The Long Journey of a Full-Time Artist

When the world falls asleep in the deep of the dawn, thoughts well up within me like a spring. I awaken suddenly, struck by a fleeting reflection. Before reaching for my keyboard, my gaze drifts outside. From my window, the distant East River lies submerged in darkness, so still that even its flow seems frozen in the silence. Yet, piercing through the night’s solitude, the brightly lit windows of neighboring apartments stand as luminous proof of other waking lives.

Across the narrow street, I glance into a window without curtains. An Asian man in a black t-shirt is busy in his kitchen—opening and closing the refrigerator, moving back and forth in front of the stove. Once he sets the table, a plump Asian woman in floral pajamas appears. The two sit opposite each other, sharing a meal. Afterward, they stand close together at the sink for a long time, side by side, washing dishes. Then, the light goes out. Like a heavy curtain falling on a theater stage, the scenery vanishes into stillness. By habit, I keep stealing glances at that dark window, letting my imagination drift back into our own past.

A long time ago, I lived on the second floor of a seven-story building near Grand Street, by Manhattan's Chinatown. Every morning, I was awakened by the chatter of Chinese women riding the cramped elevator up to the garment factory. In the evening, their boisterous voices would fill the building once more like a passing storm. Hearing them, I would pause my work and join the rhythm of the neighborhood, heading out into Chinatown to buy ingredients for dinner.

Before moving into that building, my husband and I lived apart, having only exchanged vows at City Hall. Lacking a steady income, we simply could not afford to live together, so he stayed with his roommate and I stayed with mine. About six months later, his roommate suggested we all move in together. We shared a massive studio with soaring ceilings; the roommate took one side, and we took the other.

Our landlord grew and sold bean sprouts in the dark, murky basement. Once a month, when I went downstairs to pay the rent, he would clomp forward in his heavy rubber boots, accept the money, and generously wrap up three or four handfuls of bean sprouts for us. Left without a single penny after rent, we kept ourselves alive on bean sprout soup, seasoned bean sprouts, and bean sprout rice—yet we stubbornly held onto our artwork and endured. Eventually, unable to keep up with the soaring rent, we had to leave Manhattan.

Crossing the Williamsburg Bridge in search of a cheaper refuge, we found an abandoned factory building at the very end of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, right by the waterfront. The landlord had done nothing more than draw lines with chalk on the wooden floor to divide the immense loft among various tenants. We erected temporary walls for privacy and shared a communal bathroom on the floor. Still, we loved the cheap rent and the sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline. The landlord had warned us that there was no heating, but having moved in during the height of summer, we didn't care much.

Then, winter arrived. The biting wind pierced through the countless gaps in the old windows, freezing us to the bone. Even now, the memory of that cold makes me shudder. Yet, against all odds, we endured that grueling time and gave birth to our two children.

From those years, a certain memory remains like an indelible scar on my heart. "Auntie, do you know how hard it was for me to come back here? I thought I’d never make it." The words from my friend's young child froze me completely, striking me like a heavy blow. My friend had struggled so much balancing work and motherhood that she had sent her infant back to Korea, finally bringing the child back years later when circumstances improved. The child, after playing in the park with my own children, quietly sat down next to me, let out a deep sigh, and shared that heavy thought. I could offer no words of comfort; I could only sit there, utterly stunned. The child's words engraved themselves deeply into my soul.

My husband took on any job he could find, from working as a kitchen assistant to doing carpentry. Finally, he settled into a job doing coloring work at a lamp shop run by a junior colleague. At first, he worked six days a week. Then, like a severe addict slowly weaning himself off a drug, he cut back his hours day by day—to four days, then three. Eventually, he worked only one day a week, until he quit entirely.

Each time he reduced his days at the shop, I was consumed by anxiety. Our financial situation wasn't improving, our children were growing, and he was letting go of our lifeline. Desperate, I flipped through the job listings in the newspaper. Each time, my husband would say, "Don't go out to work. We have to endure through our art. That is the only way we can both become full-time artists."

