do you think zoey still has a little bit of an accent even a couple decades in the future?
im imagining the triplets going off to pre school, and learning a new word there. a few days later, they hear rumi say it. then they hear mira say it a couple days after that.
and then, a week later, they hear zoey say it over dinner. and they notice instantly that zoey doesn’t say the word the same way that their teacher and the other students and their mama and eomma said it. rumi and mira dont notice, because of course they dont; they’re used to their wife’s accent so much it just sounds completely natural to them.
but the triplets giggle. their parents look up at them curiously, smiling at their daughters’ sudden burst of joy. “what are you three giggling about?” mira asks playfully.
one of them giggles again. “mommy talks funny.”
the smiles freeze before sinking. rumi and mira’s eyes flick over to zoey. zoey’s stomach has dropped. the bite of food she had in her mouth tastes foul suddenly.
the triplets dont know any better. they’ve maybe been told once or twice that their mother isnt from korea originally, but they havent really full conceptualized what that means yet. they dont understand accents and dialects and all of that. they dont know that they just accidentally dredged up a decades old insecurity of zoey’s.
but it doesn’t make her feel any better, somehow. her own children have spotted the one thing that still makes her feel like a foreigner, fresh off the plane she escaped her old home on.
distantly she can hear her wives chastising their daughters, gently telling them that “you shouldnt say that about someone!” and “it isnt kind to point out people speaking differently. you should apologize to your mommy.”
she knows its not the mature thing to do, but she can feel the pit in her stomach widening, and her throat getting choked up, and a burning behind her eyes, and she cant stand the idea of crying in front of her children, especially not for something they said to her. so she gets up, and walks out of the kitchen silently (rumi and mira call out to her, but her ears are ringing and she can’t hear anything), all the way to her room, where she curls up in bed and cries.
(later that night she sobs in her wives’ arms, while they rub her back and remind her that she belongs here, she belongs with them, she’s been here for longer than she was there, it doesn’t matter if she says words differently, she’s not a foreigner, this is her home.
her daughters apologize, but they’re still just too young to fully understand what exactly made their mom so upset.
they remember this moment, though, and years later, when they do understand it, they apologize again.)
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