Miracle Creek

by Angie Kim

  It was funny how desperate she’d been to escape that gritty world, and yet she missed it now. Miracle Creek was insular, with longtime residents (going back generations, they said). She thought they might be slow to warm, so she focused on befriending one family nearby who’d seemed especially nice. But over time, she realized: they weren’t nice; they were politely unfriendly. Young knew the type. Her own mother had belonged to this breed of people who used manners to cover up unfriendliness the way people used perfume to cover up body odor—the worse it was, the more they used. Their stiff hyperpoliteness—the wife’s perpetual closed-lip smile, the husband’s ma’am at the beginning or end of every sentence—kept Young at a distance and reinforced her status as a stranger. Although her most frequent customers in Baltimore had been cantankerous, cursing and complaining about everything from the prices being too high to the sodas too warm and deli meats too thin, there was an honesty to their rudeness, a comfortable intimacy to their yelling. Like bickering siblings. Nothing to cover up.

  After Pak joined them in America last year, they’d looked for housing in Annandale, the D.C. area’s Koreatown—a manageable drive from Miracle Creek. The fire had stopped all that, and they were still in their “temporary” housing. A crumbling shack in a crumbling town far from anything pictured in the books. To this day, the fanciest place Young had been in America was the hospital where Pak and Mary had lain for months after the explosion.

  * * *

  THE COURTROOM WAS LOUD. Not the people—the victims, lawyers, journalists, and who knew who else—but the two old-fashioned window-unit air conditioners on opposite sides behind the judge. They sputtered like lawn mowers when they switched on and off, which, because they weren’t synchronized, happened at different times—one, then the other, then back again, like some strange mechanical beasts’ mating calls. When the units ran, they rattled and hummed, each at a slightly different pitch, making Young’s eardrums itch. She wanted to stick her pinkie deep inside her ear into her brain and scratch.

  The lobby plaque said the courthouse was a 250-year-old historical landmark and asked for donations to the Pineburg Courthouse Preservation Society. Young had shaken her head at the thought of this society, an entire group whose sole purpose was to prevent this building from becoming modern. Americans were so proud of things being a few hundred years old, as if things being old were a value in and of itself. (Of course, this philosophy did not extend to people.) They didn’t seem to realize that the world valued America precisely because it was not old, but modern and new. Koreans were the opposite. In Seoul, there would be a Modernization Society dedicated to replacing this courthouse’s “antique” hardwood floors and pine tables with marble and sleek steel.

  “All rise. Skyline County Criminal Court now in session, the Honorable Frederick Carleton III presiding,” the bailiff said, and everyone stood. Except Pak. His hands clenched his wheelchair’s armrests, the green veins on his hands and wrists popping up as if willing his arms to support his body’s weight. Young started to help, but she stopped herself, knowing that needing help for something basic like standing would be worse for him than not standing at all. Pak cared so much about appearances, conforming to rules and expectations—the quintessentially Korean things she’d strangely never cared about (because her family’s wealth afforded her the luxury of being immune to them, Pak would say). Still, she understood his frustration, being the lone sitting figure in this towering crowd. It made him vulnerable, like a child, and she had to fight the urge to cloak his body with her arms and hide his shame.

  “The court will now come to order. Docket number 49621, Commonwealth of Virginia versus Elizabeth Ward,” the judge said, and banged the gavel. As if by plan, both air conditioners were off, and the sound of wood striking wood reverberated off the slanted ceilings and lingered in the silence.

  It was official: Elizabeth was the defendant. Young felt a tingle inside her chest, like some dormant cell of relief and hope had burst and was spreading sparks of electricity throughout her body, zapping away the fear that had hijacked her life. Even though almost a year had passed since Pak was cleared and Elizabeth arrested, Young hadn’t quite believed it, had wondered if this was a trick, and if today, as the trial started, they’d announce her and Pak as the real targets. But now the waiting was over, and after several days of evidence—“overwhelming evidence,” the prosecutor said—Elizabeth would be found guilty, and they’d get their insurance money and rebuild their lives. No more living in stasis.

  The jurors filed in. Young gazed at them, these people—all twelve, seven men and five women—who believed in capital punishment and swore they were willing to vote for death by lethal injection. Young had learned this last week. The prosecutor had been in a particularly good mood, and when she asked why, he’d explained that the potential jurors most likely to be sympathetic to Elizabeth had been dismissed because they were anti-death-penalty.

  “Death penalty? Like hanging?” she’d said.

  Her alarm and revulsion must have shown, because Abe stopped smiling. “No, by injection, drugs in an IV. It’s painless.”

  He’d explained that Elizabeth wouldn’t necessarily get death, it was just a possibility, but still, she’d dreaded seeing Elizabeth here, the terror that would surely be on her face, confronting the people with the power to end her life.