Fortunately, the time he reclaimed from his day job was poured entirely into his art, and his paintings began to sell. Today, we are both the "full-time artists" we once only dreamed of being. What felt like an impossible dream has quietly become our reality. At times, a sudden wave of anxiety hits me, fearing that the shadow of poverty might creep back. But the moment I realize this is our indisputable reality, a shiver—of whether joy or sorrow, I cannot tell—spreads through my entire body.

In the still of the dawn, I repeat that child's words inside my heart, hoping that one day, I too can say the exact same thing to the world: "You have no idea how hard it was for me to get here."

Searching for Sophie in the Dead of Summer

“Mom was rushed to the ER in an ambulance. She hasn't crossed back into consciousness yet.” “What happened? How?” “She was eating a hard-boiled egg... it lodged in her throat. She couldn’t breathe.”

It was this past July, over the Independence Day weekend. My sister, who lives in Seoul, called me in the dead of night, her voice splintering into sobs. With hands gone cold, I scrambled to book the earliest flight to Seoul. When I was just a college freshman, my father—then a university lecturer—had passed away after a brutal battle with cancer. It was my mother, working tirelessly as a high school teacher, who had single-handedly scraped together the funds for my studies abroad. She deserved a peaceful retirement, a gentle twilight to her life, but instead, Parkinson’s disease had confined her to a bed for years. Hearing that the woman who had spent her entire existence backing my sister and me was now hovering between life and death, I had no choice but to rush to her side.

Yet, tethered to a demanding corporate schedule back in New York, I could only manage a fleeting four days in Seoul before boarding a flight back.

When I unlocked the door to my Manhattan apartment, a suffocating silence greeted me. My husband was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Sophie, our three-month-old puppy whom we cherished like our own flesh and blood. I collapsed onto the bed from sheer exhaustion, only to bolt upright at 3:00 AM. The space beside me was still empty. A cold dread washed over me, chasing away the last remnants of sleep. Then I remembered: right before my trip to Seoul, my husband had bought a new iPhone. I unearthed his old device, tracked his location, and stepped out into the pre-dawn chill to find him.

What awaited me on that street was a scene that defied my wildest imagination. There, at 4:00 AM, inside a parked car, my husband sat holding hands with another woman, their voices murmured in tender intimacy.

The blood froze in my veins. I felt as though I had stepped into a waking nightmare. I refused to believe my own eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing? Holding another woman's hand at this hour?”

I yanked the car door open, dragged my husband out, and slapped him across the face. He stood there, paralyzed with shock and embarrassment. Sensing the escalating confrontation, the woman threw the car into drive and vanished into the darkness.

“Who is she? Who is the woman you were holding hands with in the dead of night?” “I just met her today,” he stammered. “We just clicked so well, we got caught up talking.” “My mother is lying in a coma, fighting for her life, and you do this the moment my back is turned? Where is Sophie?” “I told you before, I never wanted a dog. She only looks for you anyway. I left her with Mark until you got back.”

Despite eleven years of marriage, we had been unable to conceive. We were just in the middle of preparing for IVF—upgrading to better health insurance, nourishing my body, waiting for a miracle. Sophie had come into our lives during this painful wait, filling the void like a child, though my husband had always viewed her as a nuisance.

The next morning, I headed to Brooklyn to retrieve Sophie from Mark, a friend from our graduate school days in Boston. But Mark met me at the door with a face pale with guilt.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say. Sophie isn’t here. Last night, right after our walk, the moment I opened the door, she bolted out into the street. We combed the entire neighborhood but couldn’t find her. I think she was confused by your sudden disappearance and tried to head back to Manhattan to find you. You know how she only has eyes for you. I’m so sorry... she’ll either come back here or find her way to your place. Let’s wait and see.”

