by Alana Terry
She thought back over the past several weeks with Mee-Kyong. They had studied Scripture together, broken down the history of the Bible, outlined the life of Christ and a dozen other characters. But Juliette had never reached out to Mee-Kyong and asked her the most important question of all: Do you know what it means to be saved? And the more she thought about it, the more she realized her husband was right. She didn’t want to lose Mee-Kyong. She wasn’t ready to carry the girl through another year of training only to send her across the border to her death. She couldn’t pour her tears and sweat and prayers into Mee-Kyong for twelve months just to turn her out and never hear from her again.
Of course, Juliette was getting ahead of herself. Mee-Kyong hadn’t even accepted Christ yet. If any of their Bible studies on salvation and forgiveness had meant anything, she still hadn’t made any official declaration of faith. Juliette just needed to take it one step at a time. She wasn’t rushing into another round of Secret Seminary training. She was just sharing the gospel with someone who needed it. Juliette didn’t know anything about Mee-Kyong’s history, except that she was in the hotel district and dressed for the part when Roger found her. She hadn’t said more than a few words those first days at the Sterns’. She just hovered around like a frail ghost. Over the next weeks, her body got stronger, her face filled out, her color improved, but the haunted expression never left her eyes.
Juliette’s own past wasn’t a feel-good, family-friendly sitcom, either. She hated the stress of growing up as an ambassador’s daughter, and when she went back to the States for college, all that pent-up tension and resentment snapped out of her like a slingshot. Juliette shut her eyes. She couldn’t think about her own college experience without growing even more anxious for her daughter. She hoped sending Kennedy off to Harvard was the right decision, but how could she be sure? Roger always teased her for worrying too much, but sometimes Juliette wondered if she really just cared too much. If she didn’t love her daughter, it wouldn’t matter if Kennedy rebelled against everything her parents had tried to teach her. If Juliette’s heart didn’t break for Mee-Kyong and her silent, secret trauma, it wouldn’t matter if she ever returned to North Korea or not.
Juliette swept her hair off her shoulder. Sending Mee-Kyong back across the border wasn’t the issue. Her salvation was. She took a last sip of tea and headed toward the den.
***
“It’s time. Your travel plans are all arranged.”
Agent Ko took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“I’m sure you are. Agent Ryuk will give you the information you need when you meet him.”
“How soon?” Ko wanted to sound prepared but not too eager. The director was a genius at picking up verbal nuances.
“When can you get out? Did you tie up all your loose ends?”
“All but one. It won’t take long.”
“Well, hurry. I’ll make sure Ryuk’s expecting you.”
***
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Mee-Kyong copied the characters and let her eyes linger on the page before she went to the next verse. Who had looked over her in her distress? Who had cared about her while prison guards raised her behind barbed wire?
Nobody.
Even into her adulthood, who cared for her? Who delivered her from Pang and his unpredictable violence? Who rescued her from Mr. Lee’s attack in the Round Robin Inn? She took care of herself. Mee-Kyong had survived, but it wasn’t because the Sterns’ all-knowing deity had stepped down from heaven and condescended to come to her aid. It was because she was smart. Smart and determined. She didn’t let a life of slavery destroy her spirit. That’s why she was still alive. That’s why she was here and not in the Round Robin or the prison camp or some makeshift gutter grave.
She had just moved on to the next verse when Mrs. Stern came in, balancing two cups of tea on her dainty tray. Mrs. Stern set the arrangement on the table beside the Bible and notebook. “You’ve been working hard. Another few days, and you might complete all the epistles.”
Mee-Kyong responded with the expected smile and shook a cramp out of her wrist.
Mrs. Stern poured the tea. “I think it’s fair to say you’ve earned yourself a snack. What do you think?”
Mee-Kyong accepted the mug and muttered her appreciation. The temperature outside had been dropping steadily with the promise of a fast-approaching winter, and she was chilled from her break outside with Benjamin. She lowered her face into the steam from her cup.