  Now, Young forced herself to look at Elizabeth, at the defense table. She looked like a lawyer herself, her blond hair twisted into a bun, dark green suit, pearls, pumps. Young had almost looked past her, she looked so different from before—messy ponytail, wrinkled sweats, unmatched socks.

  It was ironic—of all the parents of their patients, Elizabeth had been the most disheveled, and yet she’d had by far the most manageable child. Henry, her only child, had been a well-mannered boy who, unlike many other patients, could walk, talk, was toilet-trained, and didn’t have tantrums. During orientation, when the mother of twins with autism and epilepsy asked Elizabeth, “Sorry, but what’s Henry here for? He seems so normal,” she’d frowned as if offended. She recited a list—OCD, ADHD, sensory and autism spectrum disorders, anxiety—then said how hard it was, spending all her days researching experimental treatments. She seemed to have no clue how she sounded complaining while surrounded by kids with wheelchairs and feeding tubes.

  Judge Carleton asked Elizabeth to stand. She expected Elizabeth to cry as he read the charges, or at least blush, her eyes down. But Elizabeth looked straight at the jury, her cheeks unflushed, eyes unblinking. She studied Elizabeth’s face, so empty of expression, wondering if she was numb, in shock. But instead of looking vacant, Elizabeth looked serene. Almost happy. Perhaps it was because she was so used to Elizabeth’s worried frowns that their absence made Elizabeth look contented.

  Or perhaps the newspapers were right. Perhaps Elizabeth had been desperate to get rid of her son, and now that he was dead, she finally had a measure of peace. Perhaps she had been a monster all along.

  MATT THOMPSON

  HE WOULD’VE GIVEN ANYTHING not to be here today. Maybe not his entire right arm, but certainly one of its three remaining fingers. He was already a freak with missing fingers—what was one more? He did not want to see reporters, cameras flashing when he made the mistake of covering his face with his hands—he cringed, picturing how the flash would reflect off the glossy scar tissue covering the doughy clump that remained of his right hand. He did not want to hear whispers of “Look, the infertile doctor,” or face Abe, the prosecutor, who’d once looked at him, head tilted as if studying a puzzle, and asked, “Have you and Janine considered adoption? I hear Korea has lots of half-white babies.” He did not want to chat with his in-laws, the Chos, who tsked and lowered their eyes in unison at the sight of his injuries, or hear Janine rail at them for their shame over any perceived defect, which she’d diagnose as yet another of their “typically Korean” prejudices and intolerances. Most of all, he did not want to see anyone from Miracle Submarine, not the other patients, not Eli
zabeth, and definitely, most certainly, not Mary Yoo.

  Abe stood and, walking by, put his hand on Young’s, draped across the railing. He patted gently, and she smiled. Pak clenched his teeth, and when Abe smiled at him, Pak stretched his lips as if trying to smile but not quite managing it. Matt guessed that Pak, like his own Korean father-in-law, did not approve of African-Americans and thought it one of America’s great flaws that it had an African-American president.

  He’d been surprised when he met Abe. Miracle Creek and Pineburg seemed so provincial and white. The jury was all white. The judge was white. Police, firemen—white. This wasn’t the kind of place he’d expect to have a black prosecutor. Then again, it wasn’t the kind of place anyone would expect to have a Korean immigrant running a mini-submarine as a so-called medical device, but there it was.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Abraham Patterley. I am the prosecutor. I represent the Commonwealth of Virginia against the defendant, Elizabeth Ward.” Abe pointed his right index finger at Elizabeth, and she startled, as if she hadn’t known that she was the accused. Matt stared at Abe’s index finger, wondered what Abe would do if he, like Matt, lost it. Right before the amputation, the surgeon had said, “Thank God your career’s not too affected by it. Imagine being a pianist or surgeon.” Matt had thought about that a lot. What job could one have and not be too affected by amputation of the right index and middle fingers? He would’ve put lawyers in the category of “not too affected,” but now, looking at Elizabeth withering under Abe’s simple gesture of pointing at her, the power that finger gave Abe, he wasn’t sure.

  “Why is Elizabeth Ward here today? You’ve already heard the charges. Arson, battery, attempted murder.” Abe stared at Elizabeth before turning his body square to the jury box. “Murder.”

  “The victims sit here, ready and eager to tell you what happened to them”—Abe motioned to the front row—“and to the defendant’s two ultimate victims: Kitt Kozlowski, the defendant’s longtime friend, and Henry Ward, the defendant’s own eight-year-old son, who can’t tell you themselves, because they are dead.

  “Miracle Submarine’s oxygen tank exploded at about 8:25 p.m. on August 26, 2008, starting an uncontrollable fire. Six people were inside, three in the immediate area. Two died. Four, severely injured—hospitalized for months, paralyzed, limbs amputated.

  “The defendant was supposed to be inside with her son. But she wasn’t. She told everyone she was sick. Headache, congestion, the works. She asked Kitt, the mother of another patient, to watch Henry while she rested. She took wine she’d packed to the creek nearby. She smoked a cigarette of the same type and brand that started the fire, using the same type and brand of matches that started the fire.”

