“The baby must have seen Daddy first”
That afternoon the ceiling was crowded with Pantone-mint balloons, and I was laughing too loudly for a woman eight months pregnant. Thirty-two, first child after seven years of marriage, and every friend who had survived the pandemic had come to bless the swell beneath my dress. Se-eun, Mi-so, Ye-rim—my old club sisters—were all there. And beside them stood my cousin Hye-won.
Hye-won had the kind of prettiness that ages into the phrase handsome matron. Divorced four years ago, she had moved to Seoul with a daughter in tow. Even as children she could stand by the apartment playground and watch boys drift toward her like filings to a magnet. I had always envied—no, hated—how effortless it was for her.
I was slicing the tiramisu into eight perfect wedges when my husband Jae-hyuk slipped behind me, fingers circling my waist, eyes crinkling in private delight. Everyone toasted the life inside me. Then Hye-won leaned close and whispered into the shell of his ear:
“Joon-hyuk, your voice hasn’t changed.”
Joon-hyuk. My husband’s name is Jae-hyuk.
She stepped back, smiling as though nothing had happened. Jae-hyuk’s face drained of color. In that instant I knew they were hiding something.
Joon-hyuk, Joon-hyuk, Joon-hyuk. The syllable darted between the balloons and settled like a burr on my unborn child’s foot.
The hand on my waist began to tremble
Had I just noticed? Or had I known all along?
Hye-won and I are cousins, yet we lived under the same roof until sixth grade. Our parents’ overlapping divorces had forced two families to share a single apartment; at dawn we crawled into each other’s beds without asking permission. Whoever arrived first surrendered the warm hollow of the mattress. There was no first—our bodies were already each other’s geography.
Perhaps that was the seed: the desire to possess everything she possessed—boys, parental attention, even exam scores. When I confessed I liked the boy she liked, she only laughed: Take him, I insist. That laughter terrified me, as if she had already given him away from the start.
I met Jae-hyuk through her. At a university retreat she introduced him as her underclassman. I was older, yet she clasped his hand first. My cousin, the engineering goddess. All festival long they were paired for games while I drank at the edge of the field. In the end Jae-hyuk chose me. He claimed he had seen Hye-won only as a junior. But I knew she had staged the surrender, that she had made me the one who reached.
Today I finally knew the price.
The strawberry scent between baby socks
Hye-won’s gift was hand-knitted booties and a handkerchief that smelled of strawberries. Later I would discover the same scent clinging to Jae-hyuk’s skin; he had used the soap she made, unquestioning.
“Your Jae-hyuk still turns red when he drinks, yet he holds his liquor well. Our Jae-hyuk.”
She said our before I could claim him. The guests laughed, unaware. The strawberry fragrance seeped toward the baby as if my womb were porous. Every place the scent touched, my child would grow familiar with Hye-won.
I vomited in the bathroom. The heaves rolled over the bandage of my belly. Hye-won followed me, patting my back. “Sensitive, aren’t we?” Her hand lingered on my waist, sliding with practiced ease. She knew my body too well—how one breast was slightly larger, how my spine curved, perhaps even the fresh silver stretch marks climbing toward my ribs.
Why do we always want the same man?
A cousin is the nearest stranger. I became another woman’s stranger, and Hye-won became mine.
Instinct is simple: we choose mates with genes similar to our own. The closer the cousin, the stronger the pull—not blood, but echo. The same house-breath, the same cadence of grief. Perhaps Jae-hyuk wanted us both. If he had met her first, would he have chosen me?
Early in our courtship, drunk, I once asked, “When is Hye-won visiting?” Jae-hyuk laughed it off. She says you two look alike. We do—upturned outer corners of the eyes, a single freckle on the left cheek when we smile. He claimed he couldn’t remember which of us he saw first. A lie, surely; you do not mistake a name you’ve moaned in the dark.
People crave what they have lost. I lost what Hye-won had; she lost what I took. So we reached for the same man—a blade that sliced us apart, yet a thread that stitches us together. An unbreakable thread now, because of the child. The child will know Hye-won’s scent, carry Jae-hyuk’s blood, and bear my revenge in its cord.
The night the mint balloon burst
When the last guest left, the house sank into silence. A single balloon deflated in slow motion. Jae-hyuk went to shower. I sorted gifts alone and found the card Hye-won had slipped among them.
Congratulations, truly. I only want the best for you. How about the name… Jun-ho?
Jun-ho. Another Jun.
I tore the card to pieces. Jae-hyuk emerged, towel around his waist. “Nothing happened today with Hye-won. I’m sorry about the name—”
I said nothing. I walked up and slapped him. Once, twice, thrice. He took every blow, yet still caught my wrist.
“It was always you in Hye-won,” he whispered.
I laughed—just as Hye-won had once laughed at me.
Whose side will the baby take?
Have you ever called your husband by a cousin’s, a friend’s, or your mother’s voice? Who were you then? And must you call him again—here, now?