Miracle Creek(33)

Young had wanted to. She’d wanted to shout that they were in America now, where she’d spent four years parenting, running a store, and handling finances all on her own, and Pak barely knew them anymore and certainly didn’t know America half as well as she did, so who was he to order her what to do? But the way he’d looked—bewildered anxiety blooming on his face, like a boy at a new school, wondering where he fit in—she’d seen how much the years of separation had stripped from him, his desperation to reestablish his role as head of the family. She’d ached for him. “I trust you to decide what’s best for our family,” she’d told Pak and seen on Mary’s face the same look as now: a mix of disappointment, contempt, and, worst of all, pity for her powerlessness. She’d felt small, as if she were the child and Mary the adult.

Young wanted to explain all this to her daughter now. She reached out for Mary’s hand, to guide her away, where they could talk. But before she could do anything, say anything, Mary turned, opened the door, and said in a loud, clear voice, “It was me.”



* * *



THE ANGER THAT Mary had acted like a child—without thinking first, with no regard for consequences—would come later. In the moment, though, what bubbled to the surface was envy. Envy that her daughter, a teenager, had the courage to act.

“What was you?” Abe said.

“Who Mr. Spinum saw, that was me,” Mary said. “I was out there before the explosion. My hair was up in a baseball cap like my dad wears, and I guess, from a distance, he thought I was my dad.”

“But you were in the barn,” Abe said, his frown deepening. “That’s what you’ve said all along, that you stayed with your dad until right before the explosion.”

Mary’s face blanched. Clearly, she hadn’t thought through how to reconcile their story with her new one. Mary looked to Young and Pak, her eyes darting in a panicked plea for help.

Pak came to her rescue and said in English, “Mary, the doctors say your memory will return slowly. Do you remember new something? You went outside to help Mom find batteries, maybe something else happened?”

Mary bit her lip, like she was trying not to cry, and slowly nodded. When she finally spoke, her words were halting and unsure. “I had a fight with my mom earlier—helping out more, cooking, cleaning … I figured … if we were alone, she’d just yell at me more, so I … didn’t go in the house. I remembered…” Mary’s brow furrowed in focused concentration, as if trying to recall a fuzzy memory. “I knew about the power lines, so … I went there instead. I thought maybe … I could free the balloons, but … I couldn’t reach the strings. So I came back.” She looked at Abe. “That’s when I saw smoke. So I went there, behind the barn, and then…” Mary’s voice broke off and she closed her eyes. A tear glided down her cheek, as if on command, accentuating the bumps and crevices of her scar.

Young knew that she should act the part of the mother aching for her daughter who, until now, had never talked about that night. That she should hug her, smooth her hair, do all the things mothers do to comfort their children. But she could only stand still, nauseated, worry coursing through her, sure that Abe must see right through Mary’s story.

But he didn’t. He bought it all—acted like it, anyway—and said this explained a lot, and of course it was understandable for memories to slowly rise to the surface, in dribs and drabs, like the doctors said. He seemed intensely relieved at hearing a plausible explanation for Mr. Spinum’s story, and if Abe had doubts about Mary’s story—how someone could, even from a distance, mistake a girl for a middle-aged man, or how to reconcile Mary’s few-minutes-by-the-power-lines timing with Mr. Spinum’s ten-plus minutes—he glossed over them with mutterings about failing eyesight, old white men thinking all Asians look the same, and teenagers losing track of time.

Abe said to Pak, “I don’t know why Shannon’s decided to pick on you. There’s no motive. Even if you wanted insurance money, why wouldn’t you wait until the chamber was empty? Why risk killing kids? It makes no sense. If it weren’t for this mix-up about you being outside, she’d have nothing on you.”

Mary let out a half chortle, half sob. “It’s my fault. If only I’d remembered before…” She looked at Abe, her face crinkled in pain. “I’m so sorry. This won’t hurt my dad, right? He didn’t do anything wrong. He can’t go to jail.”

Mary knelt next to Pak and rested her head on his shoulder. Pak patted her head, as if to say it was okay, all was forgiven, and Mary held out her hand to Young, inviting her to join her and Pak. Even after she went to them, one hand in Mary’s, the other in Pak’s, forming a circle, Young felt a sense of being an outsider, of being excluded from the bond between her husband and daughter. Pak had forgiven Mary for disobeying his plan; would he have been so understanding of Young? And Mary—she’d broken through her months-long silence for Pak; would she have done that for Young?

Abe said, “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out. Pak, I’ll have you explain tomorrow during your testimony. Mary, I may have to put you on the stand.” Abe stood up. “But I can’t help unless you’re straight with me, and I don’t want another day like today. So let me ask you: Is there anything, anything, you haven’t told me?”