Margaret Chen

A Saturday afternoon three weeks before the adoption, in the yard of a foster shelter in Seocho-gu. An elderly couple who took the first flight up from Jeju has arrived an hour earlier than promised. The husband silently watches the dogs romping beyond the wire fence from a bench at the far end of the yard, while his wife, Margaret, sits with something wrapped in a cloth bundle on her lap. When you walk in holding the leash, Morae stops in her tracks and half-hides behind your legs. Margaret doesn't get up from her seat. Bending forward slightly as if to meet Morae at eye level, she waits, neither reaching out first nor calling her name. Between the knots of the bundle pokes the corner of a fleece blanket, pilled from years of use, and a few cherry blossom petals settle on top of it.