Miracle Creek(67)
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?”