I wandered through the park near Mark’s house, crying out Sophie’s name until my throat was raw, but only silence answered. I collapsed onto a park bench, tears blurring my vision. In the distance, a young couple sat tightly entwined, lost in their own world. I tried to swallow the rising sob in my throat, but the weight became too heavy to bear, and I began to weep aloud. My mother was in a coma, my husband was whispering sweet nothings into the hand of a stranger, and my beloved Sophie was wandering somewhere out there, searching for me. Every misery in my life was descending upon me at once, like a sudden torrential downpour in the peak of summer. My anger erupted like a volcano. Returning home at midnight, I screamed at my husband to pack his bags and get out. I demanded a divorce. He spat back that he was suffocated too, and walked out.

In the days that followed, as the jet lag faded and reality set in, my heart grew muddled. I called him several times, swallowing my pride to apologize and ask him to come home, but he refused to answer. I later discovered he had withdrawn $7,700 from our joint bank account—presumably to secure a room in Brooklyn—and was running up our credit cards with reckless abandon.

Amidst this chaos, the hospital in Seoul called: my mother had to be transferred to a long-term care facility. Sophie was still missing, and haunted by the fear that she might be locked in some animal shelter, I boarded another flight to Seoul. My mother had grown agonizingly thin since my last visit. The chest compressions administered when her airway was blocked had fractured six of her ribs. Family acquaintances gently suggested that we honor her wishes and remove the ventilator to let her pass in peace. But I could not let her go like this. My sister and I decided to wait a little longer. If only I could have given her a grandchild to hold, I thought, perhaps she would find the strength to wake up. The thought brought fresh tears to my eyes.

Even in Seoul, I kept tabs on my husband’s movements through his old phone. He and his mistress had already set up a household together. He was using my credit card to buy her lingerie and perfume. My husband, a staunch vegetarian, was suddenly frequenting galbi restaurants, leaving a trail of charges behind. They even went on vacations together to Mexico and Boston. Watching this unfold from afar, choked by anxiety and grief, I couldn’t swallow a single bite of food. My weight plummeted by ten pounds.

Determined to seek justice against their shameless betrayal, I retained a lawyer in Seoul to file for divorce and damages against the mistress. In the process of gathering evidence, I stumbled upon a piece of data that left me utterly speechless: my husband had asked an AI tool about his compatibility with his mistress.

The AI had replied:

'You two are soulmates, a connection that comes once in a lifetime. Your wife will divorce you by the end of this year, and you will marry this woman by late next year and even conceive a son. For now, keep a low profile to avoid public scrutiny.'

My husband believed this absurd prophecy as if it were divine destiny.

A month after he walked out, I contacted him, determined to hear what he wanted. Perhaps missing something from home, he answered almost immediately. When I confronted him about his lies, he swore he was no longer seeing her. He claimed he was losing sleep, agonizing over our marriage. He had no idea I was tracking his every move. When I brought up the Mexico trip, he insisted he went alone because he had always wanted to visit. Realizing there was no shred of truth left in him, I told him to bring the divorce papers.

When we met to sign the documents, I discovered he had been slipping into our apartment while I was away, taking things. I had installed a security camera in the apartment out of caution, and the footage had caught him filling suitcases while on the phone with her, saying, "I’m only packing things your wife won’t easily notice." He was taking my clothes and items I had carefully collected. His mistress was shorter than me; my clothes wouldn't even fit her. They were simply frantic to erase my presence. Only after I threatened legal action did he return the items and sign the asset division clause.

Yet, our divorce at the Korean Consulate in New York was repeatedly delayed due to administrative errors and booking issues. Amidst these bureaucratic hurdles, I continued my desperate search for Sophie. One dawn, under a severe typhoon warning, I walked the paths we used to share, shivering in my short sleeves against the howling wind. Was she out there freezing? Had she been hit by a car while trying to track me down? Or worse, fallen into the hands of someone cruel? I tried to comfort myself with the hollow excuse that I had been too consumed by legal battles to find her.