  Abe looked at the jurors. “All of what I just told you is undisputed.”

  Abe closed his mouth and paused for emphasis. “Un-dis-pu-ted,” he said, enunciating it like four separate words. “The defendant here”—he pointed that index finger again at her—“admits all this, that she intentionally stayed outside, faking an illness, and when her son and friend were being incinerated inside, she was sipping wine, smoking using the same match and cigarette used to set the blast, and listening to Beyoncé on her iPod.”

  * * *

  MATT KNEW WHY he was the first witness. Abe had explained the need for an overview. “Hyperbarics, oxygen this and that, it’s complicated. You’re a doctor, you can help everyone understand. Plus, you were there. You’re perfect.” Perfect or not, Matt resented the hell out of having to speak first, to set the scene. He knew what Abe thought, that this submarine healing business was kooky and he wanted to say, Look, here’s a normal American, a real M.D. from a real medical school, and he did this, so it can’t be that crazy.

  “Place your left hand on the Bible and raise your right hand,” the bailiff said. Matt placed his right hand on the Bible, raised his left hand, and looked square into the bailiff’s eyes. Let him think he was a dumbfuck who didn’t know right from left. Better that than showcasing his freaky hand, see everyone flinch and flit their eyes around like birds above a dump site, unsure where to land.

  Abe started easy. Where Matt was from (Bethesda, Maryland), college (Tufts), medical school (Georgetown), residency (same), fellowships (same), board certification (radiology), hospital credentials (Fairfax). “Now, I have to ask the first question I had when I heard about the explosion. What is Miracle Submarine, and why do you need a submarine in the middle of Virginia, nowhere near the ocean?” Several jurors smiled, as if in relief that others also wondered this.

  Matt stretched his lips into a smile. “It’s not a real submarine. Just designed like one, with portholes and a sealed hatch and steel walls. It’s actually a medical device, a chamber for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. H-B-O-T, pronounced ‘aitch-bot’ for short.”

  “Tell us how it works, Dr. Thompson.”

  “You’re sealed in, the air pressurizes 1.5 to 3 times normal atmospheric pressure, and you breathe in one hundred percent oxygen. The high pressure causes the oxygen to be dissolved at greater levels in your blood, fluids, and tissue. Damaged cells need oxygen to heal, so this deep penetration of extra oxygen can result in faster healing and regrowth. Many hospitals offer HBOT.”

  “Miracle Submarine isn’t a hospital chamber. Is that different?”

  Matt thought of sterile hospital chambers attended by technicians in scrubs, then the Yoos’ rusted chamber lying crooked in an old barn. “Not really. Hospitals usually use clear tubes for one person to lie in. Miracle Submarine is bigger, so four patients plus their caregivers can go in together, making it much less expensive. Also, private centers are open to treating off-label conditions that hospitals wouldn’t.”

  “What kind of conditions?”

  “A big variety. Autism, cerebral palsy, infertility, Crohn’s, neuropathies.” Matt thought he heard tittering from the back at the condition he’d tried to hide in the middle of the list—infertility. Or perhaps it was the memory of his own laughter the first time Janine suggested HBOT after the sperm analysis.

  “Thank you, Dr. Thompson. Now, you became Miracle Submarine’s first patient. Can you tell us about that?”

  Boy, could he. He could go on at length about it, how Janine staged it perfectly, inviting him to dinner at her parents’ house without one word about the Yoos or HBOT or, worst of all, Matt’s expected “contribution.” A fucking ambush.

  “I met Pak at my in-laws’ house last year,” Matt said to Abe. “They’re family friends; my father-in-law and Pak’s father are from the same Korean village. Anyway, I learned that Pak was starting an HBOT business, and my father-in-law was investing in that.” They’d all been sitting around the dinner table, and the Yoos had hurried to stand when Matt walked in, as if he were royalty. Pak looked nervous, the sharp angles of his face accentuated by his tight smile, and when he gripped Matt’s hand for a handshake, his knuckles bulged into jagged peaks. Young, his wife, had bowed slightly, eyes downcast. Mary, their sixteen-year-old, was a copy of her mother, with eyes that looked too big for her delicate face, but she’d smiled easily, mischievously, as if she knew a secret and couldn’t wait to see his reaction when he found out, which, of course, was exactly what was about to happen.

  As soon as Matt sat down, Pak said, “Do you know HBOT?” Those words were like the cue for a well-rehearsed performance. Everyone converged around Matt, leaning in conspiratorially, and spoke in turns without pause. Matt’s father-in-law said how popular this was with his Asian acupuncture clients; Japan and Korea had wellness centers with infrared saunas and HBOT. Matt’s mother-in-law said Pak had years of HBOT experience in Seoul. Janine said recent research showed HBOT to be a promising treatment for numerous chronic diseases, did he know?

  “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.