Miracle Creek(56)

Pak shook his head. “In Korea, I smoke Esse, but they do not sell here. In Baltimore, I smoke many brands.”

Shannon smiled. “If I were to ask the delivery guys you took smoking breaks with—say, a Mr. Frank Fishel—would they say you had no favorite American brand?” Frank Fishel, the name they hadn’t recognized on the defense witness list Abe showed them. They’d known the delivery guy as Frankie, had never known his full name.

Abe stood. “Objection. If Ms. Haug wants to know about other people, she should ask them, not Pak.”

“Oh, I plan to. Frank Fishel is ready to drive down from Baltimore. But you’re right, I withdraw my question.” Shannon turned to Pak. “Mr. Yoo, what brand did you tell others was your favorite American cigarette?”

Pak shut his mouth and glared, looking like a recalcitrant boy refusing to accept responsibility for some naughty deed despite obvious proof.

“Your Honor,” Shannon said, “please direct the witness to answer—”

“Camel,” Pak spat out.

“Camels.” Shannon looked satisfied. “Thank you.”

Young looked at the jurors. They were frowning at Pak, shaking their heads. If Pak had admitted it right away, they might have believed it was a coincidence, but Pak’s near refusal had transformed it into something of significance in their eyes and hers as well. Could the cigarette under the oxygen tube be Pak’s, one he’d bought earlier that day? But why?

As if in answer, Shannon said, “You were angry with the protesters, weren’t you?”

“Maybe not angry. I did not like them bothering my patients,” Pak said.

Shannon picked up a file from her desk. “According to a police report, the day after the explosion, you accused the protesters of setting the fire and you stated, quote, ‘They threatened to do whatever it took to shut down HBOT.’” Shannon looked up. “Is the report correct?”

Pak looked away for a moment. “Yes.”

“And you believed their threats, right? After all, they caused the power outage, disrupting your business, and even as the police were taking them away, they promised to return and keep at it until they shut you down for good, right?”

Pak shrugged. “It does not matter. My patients believe in HBOT.”

“Mr. Yoo, isn’t your patients’ belief in you based on your experience working at an HBOT facility in Seoul for over four years?”

Pak shook his head. “My patients see results. The children improve.”

“Isn’t it true,” Shannon continued, “that the protesters threatened to dig up anything they could on you, and said they’d contact the center in Seoul where you worked?”

Pak didn’t say anything. His jaw clenched.

“Mr. Yoo, if the explosion hadn’t happened and they had, in fact, contacted the center’s owner, what would Mr. Byeong-ryoon Kim have told them?”

Abe objected and the judge sustained. Pak didn’t move, didn’t blink.

“The fact is,” Shannon said, “you were fired for incompetence less than a year into your job, more than three years prior to coming to America, isn’t that right? And if the protesters discovered that and exposed your lies to your patients, your business could go down the tubes, leaving you with nothing. And you couldn’t let that happen, isn’t that so?”

No, that couldn’t be. But Young saw Pak’s face, deep purple with fury—no, shame, the way his eyes were cast downward, unable to meet Young’s gaze—and remembered Pak telling her not to use his work e-mail anymore, that there was a new rule forbidding personal e-mails. As Abe objected and Pak shouted that he never harmed his patients and the judge pounded the gavel, Young had to look away. Her eyes whirled around the courtroom and stopped on the picture on the easel, the glare of sunlight gleaming off something shiny in the Party Central window. She’d passed it on their way to court yesterday, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend it was still yesterday, back when she knew nothing of her husband’s secrets and lies and she’d been wondering how much it would cost to get streamers and balloons for Mary’s birthday.

Balloons. Young’s eyes snapped open at the thought, zoomed to the easel. In the picture, you couldn’t make out what in the display was giving off the glare. But yesterday, driving by, Young had seen them, floating lazily inside, next to the ATM: shiny, metallic Mylar balloons with stars and rainbows. Just like the ones that blew out the power lines on the day of the explosion.



* * *



WHEN MARY (then Meh-hee) was a year old, after Young told him of their baby’s glee at seeing balloons for the first time, Pak brought some home from a work event, carrying them on the crowded subway and bus. This made him late getting home—he said he’d had to wait more than thirty minutes for the trains to clear so they wouldn’t pop—but when he got home, Meh-hee squealed with delight, toddled on her fat legs across the room, and wrapped her tiny arms around the balloons, as if to hug them. Pak guffawed and acted like a clown, bopping the balloons against his head while making goofy noises, as Young stood by, wondering who this man was, not at all who she’d assumed him to be until that moment (and who he continued to be except around their daughter): a practical, serious man who tried to exude an air of quiet dignity, who rarely told jokes or lost himself in laughter.