Lately, my husband had begun showing signs of regret. He approached me with a sorrowful face, complaining that his mistress was loose with money and sharp-tongued. On my birthday, he asked me out to dinner, pouring out his grievances, begging to come back because she was trying to control his every move. He offered no apology for his betrayal, only a selfish plea to return. My sister’s warning echoed in my mind—that this marriage had been built on a foundation of lies regarding his background and education, and that I must never forgive him. Yet, the ghost of an eleven-year bond stirred a pathetic sense of pity within me.

In truth, I had kept a pair of round-trip tickets to Korea—originally bought last year for our annual visit to our parents—un-canceled. I had secretly hoped that if he sincerely knelt before my mother and begged for forgiveness, I might find it in myself to take him back. But it was all a farce. They were still together, even throwing a lavish party to celebrate their 100th day as a couple. Realizing I was watching them, they switched phone carriers to sever my tracking. On October 21, when the signal finally went dead, I officially relinquished all hope and canceled his ticket to Korea.

Before my final departure for Seoul, I hesitated, but ultimately emailed and spoke with the mistress's husband. His voice over the phone sounded like a man drowning in a swamp. He pleaded with me not to divorce, wanting to save his home for the sake of their young daughter.

“I thought about taking him back,” I told him softly, “but his endless lies have made it impossible.” When he realized there was no hope left, he asked in a hollow whisper, “Could you at least give me the address of where they are staying? If you need evidence for your lawsuit, I will give you everything I have collected. And could you introduce me to your lawyer in Seoul?”

Listening to his broken voice, my heart ached with a bitter, shared grief.

Still, there is no word from Sophie. I have filed a report on the NYC Animal Care Centers website, and I frequently return to the park bench where we used to sit, praying for a miracle. I want to put this exhausting war behind me. I want to live a quiet, peaceful life, with only my beloved Sophie by my side. Cutting the final thread of lingering attachment, I step onto the plane to Seoul for the third time.

Frank's bulletproof vest

Reunion at the Bank

The rain fell steadily all day long. At the entrance of the Nassau Avenue G-train station in Brooklyn, an old man was looking around, completely drenched without an umbrella. He seemed to be searching for someone, staring intently through his thick reading glasses. As commuters crowded up the subway stairs during the evening rush hour, Frank scrutinized every single one of them. Underneath his bald head, the two deep wrinkles between his brows furrowed even more. His wide, staring eyes blinked anxiously, and his small mouth was tightly shut.

"Hi, Frank," Charlie greeted him.

Frank didn't even pretend to hear. Rain streamed down his forehead, blurring his reading glasses and forming heavy droplets on the lenses. His suit, which looked like it had been bought with a grand intention a long time ago, had probably never been washed; it was greasy and stained with grime. The rain didn't dare soak into his worn, wax-like jacket but simply rolled off. In stark contrast to his short stature and thin legs, Frank’s upper body was puffed up, as if he were wearing a bulletproof vest. His arms were wrapped tightly across his chest, as if he were constantly terrified that someone might steal whatever was hidden inside his breast pocket.

Through the buttons of the black suit, which seemed stuck to his body like a second skin, a dark vest was visible. Looking at him wearing a wine-colored tie with cream-colored diamond patterns over a dingy, yellowish shirt, Charlie thought to himself, 'He may be shabby, but he’s got everything in place!'

Five years ago, Charlie had borrowed money from Frank, the local loan shark, to buy a house, and he had paid it all back right on time. Lately, however, things had taken a turn for the worse, and he was out to ask Frank for an emergency loan.

The meeting place was inside the Greenpoint Savings Bank, a neoclassical structure built in 1906. Standing under the high, magnificent domed ceiling, Frank puffed out his chest and swaggered around as if he owned the place. He carefully unbuttoned his jacket and, with the precision of someone retrieving a priceless treasure, slowly pulled out a notebook from his inside pocket. The notebook was just as worn out as his suit—its corners were rounded and frayed, and the pages had turned yellow with age. It was tightly bound, both horizontally and vertically, with rubber bands.

