by Angie Kim
Kitt looked at her, shook her head, and said, “That is such bullshit. I tell you, you’re a piece of work. Un-frigging-believable.”
Elizabeth didn’t say anything, couldn’t.
Kitt sighed, a long, loud breath of exhaustion. “You think I’m telling you to stop because I’m hoping that, what, Henry’ll become autistic again? What kind of crazy bitch do you think I am? I’m not jealous or mad at you,” she said. “I mean, do I wish TJ could talk and be mainstreamed like Henry? Of course I do. I’m human. But I’m happy for you. It’s just…” Kitt breathed again, but this time with pursed lips, like a yoga breath, an intake of nourishment to embolden her for what she was about to say. She looked at Elizabeth. “Look, no joke. I think you worked hard to get Henry where he is. It’s just, you’ve been going for so long, you don’t know how to stop. I think maybe…” Kitt bit her lip.
“Maybe what?”
“I think you worked hard to strip away the autism, and now you’re left with Henry, the boy he was meant to be. And I think maybe you don’t like that boy. He’s a little weird and likes talking about rocks or whatever. He’s not Mr. In-Crowd, never will be. And I think you’re hoping you can change him into the kid you want instead of the kid you have. But no kid’s perfect, and you can’t get him to be perfect through more treatments. They’re dangerous, and he doesn’t need them. It’s like continuing chemo after all the cancer’s gone. Who are you doing them for—you or for him?”
Chemo after the cancer’s gone. The detective last night had said this to explain the abuse complaint. Elizabeth looked at Kitt. “It was you.”
“What? What was me?”
“You called CPS and said I’m a child abuser.”
“What? No. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kitt said, but Elizabeth could tell—the way Kitt’s whole face and neck turned crimson in an instant, the jerky staccato of her words, the jumpiness of her eyes looking everywhere but Elizabeth’s face—Kitt knew all about it. Betrayal, embarrassment, confusion—everything tangled around Elizabeth’s throat, tight, sending spots flashing in her vision. She couldn’t stand here one more second. She ran to her car. She slammed the door and got the hell out of there, sending dust swirling up like tornado funnels.
YOUNG
SHE COULDN’T FIND HER CAR. It wasn’t in any of the courthouse handicapped spots or on the street in front. Pak didn’t say anything, just shook his head like she was a forgetful child he was too tired to scold.
“How could you forget where it is? You just parked it a few hours ago,” Mary said.
Young bit down and clenched her mouth shut. Questions and accusations were popping around her head like balls on those lottery-number pickers, and now—on a public street, with their daughter—was not the time for those words.
She found the car two blocks away, in a metered spot. As she motioned for them to come, she spotted paper under the wipers. A parking ticket? It occurred to her that she didn’t remember feeding the meter. Then again, she didn’t remember parking here at all. Young strode past the stench of the dumpster-filled alley, positioned her umbrella to block Pak’s view of the windshield, and grabbed the ticket: $35.
In the three hours since she’d found the Seoul apartment listings—driving back to Pineburg, entering the courtroom, sitting through Detective Heights’s testimony—she’d felt like she was in a dream. Not a good dream, all soft with that anything-is-possible buzz, and not a nightmare, either, but one of those dreams you’d swear was real life but with things skewed just enough to disorient her. How exciting that you’re moving back, the Realtor’s note had said. An international move, without a word to his wife. Had he been planning to leave her, maybe for another woman? Or was Elizabeth’s lawyer right, and he’d masterminded a get-rich-quick-and-escape plan? Which was better, her husband as adulterer or murderer?
She would talk to Pak. She needed to talk to him, stop the scenarios from looping through her mind. During a short court recess, he’d apologized for never telling her he was fired. He said he didn’t want her to know he was working two jobs, didn’t want her worrying, but still, he should’ve told her. Pak’s sincerity reminded her that he’d made mistakes, certainly, but he was a good man. She’d show him what she found—matter-of-factly, without judgment or accusation—and wait for his explanation.
