Miracle Creek(30)

Abe stood immediately, objecting—something about lack of foundation—but Matt focused on the gasp from behind Abe. From Young, with her hands over her mouth. She looked terrified. But not surprised.

Shannon said, “Your Honor, I was merely asking if the witness happened to be aware of this development, but I’m happy to withdraw my question. Mr. Spinum is standing by, ready to testify, and we will definitely be calling him at our earliest opportunity.” She narrowed her eyes at Matt as she said this last part, as if in a threat, and said, “Doctor, let me ask again. You can’t be sure that the voice you heard over the intercom was Pak Yoo’s voice, isn’t that right?”

Matt rubbed the stump of his missing index finger. It stung and throbbed, which, strangely, felt nice. “I thought it was, but I guess I can’t be a hundred percent sure.”

“Given this, plus your testimony regarding the hatch opening, isn’t it possible that Pak Yoo was not inside for at least ten minutes prior to the explosion? That, in fact, no one was supervising the dive?”

Matt glanced over at Pak and Young, both looking down, their bodies slumped. He licked his lips. He tasted salt. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s possible.”





YOUNG





IT SURPRISED HER HOW QUIET IT GOT when Shannon finished her questions. No one whispered or coughed. The air conditioners didn’t sputter or hum. As if someone had pressed PAUSE and everyone froze in place, their heads turned to Pak. Frowning at him with revulsion, the way they had at Elizabeth earlier. From hero to murderer in an hour. How had that happened? Like a magic show, but without the zap to mark the moment of mutation.

There should’ve been a bang, or maybe thunder. Life-changing disasters came with loud noises, didn’t they? Sirens, alarms, something to signal the break in reality: normal one minute, crazy-altered remnant the next. Young wanted to run up to grab the gavel and bang it down—crack open the silence, right in half. All rise. Commonwealth of Virginia versus Young Yoo. For actually believing that her family’s troubles were over. For being that stupid, after seeing again and again how quickly things can fall apart, like a tower of matchsticks.

When Abe stood, Young had a moment of residual hope, of expecting him to ask Matt how dare he lie, how dare he implicate an innocent man. But Abe spoke in a defeated voice, asking perfunctory questions about who else uses the H-Mart paper and how Matt couldn’t be sure of his explosion-to-hatch-opening estimate, and Young felt her body deflate, air rushing out of her like a punctured ball.

Young wanted to stand up and scream. Scream at the jurors that Pak was honorable, a man who literally threw himself into fire for his patients. Scream at Elizabeth’s lawyer that he wouldn’t risk killing himself and his daughter for money. Scream at Abe to fix this, that she’d believed him that every scrap of evidence pointed to Elizabeth.

The judge announced lunch recess, and the courtroom doors creaked open. Young heard it then. The sound of hammering in the distance. Thunk-clang, thunk-clang, matching the tha-dunk of her heartbeat pulsating in her temples, sending blood whooshing through her eardrums—resonant and magnified, as if underwater. Probably workers in vineyards. She’d seen them earlier, piling wooden posts by the hill. Stakes for new vines. There must’ve been loud bangs all morning. She just hadn’t heard them.



* * *



THEY WALKED FROM COURT to Abe’s office in single file—Abe in front, then Young pushing Pak’s wheelchair, Mary in back. The line they formed, led by a hulking man, and the crowds unzipping as they approached, as if repelled—Young felt like a criminal being paraded by an executioner through town, its people gawking and judging.

Abe marched them into a yellow building, down a dark hall, and into a conference room, and said to wait while he met with his staff. When the door closed, Young stepped closer to Pak. For twenty years, he’d towered above her, and it felt strange being above him now, seeing the hair whorl on top of his head. She felt braver. As if the act of tilting her face down opened some dam that usually blocked her words. “I knew this would happen,” she said. “We should’ve told the truth from the beginning. I told you we shouldn’t lie.”

Pak frowned and gestured with his chin toward Mary, who was looking out the window.

Young ignored him. What did it matter what Mary heard? She already knew they’d lied. They’d had to tell her—she’d been part of the story he concocted. “Mr. Spinum saw you,” Young said. “Everyone knows we were lying.”

“No one knows anything,” Pak said in a whisper, even though no one nearby could understand their rapid Korean. “It’s our word against his. You, me, and Mary against an old, racist man with thick glasses.”

Young wanted to grab his shoulders, to yell and shake him so hard that her words would penetrate his skull and rattle around his brain like a pinball. Instead, she dug her nails into her palms and forced her words to be quiet, having learned long ago that calm words penetrated her husband’s attention better than loud ones. “We can’t keep lying,” she said. “We didn’t do anything wrong. You just went out to check on the protesters, to protect us, and you left me in charge. Abe will understand that.”

“And what about the part where no one was there, leaving everyone sealed up in a burning chamber, unattended. You think he’ll understand that?”