“You’re awfully quiet.” Mrs. Stern stirred a spoonful of honey into her tea.
“I guess I was just absorbed in my work, that’s all.” Mee-Kyong knew she had responded appropriately when Mrs. Stern beamed at her.
“And what particular passage in James are you working on right now?”
Mee-Kyong turned her notebook around to show her benefactress. “Orphans and widows.”
Mrs. Stern adjusted her glasses and read the passage out loud. “So true,” she breathed afterward.
“I thought you said it was all true.”
“It is. You’re absolutely right. Which, in a roundabout way, is why I’ve come to talk to you.”
Mee-Kyong felt her eyebrows furrow before she had the chance to stop them. Something in Mrs. Stern’s face reminded her of a cat preparing to pounce on its prey. “Talk about what?” She turned her head to the side and watched Mrs. Stern from the corner of her eye.
“Well, let’s see.” Mrs. Stern wiped her glasses, which had fogged over with her last sip of tea. “You’ve been here for a while now. You’ve been an excellent pupil, and I couldn’t be happier with your studies.” Why did it feel like Mee-Kyong was back in one of her nightly self-criticism sessions at Camp 22? Mrs. Stern kept her glasses in her hand and opened and shut one of its hinges methodically. “But there comes a point in your life when you need to make the shift from book-learning to actual personal experience.”
Mee-Kyong kept her eyes on the desk. The cost of room and board had just increased.
“I certainly don’t want to rush you.” Mrs. Stern waved one hand as if she could flick away the very thought. “But I wanted to know where you stand right now. In your heart, I mean. What do you think about all this we’ve been studying, deep, deep down in your soul?”
Some moments in Mee-Kyong’s life were determined in a flash, a single moment with no hesitation. When Pang told her he could help her escape Camp 22, she didn’t lay awake for nights on end pondering her next course of action. She didn’t waste time deliberating before stabbing Mr. Lee back at the Round Robin. Mee-Kyong forced her posture to match the conviction in her tone. “I believe.” She watched Mrs. Stern’s face wrinkle, frown, and eventually melt into a cautious smile.
“You’re sure? I mean, you don’t need more time to think about this?”
“I’ve already thought about it.” What else does she think I’d be doing while I’m cooped up here copying Scripture for hours every afternoon?
Mrs. Stern put her glasses back on. “You know what you’re saying? You’re saying you agree that Jesus is everything he said he is, that he died for your sins and came back to life.”
Mee-Kyong wanted to rush her answers and end the interrogation, but she forced herself to respond with stately calm. “I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit, and yes, I believe.”
Mrs. Stern’s smile found its way all the way up to her eyes. “That’s wonderful news.” She turned her face away for a moment and nudged her glasses a little higher on her nose. “Very, very wonderful.”
Mee-Kyong tried to look duly pensive. “I guess I just don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.”
“Happen?” Mrs. Stern poured another round of tea. “You get baptized, of course.”
CHAPTER 36
Eve cringed with each cautious step she planted upon the stairs. The smallest creak in the woodwork made her skin tin
gle. She held her breath and waited. Had anyone heard? It had been an hour since everyone went to bed, but that didn’t mean they were asleep.
In the dim light in the hallway, Eve paused in front of the mirror. Her figure was more developed than Mee-Kyong’s, but her face was too angular, her features a little too harsh. She smoothed down her hair, tucked one strand behind her left ear, studied the effect, and then set it back how it was. She ran her hands over Kennedy’s blouse. Good thing the little American princess was too far away to care if some of her clothes went missing tonight.
Eve was almost to the front door when she turned into the small secondary hallway. She padded silently down a set of two stairs and brushed the door with her fingertips. “Are you awake?” She pressed her cheek against the wooden frame and tapped it twice with one finger. “It’s me.”
Then he was there.
Benjamin still had on his work pants from the day but had taken his shirt off. As he opened the door, he pulled a sleeveless undershirt over his torso. He placed one arm on his doorframe and leaned against it. “What do you want?”
