So-nyo and her husband travel to Seoul to celebrate their birthdays with their children.

So-nyo accidentally separates from her husband in the crowd at Seoul Station and disappears.

So-nyo's family gathers at Hyong-chol's house one week after the disappearance to plan their search.

The family argues over the missing-person flyer's photo, reward amount, and wording before finally agreeing.

Chi-hon visits her mother in Chongup and finds her slumped in pain near the shed.

A doctor reveals that So-nyo suffered a hidden stroke and that blood has pooled in her brain.

Hyong-chol and Chi-hon hand out missing-person flyers near the clock tower at Seoul Station.

A woman at Seoul Station reports spotting someone matching So-nyo near Hyong-chol's old Yongsan office.

A pharmacist at Sobu market tells the siblings he treated a disoriented woman with a festering foot wound whose eyes match So-nyo's.

So-nyo's husband returns to Chongup, where Tae-hee from Hope House reveals So-nyo secretly volunteered at an orphanage.

Tae-hee reveals So-nyo donated money monthly to the orphanage and had nearly adopted a boy there also named Kyun.

So-nyo's spirit visits her youngest daughter's house and silently watches her family from outside.

So-nyo's spirit finds Eun-gyu Lee in a hospital bed, where he repeatedly calls out her name.

Chi-hon rushes to the Vatican gift shop and buys the rosewood rosary her mother once asked her to find.

Chi-hon kneels before Michelangelo's Pietà and begs the Virgin Mary to please look after Mom.

So-nyo Park vanishes in the chaos of Seoul Station while visiting her children for a birthday celebration. Her devastated family scrambles to organize a search, making flyers and following leads across the city while guilt and blame quietly tear them apart. Meanwhile, Chi-hon uncovers the secret illness her mother bore in silence, and Hyong-chol traces the footsteps of a woman who wandered his old neighborhoods without finding him. So-nyo's husband returns home only to discover a hidden life of generosity at an orphanage that no one in the family knew about. After So-nyo's death, her spirit makes final farewells before the family accepts she will not return. The novel ends in Rome, where Chi-hon honors her mother's long-forgotten wish and prays for her to be looked after.

The disappearance that unravels a family.

Chi-hon stops at Seoul Station where her mother disappeared and recalls being rude to her during a shopping trip.

Chi-hon realizes as an adult that her mother was illiterate and had depended on her to handle all family correspondence.

So-nyo's sister dies of cancer, and So-nyo does not cry at the funeral or attend the burial.

So-nyo sells her only gold ring so Chi-hon can pay the fee for her middle school entrance exam.

Chi-hon and So-nyo prepare octopus together, and Chi-hon calls her mother 'Mother' out loud for the very first time.

So-nyo passes out while cooking and nearly sets the family house on fire.

So-nyo sells puppies at the market and uses the profit to buy Chi-hon a copy of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human.

So-nyo personally travels to Seoul to deliver Hyong-chol's high school certificate to his office before a city-wide curfew.

So-nyo stays overnight in Hyong-chol's cold night duty room and tells him she loves watching him grow into a strong man.

Hyong-chol questions teenagers near his old neighborhood, and two of them report seeing a woman with a badly hurt foot.

Hyong-chol confronts his wife about unwashed dishes in the sink, and his father pulls him to another room to calm him.

So-nyo's husband wanders through the empty country house opening all the doors and windows and calling out his wife's name.

So-nyo's husband finds a lump in her breast but delays the follow-up hospital visit until it is too late to save her breast.

So-nyo's sister-in-law arrives at the family home and reveals she wants to apologize to So-nyo for years of mistreatment.

Chi-hon reads her younger sister's letter about the scraggly persimmon tree So-nyo gave her as a parting gift.

Before and after So-nyo's disappearance, her family uncovers the countless sacrifices she made without recognition or thanks. Chi-hon recalls the small cruelties she showed her mother and confronts the profound gap in her understanding of who So-nyo really was as a person. Hyong-chol traces the years when his mother traveled far and slept in cold rooms just to keep his ambitions alive. So-nyo's husband, alone in their empty country home, surveys the wreckage of his indifference and confronts the health crises he ignored for years. The family receives painful leads about a wounded woman wandering the streets, making So-nyo's absence feel simultaneously distant and devastatingly real. A letter from the youngest daughter in the Epilogue brings everything full circle, as she describes a family finally learning to grieve a woman they never truly appreciated.

Chi-hon gives a talk at a Braille library and feels profoundly seen and understood by the blind audience for the first time.

So-nyo and Chi-hon walk into the mountains, and So-nyo asks Chi-hon to buy a rosewood rosary from the world's smallest country.

Chi-hon argues with her mother by phone about the family dog's doghouse, and her mother hangs up on her for the first time.

So-nyo's husband brings a younger woman home to live with the family, and So-nyo refuses to stay and leaves.

Hyong-chol promises to become a successful prosecutor and study hard if So-nyo returns home, and she immediately marches back.

So-nyo plants red roses in the front garden of Hyong-chol's first Seoul house, revealing a love of beauty the family never suspected.

Hyong-chol sinks to the floor in tears after realizing he never kept his promise to make his mother happy.

So-nyo's husband admits he had been aware of her worsening confusion and disorientation for weeks before her disappearance but dismissed it.

So-nyo's husband recognizes that his lifelong habit of walking too fast for his wife likely caused him to lose her at the station.

Kyun chops down the family's prized apricot tree for firewood during So-nyo's difficult childbirth, and the sister-in-law blames So-nyo.

Kyun suddenly dies and So-nyo's sister-in-law accuses her of poisoning him, leading to multiple village interrogations.

Chi-hon and her father both confess their guilt, and he reveals So-nyo secretly clipped newspaper articles about Chi-hon's books and carried them proudly.

So-nyo reveals she had a stillborn son before her youngest daughter and gave birth to her youngest daughter completely alone.

So-nyo and Eun-gyu form a deep and lasting friendship after she returns to his home and learns his wife has died.

So-nyo's spirit sees her dead mother waiting on the porch of their old home, who cradles So-nyo's bruised body in her arms.

Beneath the story of a missing mother lies a web of turning points that shaped So-nyo's hidden interior life. Chi-hon discovers that her mother possessed desires and a depth of feeling the family never bothered to learn — a love of beauty, a rich friendship kept secret, and a longing for her daughter to be free. Hyong-chol is forced to confront the moment he chose comfort over a sacred promise, and his grief finally breaks through his composed exterior. So-nyo's husband reckons with the devastating pattern of carelessness and neglect that culminated in his wife's disappearance, including the unresolved trauma surrounding the death of his brother Kyun that So-nyo carried for decades. In death, So-nyo revisits the people and places she loved most, making peace with wounds that were never acknowledged in life. She finally receives the maternal comfort she always needed but never asked for, cradled by her own mother at the very end.