Yuh-bo, she’d say, using the Korean “spouse” label like a good wife, why did you hide cigarettes in the shed?
Yuh-bo, what were you doing at Party Central on the day of the explosion?
Yuh-bo, what did you do after you left me alone in the barn?
The more she thought about it, the more she realized she was to blame for not knowing the answers. Even on the last question, the most important one—what exactly had he done before the explosion?—she’d never gotten a clear answer. She’d been too focused on what their story should be to press Pak for what he’d actually done, what exact, specific actions “standing watch” over the protesters entailed.
Young shoved the parking ticket deep down in her purse and zipped it. She helped Pak get in the car, put away the wheelchair, and started the car to go home, where tonight she’d finally ask the question she’d been too scared and stupid to voice for the last year.
Yuh-bo, did you have anything to do with the explosion?
* * *
IT WAS 8:00 by the time Young and Pak were finally alone. Mary usually went for a walk in the woods after dinner, but the rain didn’t let up so Young gave Mary thirty dollars and said this was her last night of being seventeen and why didn’t she take the family car and go meet friends? Giving her that much would mean they’d have to skimp even more for a month, but it was worth it to stop the waiting. Besides, it was a milestone, turning eighteen. They couldn’t afford to go out or buy a present, and this would have to do.
When she walked in with the bag from the shed, Pak was at the table reading the newspaper he’d gotten from the courthouse recycling. Pak looked up and said, “You’re wet.” It must’ve still been raining, yet she hadn’t realized, hadn’t even felt the rain falling and soaking into her skin as she walked to the shed and checked the bag to make sure the apartment listings were still there, not just something she’d hallucinated in her nauseated state. It was funny how she hadn’t even noticed, but once Pak said it, the wetness of her clothes agitated her to an extreme. The incriminating bag was at her feet, her accusations at her throat, and all she could focus on was the wet, coarse nylon of her blouse sticking to her skin, making her itch.
“You have something to show me?” Pak put down the paper.
Young felt confused for a moment, wondering how he knew she’d found something, but then she saw her purse, lying open, the parking ticket poking out.
She stared at her husband, looking at her like a parent at a misbehaving child. A hot flush crept up her neck, an anger that grew as she looked at him, the lack of even a hint of apology in his face for having gone through her private things.
Young strode to the table and grabbed her purse. “You went through my purse?”
“I saw you hiding it back at the car. Thirty-five dollars is a lot of money. How could you do something so stupid?” Pak’s tone was gentle, but not in a kind way. No, his voice had the patronizing parental tone reserved for scolding children, coated with forced mildness to mask his anger.
And he was angry. She could see that now. After what happened today, her discovering his years of lies along with strangers in open court, he was angry at her. All of a sudden, this whole conversation seemed ridiculous, her anxiety over confronting him about the tin case farcical, and she didn’t know whether to slap him or laugh out loud.
“What was I thinking?” she said. “Let’s see, what could I possibly have been focusing on instead of parking?” As she got the bag, an overwhelming sense of power coursed through her and settled into a numbing calm. “I suppose my mind must’ve been on this.” She dropped the tin case on the table. It clanged. “On all the things you’ve been hiding
from me.”
Pak stared at the case, then reached to touch it. He blinked when his index finger made contact with the edge and pulled away quickly, as if he’d touched a ghost and realized it was solid. “Where did you get this? How?”
“I found it where you hid it, in the shed.”
“The shed? But I gave it to…” He looked at the case, then off to the side, his eyes darting back and forth as if struggling to recall something, his face scrunched in puzzlement so total that Young wondered if he really thought he’d given it to the Kangs.
Pak shook his head. “I must’ve forgotten to give it to them, and it ended up here. So what? We had some old cigarettes in storage, and we didn’t realize it. It’s no matter.”
He sounded believable. But the gum, Febreze, apartment listings—those proved he had used the case as a hiding place last summer. No, Pak was lying, like he had in Abe’s office. She remembered the chill she’d felt, seeing how convincing he could be, insisting on the truth of what she knew to be lies. He was continuing his same tricks and expecting her to be duped.