Eve positioned her body at a slight angle to his, willing him to notice her hair, her blouse, her skirt — which Eve knew for a fact Mr. Stern had forbidden his daughter to wear out of the house when she was still in high school. “I was having a hard time sleeping. Just thought I’d come down for a visit.’”
Benjamin continued to block the door with his bulky frame. “You know we can’t do that anymore.” She saw the way the lump in his throat worked when he swallowed. “It’s different now.”
Eve lifted one shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be.”
Benjamin grunted, but he didn’t make any move to shut the door. His eyes wandered slowly, shyly. “We can’t.” He snapped his head back up. “I can’t.”
His flushed face gave Eve the courage to put one arm against his chest. Her palm was on the cloth of his undershirt, and her fingertips brushed the hard smoothness of his skin. “The Sterns never found out before,” she purred. “They don’t need to now.”
Benjamin glanced quickly down the hall. “I’m trying to change.”
“For what? Good-conduct badges in heaven?” Eve deliberately let her volume rise more than necessary. With another shush, Benjamin grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside. He kept the door open and whispered in her ear, “You need to stop this. It’s not right.”
Eve let the corners of her lips curl up as she wrapped both arms around Benjamin’s neck. One swift motion from her foot shut the door behind them. “I’ve got a whole lifetime to earn back my reward points from God.”
***
Juliette couldn’t even think of lying down yet. She paced from one bedpost to another, gesturing with her hands every now and then and almost panting from walking so fast. “I can’t believe how quickly she’s changed.” She glanced at Roger every now and then to make sure he was still listening. “I’ve been so worried about her leaving, about going through another round of good-byes, you know. All that stuff.” Roger nodded, so Juliette continued. “And then it just came together. I mean, you encouraged me to have the conversation and get it out of the way, and it was like she had just been waiting for that very moment, for that exact question. She wasn’t flippant, but there wasn’t any second guessing, either.”
“Almost sounds like it was too easy.”
At Roger’s murmur, Juliette froze halfway between the mahogany bedposts. “What was that?”
She had already resumed her pacing before Roger replied, “I still don’t know how to read that girl. That’s all. She was so tough when she came here. She’s got an iron will, that one, so it’s hard for me to see her accepting the truth that readily.”
Juliette was too excited, and her spirits were too high for her husband’s words to discourage her. He wasn’t there in that den. He didn’t know. He wasn’t the one who had studied with Mee-Kyong for weeks on end. He saw her as a hardened young woman from the brothel, but Juliette had seen glimpses into Mee-Kyong’s heart, and it was beautiful. “I was thinking we could plan the baptism for Sunday afternoon.”
“Fine with me.”
Juliette placed her hands on her hips. “Maybe you could at least pretend to be enthusiastic.”
Roger sighed. “I’m just tired, Baby Cakes.” Juliette glanced at the clock. It had already been an hour since they got ready for bed. “In the morning, I’ll have more energy to be ecstatic with you, all right? For now, I just want to rest.”
Juliette threw on her slippers. “Well, there’s no way I’m getting any sleep yet. I’m going downstairs to email Kennedy.”
Roger muttered his consent.
***
As soon as his door slammed shut, Benjamin threw on his sweatshirt and wrapped his arms over his chest. The spot above his heart burned where Eve’s fingers had brushed his skin. The heat seeped all the way down into his lungs. He wiped his chest as if he could erase his body’s memory of that touch.
The base of his spine tingled with an icy chill, and small drops of sweat beaded on the back of his neck. He rubbed his clammy hands on his cheeks, while his body shivered once in protest against his morals. Maybe he shouldn’t have sent her away. After all, it had been so long ...
What right did she think she had, coming to him in the middle of the night? How many months had she regaled him with that cold, indifferent stare? How long had she spent ignoring him, only to throw herself at him now? What had changed? Benjamin slumped onto his bed but jumped back up just a minute later. He knew exactly what changed.
