”
Unen timorously left the cover of the brush once she had confirmed that he’d disappeared, in the direction of the town.
Her mother had yet to call for her. But wanting to apologize to her mother as soon as possible, she approached the hut.
Her mother would be furious to learn Unen ate a roll of bread without her permission. But she would fare better telling her mother herself rather than have her find out later. Most of all, Unen couldn’t handle the burden of her heavy feelings of regret and guilt by herself anymore.
She nervously circled around to the door and slowly took several deep breaths to calm her nerves. Just as Unen reached for the door, she heard slight slurping noises from inside.
The dilapidated door had never hung in place correctly, and it couldn’t close all the way even if you kicked it. Unen cautiously brought her eyes to the crack between the door and wall.
She saw her mother’s back alone inside the dimly lit hut. Her mother was stooped over, single-mindedly moving her hands and head.
Drafts blowing through the cracks in the walls and the door brought the smell of something deliciously sweet and sour to where Unen hid. It was the scent of the juicy red fruits she had smelled from the fenced-off field across the river she was forbidden to even go near.
Smacking her lips noisily, her mother plopped red fruit after red fruit into her mouth.
“Ahhh, it’s sooo sweet. So yummy,” she moaned happily to herself.
Unen inched away from the door, careful not to make the floorboards creak below her. Realizing she had just seen something she shouldn’t have, fear slammed down on her.
Mommy can never know I peeked.
After retreating far enough from the hut so as not to be heard, Unen took off in a mad dash for the river.
The glossy, shiny red fruits looked as if they had captured the sun inside them. Such delectable, beautiful food hadn’t existed in the hut before Unen had left. The only two foods there that morning had been spoiled wild oats left on the bottom of a used-up bag and a shriveled turnip.
Unen collapsed on the grassy riverbank, having used up all her energy. Blades of grass and twigs stabbed her in the arms and cheeks, but she curled into a ball among the shadows of the tall grass without minding the pain.
How much time had passed before she heard her mother’s voice calling her name in the distance?
Unen sluggishly pushed off the bed of grass. Her mother walked over to her, the setting sun at her back.
“Oh, so this is where you were. Playing hide-and-seek? Kids get to have so much fun.”
Her mother was acting no different from usual.
“…I’m hungry.”
“I know. I’m starving since I haven’t had anything to eat since morning either.”
Unen vacantly looked up at her mother.
“What are you lazing around for?” her mother snapped, “Get to your feet. Hop to it. Guess what? I got my hands on some buckwheat flour today, so let’s have buckwheat gruel for dinner. We can splurge and plop in a turnip or two.”
Dinner that night consisted of buckwheat gruel with minced turnips and some wild grass they had picked on the way home, just as her mother said it would be. The same exact thin, diluted gruel as always.
“Thank you for the food,” Unen mumbled.
Her mother flashed her a big smile. “I promise I’ll fill your belly with a feast to die for, someday.”