Hara's family is a puzzle she hasn't been able to solve, despite being a piece of it herself.

Something she knows for certain: the Lee family does not say things out loud. There are rules Hara was never taught. She learned through observation. She learned that questions are dangerous, because the wrong one would free the secret everybody has agreed to keep.

Hara is dressed up nicely in a skirt and blouse, her head bowed in prayer at the dinner table. Her mother, Haewon, holds her hand tightly. It's not out of the ordinary — her mother is a clinger and hoverer and worrier, and she has a sadness in her that Hara has always lived alongside — but every little thing is presenting itself as a conundrum today. Why is Mom holding my hand? Why does the room feel like it's underwater? Why is everybody pretending not to notice?

The staff bring out the food and Hara loads her plate. It's quiet until her aunt Sooyun speaks up. "Shall we each say something we're grateful for?"

It's a thing they do at dinner. In a family that doesn't speak out loud, sometimes conversation starters are a necessity.

Today, the question hangs like a dead man over the table.

Sooyun's eyes land on Hara. She's treated like the Switzerland of the family. Neutral territory. A common interest. She isn't sure if it's her youth or personality. Probably youth.

"What about school?" Sooyun asks her. "Still liking History?"

Hara must have mentioned History only once or twice, but Sooyun remembers. Hara is touched — and a little rattled. People say she and her aunt are cut from the same cloth, responsible and bright. Maybe it's true. On the inside, she worries she's more like her mother. In the deepest parts of her, she isn't sure she's like anyone in her family.

"Yes," Hara says, poking her glasses up her nose. "I'm grateful for History class and being able to learn from it. I especially like writing reports. It makes me feel like... I've solved something."

Approval ripples across the table. Hara soaks it up.

"We're very proud of you, dear," Grandmother Lee says. She has bright red lips and a wrinkled face beneath a black mourning veil. She's worn it every day since Hara can remember. "You're my hope for the future. Lee excellence. You're going to grow up and get married and have the most beautiful children."

She talks about that a lot, like it's all Hara is good for. She thinks Grandmother Lee would have preferred a grandson as an heir. Years ago she told her grandmother that she could become a boy if that would make her happy. A miscalculation. She got spanked for it. After that, Mom and Dad didn't let her grandmother babysit alone.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," she continues. "But knowing the Lee name will be left in good hands gives me all the comfort in the world. I just know, if your grandfather... if he..."

She begins to weep into her palms. Quiet, genteel. Everyone looks down at their plates; the staff look at their feet. Hara turns to the head of the table, the empty chair, and thinks about the man lying in his bed upstairs, paralyzed and mute.

"You know what I'm grateful for?" Hara's father says. "Friends all over the world. An associate from Naples said he'd leave his villa empty for us. Beautiful place in the country, has a vineyard out back. We should go."

Her father, Dongmin, is tall and agreeable and slightly lacking in tact. She likes him a lot. She wishes she were more like him. Even though she has his last name, the Heo side of her never stood a chance. The Lees demand an heir.

"That sounds nice, Dad," she says when no one else responds.

"Well," Aunt Sooyun says, and the air seems to still. She has a way of commanding attention. She does single-handedly control the family brand and all that business stuff. Hara wonders if she learned that control from someone else. Maybe she was born with it. All Hara was born with is asthma.

"I'm grateful for our family," her aunt says. "Lees are resilient. We are proud. And even after so much time, we are connected, wherever we may be."

Hara tries to listen to what she isn't saying, the breath between her words. She wonders who Aunt Sooyun is speaking to. The absence at the head of the table. The airless silence. The hanged man above them. She wonders what would happen if he were cut free.