Pak seemed to take her silence as acquiescence. He pushed the case away and said, “Good, it’s settled. We’ll throw it away and forget about it.” He held up the parking ticket. “Now, this—”
She snatched it from his hand and ripped it in two. “The ticket? The ticket is nothing. Just some money, paid and done. But this here?” She picked up the tin case and shook it, its contents rattling in clangs, then she slammed it down and opened it. “You see these cigarettes? Camels, just like the cigarette someone used to murder our patients on our property. And gum and Febreze, stuff people use to hide their smoking. All hidden in our shed. You think that’s nothing, when you spent all day swearing in court that you don’t smoke anymore? It’s not nothing. It’s evidence.” She took out the Realtor’s packet and slapped it on the table. “And what would that lawyer do with this? What would the jury say if they knew that right before the explosion, you were secretly planning to move to Seoul?”
Pak picked up the packet and stared at the cover sheet.
“I’m your wife,” she said. “How could you hide that from me?”
He flipped through the packet. His eyes darted around each page as if in an effort to process it, make sense of it.
Seeing Pak’s vacant look of uncertainty, Young felt her anger dissolve into worry. The doctors had warned that more symptoms might surface later. Had his injuries spread to his brain, and he’d forgotten about the listings? “Yuh-bo,” she said, “what’s wrong? Tell me.”
Pak looked at Young’s face, then her hand, appearing as if he’d forgotten she was there. He frowned, then blew out his breath in a long sigh. “I’m sorry. It was just such a stupid pipe dream. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?” she said. A new wave of nausea cramped her stomach. She thought it’d be a relief to hear the truth, to know this wasn’t all in her head, but now that he was actually confessing, looking contrite, she wished she could go back to a few seconds ago when her concerns were unconfirmed, her anger unjustified.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The cigarettes, I kept. I knew I had to quit, and I did, I never smoked, but I liked holding them. Whenever I got worried about anything, it helped, just … the feel, smelling them. And the smell’s so strong even without smoking them, so I got the freshener and gum. I didn’t want you to know because … because it seemed so stupid. So weak.”
He locked his eyes, scrunched in pain and need, onto hers.
“And the apartments?” she said.
“That…” He scrubbed his face. “That wasn’t for me. It’s just … the business was going so well, and I thought maybe we could help my brother move to Seoul. You know how much he wants that.” He shook his head. “Anyway, you saw the prices. I told him we couldn’t, and that was that. I meant to throw it away, but I forgot all about it after the explosion.” He sighed again. “I should’ve told you, but I wanted to find out the prices first. And once I did, there was nothing to tell you about.”
“But the Realtor said you were moving back to Korea.”
“Well, of course I told her that. If I said this was background research, what incentive would she have for helping me?”
“So you’re saying you never planned to move us back to Korea?”
“Why would I do that? We’ve worked so hard to be here. Even now, I still want to stay and make it work. Don’t you?” His face was slightly skewed to his left, his eyes wide and wondering like a puppy staring up at his master, and she felt guilty for questioning his motives.
“What about Creekside Plaza?” she said. “I know you didn’t go to Walgreens for powder. I remember—we used cornstarch.”
He put his hand on hers. “I thought about telling you, but I wanted to protect you. I didn’t want you to have to tell more lies for me.” He looked down and traced the green veins on her hand with his finger. “I got balloons, from Party Central. I wanted to get rid of the protesters. I thought if I could cause a power outage and blame them, the police would take them away.”
The room seemed to tilt. She’d guessed this, suspected it from the moment she saw the balloons in the picture, but it shocked her to hear his confirmation. It was strange—here was her husband, admitting to concealing a crime from her, but instead of drawing her away, it made her feel better than she had all day. The fact was, he didn’t have to confess this. She had no proof, just suspicions, and he could’ve easily made up a story, and yet, he chose honesty. It made her hopeful that maybe, just maybe, everything else he’d told her tonight was the truth.