Mee-Kyong had arrived.
***
“What are you doing up?” Juliette put both hands on Eve’s shoulders after nearly running into her on the dimly lit staircase.
Eve wiped her cheek where mascara dribbled down her face like an oil spill. “Nothing. I was just thirsty.”
Juliette squinted. Something was wrong besides the smeared makeup. “Aren’t those Kennedy’s clothes?”
Eve shoved Juliette’s hands away. Shouldering past, she vaulted up the steps. Juliette spun around and just barely caught her wrist. “I’m not angry, sweetie. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Eve yanked her hand free and mumbled something. The only word Juliette could make out was alone. Her experience raising one moody teenage daughter kept her from following Eve up the stairs. “It’s always something,” she muttered to herself. Brushing her hair with her hand, Juliette straightened her back and reminded herself of the good news she had to tell Kennedy. She would worry about Eve in the morning.
She made herself some hot chocolate while she waited for her computer to start up, wondering how to tell her daughter about Mee-Kyong’s conversion. She’d have to be careful, just in case the Chinese government decided to sneak a peek into her outbox one day, but there were ways to get around the potential censoring. With a mug of steaming chocolate perched on the desk next to her, Juliette told her daughter about a new “friend” who had decided to join the family. In fact, she’ll be going for a little swim this coming Sunday! The line reminded her Mee-Kyong would need something to wear at the baptism. I hope you don’t mind if she borrows one of your bathing suits.
After getting the news out of the way, she turned her attention toward Kennedy. Are you getting enough sleep? How many dates have you been asked on so far? Juliette sighed. Sometimes living so far away from Kennedy felt like someone shoved a vacuum tube right in the center of her gut and turned it on. I miss you. I hope we get to see you soon. I know you’ll have a great time at your aunt’s at Christmas. She’s looking forward to spoiling you. Wish I could, too.
Juliette thought about Kennedy thousands of miles away, across oceans and continents. It had been over a week since she had last heard her daughter’s laugh. Sometimes she shut her eyes and forced herself to recall Kennedy’s voice in her mind, just so she wouldn’t one day forget it completely.
Send me some pictures of you and your friends when you get the chance.
Love, Mom
Juliette rested her chin on her hand. Was it really last year when Kennedy sent in her applications and got accepted into Harvard? Was it just last spring Juliette had dressed Kennedy up in her gown and watched her throw her cap in the air with the other graduates from the All Girls American School?
She took a sip of cocoa and reminded herself raising Kennedy wasn’t always easy. The older her daughter grew, the more stubborn she became. She didn’t want her mom breathing down her back about homework or curfews or chaperones. She took offense whenever her dad raised questions about her outfits or her boyfriends. They had a huge fight when Kennedy tried to wear that miniskirt to the school dance. Juliette shook her head and turned off the computer, nostalgic for the days when her family’s only troubles were how far a hemline fell above the knee.
She pouted to herself, trying to remember. Was that the same skirt Eve had been wearing on the stairs? What had that girl been up to? Juliette got up and stretched, the stiffness in her joints and heaviness in her head reminding her it was way past bedtime. Tomorrow she would talk with Eve. Tonight she would at least try to relax.
***
Roger squeezed his eyes shut, his groggy mind trying to wish away the tapping sounds. “Who is it?” he muttered, surprised to find that Juliette’s side of the bed was still empty. The knocking persisted.
He rolled over and swung his feet to the floor. “Coming.” He cleared his throat in an attempt to make his voice sound less irritated and then opened the door. “Benjamin?”
Roger squinted in the light from the hall. Benjamin stood fidgeting with his fingers and tossing glances in nearly every direction. Roger held the door open and hoped his mind would clear soon. How long had it been since Juliette went downstairs? Roger hadn’t even looked at the clock. “Do you want to come in?” He flipped on the switch, and Benjamin ducked his head when the lights came on. Roger gestured to a chair by the bureau.