He carefully unwrapped the rubber bands, brought the notebook right up to his nose, and looked for the records. Finding no pending balance, he wrapped the rubber bands back around it several times and put it back into his inside pocket. To make sure it was secure, he tapped his chest two or three times. Next, he pulled out another notebook from his vest pocket. He repeated the exact same routine. This time, he must have found the record. After confirming the name, his mouth twisted into a slight grimace, and he locked eyes with Charlie.

Charlie, who had been waiting with his hand over his nose to block out the foul odor emanating from the old man, caught the faint, peculiar smile spreading across Frank's face. He slipped his hand down and responded with a smile of his own.

"Well, you paid it off well over five years without missing a beat. Good. How much more do you need?"

At those words, Charlie inwardly shouted, 'I made it.' He let out a long sigh of relief. The anxiety that had been crushing his chest felt like a balloon drifting far away into the sky.

A Flashback to Six Years Ago

Six years prior, in January 1986, Charlie was flipping through the Greenpoint Gazette, a local weekly newspaper, agonizing over how to make a living. A commercial building listed for sale caught his eye. Realizing he had nothing to lose, he gathered unexpected courage and walked straight into a local real estate office. An elderly woman sat there, looking exhausted, lifting her weary face as he entered.

"Could I see the property listed in the paper?" Charlie asked politely.

"I can't go with you right now," she replied. "I'll give you the address, so go take a look. If you like it, come back and we’ll talk." She handed him a business card and drew a quick map.

It was a four-story red brick building. When Charlie turned the first doorknob, the door swung open smoothly, as if it had been waiting for its rightful owner. On the left wall, a row of brass mailboxes hung side by side. Scanning the names written underneath them, he noticed most of the last names ended in "~ski"—Polish tenants. However, the second inner door was firmly locked. Peering through the glass door into the first-floor entrance, he saw that the ceiling was incredibly high. 'Not bad,' Charlie muttered, biting his lip and tilting his head as he pondered the decision.

He started walking back toward the real estate office. 'This is crazy,' he thought, turning around. But then he turned right back, whispering, 'No, maybe it could actually work.' He paced back and forth like this three or four times.

'Knock, and the door will be opened. Even if it doesn't always open, you still have to knock.' Peeking into the real estate office, he hesitated at the door, pacing up and down. 'To hell with it! Let’s see how far this goes. If it doesn't work out, so be it.' Finally, he pushed the door open.

"I like the house. But I don't have the money right now. If you give me some time, I can put it together."

The broker narrowed her tired blue eyes, scanning Charlie from head to toe, and thought for a long moment.

"Alright. The owner has already passed away, and the heirs haven't shown up yet. It will take quite a while to track down all six heirs. Secure your funds in the meantime. If you run short, there’s a local private lender we’ve worked with for a long time, and I can introduce you to him. But we need to do a binding agreement."

"How much?"

"Just give me 100 dollars, and I’ll hold the building for you."

Thinking of it as money lost at a gambling table, Charlie handed over the 100 dollars and walked out with a receipt. Charlie’s footsteps, which had been dragging along the heavy weight of a weary life, suddenly became frantic—as if a motor had been attached to his feet after signing that contract.

The Closing, One Year Later

A year later, on January 17, 1987, sleet was falling miserably. Charlie walked slowly through the slushy streets to make it exactly on time, arriving outside the lawyer's office. He peered inside through the window, adjusted his clothes, and carefully opened the door. Inside, the real estate broker, the sellers entangled in the deal, a representative from the title company, and the lawyer had all gathered.

Frank made his dignified entrance just as it was time to hand over the check to the sellers. The moment he opened the door, a pungent stench—the kind that clings to the homeless—swept into the room with the draft. As time passed, the smell grew increasingly foul. Yet, the people in the room showed no reaction whatsoever, as if they were well-accustomed to dealing with this wealthy lender. Not knowing where to look and desperately wishing someone would open a window, Charlie turned his head. The young woman sitting at the reception desk gave him a quick wink, as if telling him to hang in there.