She said, “Was that why you left the barn that night? Something with the balloons?”
He nodded and bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have left you alone like that. But when the police called, they said they were coming over soon to get the balloons to test them for fingerprints, so I could get proof it was the protesters and get a restraining order. And I realized—I never wiped off the balloons, and I didn’t want them finding my prints, so I went to go get them. I thought it’d take just a minute, but I had trouble getting them down, and then I saw the protesters. I got scared about what they might try, and that’s when I called you, to say I couldn’t come back until after the dive was over.”
“Was that why Mary was with you, to help with that? Did she know about all this?”
“No,” he said, and Young felt something heavy lift from her chest. It was one thing to have your husband keep secrets from you, another thing entirely to have him confiding them in your daughter. Pak said, “No, I just said I needed help getting the balloons down. And she did help me, looking in the shed and finding sticks to try to reach them and such. I even tried boosting her up.”
Young looked at their hands, now folded together on the table.
“Yuh-bo,” Pak said, “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you all this earlier. I won’t keep anything from you again.”
She looked into his eyes and nodded. It made sense, everything he said, and finally, there were no lies. Yes, he’d done questionable things—lied about his job in Seoul, hidden the cigarette tin case, lied about the balloons. But those wrongdoings were small—technically wrong, but not really wrong. Like white lies. He really did have four years of HBOT experience in Seoul, regardless of the change in jobs, which was what mattered. And what difference did a hidden case of cigarettes make when all he did was look at them, use them as props for his thoughts? The balloons were the most troubling, because without the power outage, he would have stayed in the barn that night and turned off the oxygen and opened the hatch more quickly. But still, it was Elizabeth who caused the fire, Elizabeth who was responsible for whatever damage resulted from that action.
Young linked her fingers with Pak’s, weaving them together. She told herself she was wrong to have doubted her husband. But even as she reassured him that she believed him, forgave him, trusted him, something nagged at her, something she couldn’t place that told her something was
wrong with his story, something tiny that kept crawling in the recesses of her mind like a weevil in a bag of rice.
It wasn’t until later that night, his stories playing like a video in her mind as she lay in bed, that she realized what was wrong.
If Mary and Pak had worked together, both of them next to the utility pole for extended periods of time, why did their neighbor report seeing only one person?
MATT
THE RAIN WAS FUCKING WITH HIS MIND. It wasn’t so bad earlier, when Janine was driving them home and it was storming. The violence of the noise—the rumble of thunder barely audible over the heavy raindrops pelting the car, fast and furious—had calmed him, and Matt had put his hand on the moonroof above his head, imagining the pressure of the water hitting his flesh, maybe jolting the nerves under the thick scars into feeling something. But by the time they got home, the storm had calmed, and now it was drizzling, making faint phwats against his bathroom window—a muffled scratching noise that crawled through the damp air and crept through his veins, making his neck and shoulders itch.
He put his fingers under his shirt and rubbed, which was all he could do now that his fingernails were gone. It was funny, how he’d considered nails useless vestigial leftovers, but here he was, missing them intensely, needing to dig into his flesh and scratch. He rubbed harder, craving relief, but the slick scars on his fingers simply slid around his clammy skin, the itch intensifying all over—wriggling through his arms down to his hands, burrowing below the impenetrable layer of scar tissue. At once, the mosquito bites from the creek last night roused, the welts on his arms turning bright red like poppies in a field.
He stripped and turned on the shower, jet-massage mode. As he stepped in, the concentrated jet of cold water pierced him, obliterating the itch everywhere like a bomb. He turned the water warmer, put his head in the spray, and tried to organize his jumble of thoughts into lists. Janine liked lists, used them during fights (“discussions,” she’d correct) to prove she was being logical and fair. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” she’d say, “just listing facts. Here’s what I know. Fact one: blah blah. Fact two: blah blah.” Numbered facts were big with her, and he needed to tread lightly just now, follow her format. He closed his eyes and breathed, tried to focus on what he knew—no questions or conjecture, just concrete matters he could enumerate: