Miracle Creek(7)
“What was your reaction to this business?” Abe asked.
Matt saw Janine put her thumb in her mouth and gnash at the flesh around her nails. Something she did when she was nervous, the same thing she did at that dinner, no doubt because she knew exactly what he’d think. What all their hospital friends would think. Total crap. Another of her father’s alternative, holistic therapies that desperate, stupid, and crazy patients got duped into. Matt never said this, of course. Mr. Cho had disapproved of Matt enough, merely for not being Korean. If he found out that Matt regarded his whole profession—all of Eastern “medicine,” really—as bullshit? No. That would not be good. Which was why Janine had been brilliant to announce the whole thing in front of her parents and their friends.
“Everyone was excited,” Matt said to Abe. “My father-in-law, an acupuncturist for thirty years, was standing behind this, and my wife, who’s an internist, verified its potential. That was all I needed to know.” Janine stopped biting her cuticle. “You have to realize,” Matt added, “she got much better grades in med school than me.” Janine laughed along with the jurors.
“And you signed up for treatment. Tell us about that.”
Matt bit his lip and looked away. He’d known to expect the question, had practiced how he’d answer: matter-of-factly. The same way Pak had said that night that Matt’s father-in-law was investing, that Janine had been “appointed”—as if it were a presidential commission or something—a medical advisor, and they all agreed: “You, Dr. Thompson, must become our first patient.” Matt thought he’d misheard. Pak spoke English well, but he had an accent and syntax errors. Perhaps he’d mistranslated “director” or “chairman.” But then Pak added, “Most patients will be children, but it is good to have one adult patient.”
Matt sipped wine, not saying anything, wondering what in God’s name could’ve made Pak think that a healthy man like Matt might need HBOT, when a possibility occurred to him. Could Janine have said something about their—his—“issue”? He tried to ignore the thought, focus on dinner, but his hands shook, and he couldn’t pick up the galbi, the slippery morsels of marinated rib meat sliding through the thin silver chopsticks. Mary noticed and came to his rescue. “I can’t use steel chopsticks, either,” she said, and offered him wooden ones, the kind from Chinese takeouts. “This is easier. Try it. My mom says that’s why we had to leave Korea. No one will marry a girl who can’t use chopsticks. Right, Mom?” Everyone else seemed annoyed and remained silent, but Matt laughed. She joined him, the two of them laughing amid frowning faces like kids misbehaving in a room full of adults.
It had been at this moment, as Matt and Mary were laughing, that Pak said, “HBOT has high rate of curing infertility, especially for people like you—low sperm motility.” Right then, at this confirmation that his wife had shared details—medical details, personal details—not only with her parents but also with these people he’d never met before, Matt felt something hot in his chest, as if a balloon filled with lava had stretched and burst in his lungs, displacing the oxygen. Matt stared into Pak’s eyes and tried to breathe normally. Strangely, it wasn’t Janine’s gaze he needed to avoid, but Mary’s. He hadn’t wanted to know how those words—infertility, low sperm motility—would change the way she looked at him. If her previously curious (possibly interested?) look would now be tinged with disgust or, worse, pity.
Matt said to Abe, “My wife and I had problems conceiving, and HBOT was an experimental treatment for men involved in these situations, so it made sense to take advantage of this new business.” He left out that he hadn’t agreed at first, had refused to even address it for the rest of dinner. Janine said what she’d clearly practiced, how Matt’s volunteering as a patient would help launch the business, how the presence of a “regular doctor” (Janine’s words) would reassure potential clients of HBOT’s safety and effectiveness. She didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t answering, that he was keeping his eyes focused strictly on his plate. But Mary did. She noticed and came to his rescue again and again, laughing at his chopsticks technique and interjecting jokes about kimchi-garlic flavors mixing with wine.
For days afterward, Janine had been a pain in the ass, going on about HBOT’s safety, its many uses, blah blah. When he didn’t budge, she tried to guilt him, said his refusal would cement her father’s suspicion that Matt didn’t believe in his business. “I don’t believe in it. I don’t think what he does is medicine, and you’ve known that from day one,” he’d said, which led to her most hurtful comment. “The fact is, you’re against anything Asian. You dismiss it.”
Before he could rail against her for accusing him of racism, point out that he’d married her, for Christ’s sake (and besides, wasn’t she always going on about how racist old-time Koreans like her parents were?), Janine sighed and said in a pleading voice, “One month. If it works, no IVF. No jerking off into a cup. Isn’t that worth a try?”
He never said yes. She just pretended his silence was acquiescence, and he let her. What she said was right, or at least not wrong. Plus, maybe it would get his father-in-law to start forgiving him for not being Korean.
“When did you start HBOT?” Abe asked.