Back then, getting a commercial mortgage from a bank without an established credit history meant paying an interest rate of around 13.5%. Frank, however, only charged 10%. It was actually a better deal than the bank.

"Once you borrow money from him and pay it back well, he'll lend to you again anytime using this house as collateral," the real estate broker chimed in.

Frank had started from the bottom, saving penny by penny since childhood while working as a ticket taker at a local theater. That was how he began his private lending business. The small amounts bred interest, the interest multiplied into fortunes, and by buying up buildings one after another, he built immense wealth. The taste of money demanded more money, and his old black suit chest puffed up larger and larger by the day, like a bulletproof vest.

Accumulating wealth was his only joy and his sole hope for living. Like gears that never stopped turning, the lending game had become his second nature. All five of his senses were tuned exclusively to the money coming in when he woke up and the money going out for profit. His gaze was always vacant, as if his mind were lost in a world where only cash revolved.

People who needed capital sought him out, and he consumed himself entirely with identifying who would pay back the principal and interest on time. To Charlie, the name 'Frank' evoked nothing but money, interest, and loan sharking; any other image of the man was a complete blank.

The only way Charlie discovered that Frank carried human worries was by spotting him wandering the streets. On days when collections didn't come in on time, Frank would roam the Greenpoint intersection with a haggard face. His eyes would flash, as if he were scanning the crowd to hunt down someone who owed him.

Frank's Death and Final Accounts

He, too, must have accumulated wealth initially to live a happy life. They said he had even planned to get married once. But he lived in constant terror of losing the fortune he had worked so hard to amass. With an expression of immense relief that he had stayed single, he would often casually mutter to Charlie, "Women are money-swallowing machines," as if advising him to manage his own assets wisely.

Naturally, he had no close friends, nor any relatives nearby. He was a man who never knew the joy of spending, only the habit of hoarding. Stripped of love, loneliness, or sorrow, he became a relentless money-making machine, living as though he would last forever.

Then, one day, the checks Charlie sent to pay off his loan stopped clearing the bank. Six months later, a letter arrived from Frank’s lawyer. It instructed him to make the checks payable to "Frank Estate" and mail them to the law firm. Frank was dead.

The entire fortune, it turned out, was inherited by a distant cousin living in Philadelphia—a younger sister he had barely ever spoken to. They say one person makes the money and another spends it! The moment the money-making gears ground to a halt, that massive wealth unexpectedly rolled right into the lap of a distant relative.

For once, he must have been laid in his coffin wearing a brand-new suit instead of a traditional shroud. Did those old notebooks rest inside the breast pocket of that new suit, or were they gone? How could a man who had clung so tightly to life depart for heaven with such a flat chest, leaving behind the bulletproof vest he cherished so dearly? Charlie couldn't help but imagine that Frank, consumed by bitter resentment, couldn't even cross over to the afterlife. Instead, he fancied Frank hovering in the Bardo—the intermediate realm—looking down to check if the money borrowed from him was still being paid on time.

For years afterward, whenever Charlie saw an old man in a worn black suit standing at the Greenpoint Avenue intersection, turning his head side to side with wild, searching eyes, his heart would drop. His legs would shake, and his mind would go completely blank. He worried, 'Could the checks I'm sending to the Frank Estate under the lawyer's orders actually be going to a Frank who is still alive?' He deeply regretted not confirming the death with his own eyes.

After years of being startled by these ghosts, it was only when he finally held the "Satisfaction of Mortgage"—the legal release document—in his hands that he truly accepted Frank's death.

"Hello, Frank," Charlie occasionally murmurs, looking up at the sky. "I was the one who knocked on the door to survive, but you were the one who opened it."

On rainy days at the Greenpoint intersection, it still feels as though Frank, in his faded black suit, might be standing there, looking around for his debtors.