He was also attorney for her estate and the day after the funeral, the family gathered at her house for the reading of the will
There were no surprises and it was a fair division of all the properties, but had there not been, there would have been no quarreling. It just was not their way. She would have included Jacks in the will had he not vehemently protested so all that he received was a sealed letter, not to be opened until he was alone. A letter was the one thing she could give him, which he could not refuse. At the unanimous nods of her children, and an understanding look from his wife, he placed the envelope in his jacket pocket for a later time. He was always touched at her children’s reaction to the special relationship between him and their mother. He did not know the rest of the family but the absence of any resentment was a real testimony to the little Korean woman who reared her children to be above such pettiness.
In retrospect of being therapist to many children brought up in dysfunctional homes, Honey admired the way this family pulled together with virtually no effort, intrigued by the honest love between them, making a mental note to have some in-depth conversations with more than one of the female relatives. All of her adult life she had studied the working of the human mind and now after everything, she had to admit she knew nothing about people, until she was saved and started knowing the Lord.
The family of Sang-mi spent one last night together after the reading of the will in remembrance of their beloved Mother and Grandmother.
Had they been the traditional Korean family, the mourning would have lasted longer and been soulfully louder.
It was one custom, which Sang-mi demanded not practiced right along with the one of tying the hands and feet in death.
It was a tearful evening, for some family members would be returning to far away homes and her eldest son, a career Marine, would return to Afghanistan where he was serving his third tour. This had been a bittersweet reunion, which would likely only be repeated at the next funeral.
The next day, family by family left Sang-mi’s house for the last time. Jacks and Honey observed each departure, touched at how each individual down to the youngest child stopped outside the gate giving a final deep bow to the matriarch of their family.
The last of Sang-mi’s family and relatives had all gone, but for the lone woman who was her sister in law, as they were married to brothers who both died in the Viet Nam war. Neither woman ever remarried. It was Anna, to whom Sang-mi left the house and restaurant. She was not Korean by birth, but no one could have been a better sister and confidant to Sang-mi, than Anna. They worked many years side by side and Anna would carry on as sole owner now that Sang-mi was gone.
She assured Jacks and Honey that they would always be welcome at any time. She truly hoped they would still visit and stay in touch. She was not as close to Jacks as Sang-mi was, but she had come to think of him as family. She clung to them when the time came to leave, reluctant to let the last link to Sang-mi go.
She watched as the two of them stopped outside the gate for their own farewell bow to Sang-mi. Her eyes were full of tears and she already felt the loneliness begin to creep throughout her body.
She started back in but the sound of tires screeching and a horn blowing, caused her to turn. She let out a scream as she ran toward where Jacks and Honey lay only feet apart. Honey in a tangled heap in the street, Jacks laid half on and half off the sidewalk. The midsized car kept going and Anna wanted to run after it, but instead grabbed the phone thrown from Jacks’ pocket and dialed 911. Jacks was trying to move while Honey lay frightfully still.
Honey could not move and when she tried to open her eyes, a pain shot through her head. She could hear a siren somewhere in the distance. The smell of pizza, the cry of a cat, the sound of something scraping the pavement and feel of pain as Jacks’ name tried to sound from her mouth, were the last things she remembered as black nothingness swallowed her into it.
Jacks opened his eyes to Anna kneeling over him babbling about some car and an ambulance. Disoriented, he looked wildly about for Honey.
“Jacks, I am so sorry, but I think she is dead! Oh, God, I think she is dead!”
He moaned,
“No…no…no…no…stop saying that! Where is she?”
Then, seeing her through the blood dripping down over his eyes and face, he crawled over to where she was and with every ounce of strength, he had in his body, he covered her with his and prayed. Refusing to give up until his consciousness left his own body and the paramedics pulled him off when they arrived.
The street was relatively a quiet circular one with very little through traffic. Most vehicles passing by belonged to someone who lived on the street but Anna had never seen the one that hit the couple and ran. She described it as best she could to the officers who came right behind the ambulance. She rushed through their questions so she could get to the hospital. It was what Sang-mi would have done and when she finally made it, she sat for hours it seemed until someone finally called the waiting room where she had been directed to go, asking for family.
“Are you a relative?”
The voice on the other end of the phone asked and Anna almost said no, but remembered a similar incident where they would not even talk to you if you were not a family member.
“I am uh, an aunt. Yes, his aunt, please tell me how are they?”
“I am sorry, I am not allowed to discuss this over the phone but a doctor is coming out in a few minutes and he will give you the status of the man and the lady is not out of surgery yet.”
“Okay, thank you.”
She did not feel bad for lying. Jacks had no known living relatives and she was not sure but thought she remembered Sang-mi insinuating that Honey only had distant relatives. Someone had to know what was going on and she was it, like it or not…and she really did not like it, for ever since her husband died in Viet Nam, she rarely interacted with people.
Sang-mi was the only person she was close to. How can I leave them with no one? I have to be here for them. I have to do it not only for them but for my dearest friend too. Sang-mi, this is for you. I miss you terribly already and you just put in the ground. How will I get along without you, your wisdom, and your kindness? How I am going to miss you!
When the doctor appeared in the doorway asking for Jacks family, Anna got up and with tears in her eyes for Sang-mi, went to meet him. Seeing how emotional she was, thinking it was over Jacks and Honey, and maybe it was partially, he led her to a private consulting room with comfortable seating in it and offered her some water.
Anna took the disposable cup of water, drank it, and thanked him. Composed, she prepared herself for the worst.
“Your nephew is fine or will be once he gets rid of the major headache he will have. Other than stitches to his forehead, he really did not suffer much damage. We will keep him overnight just as a precaution.”
Anna felt better.
“Thank goodness! And, what about his wife, is she going to be okay?”
The doctor was looking at the chart and instead of answering her question said,
“Hmmm. Jacks. A no last name Jacks. Apparently, this man was in here several months ago with a serious knife wound! His wife? I’m sorry but I am not the doctor on her case but if you will give me a
few minutes, I will see if I can find something out for you…yeah, this guy disappeared from the hospital without being released. I never did hear what happened to him. Good grief, now he is back! Some kind of bad luck, I would say. Okay, I will be back. You may wait here if you like.”
Anna remembered when all the creepy stuff had happened but now as then, she was not going to get involved. All she wanted was to find out that both Jacks and Honey were going to be all right and then she would slip right back into oblivion where she lived best. Cooking, cleaning, and minding her own business. It was the only way to survive and survival was one thing she knew something about.
Looking out the window when the doctor came back in, she was thinking, it looks like i
t might rain and for some reason the thought of Sang-mi’s grave getting wet disturbed her.
She turned around and knew before the doctor said a word, that it was bad. Poor Jacks. To have finally gotten his chance at love and a family of his own and then have it snatched away would be so cruel. Surely…
“I am sorry it took me a little longer than I thought it would. I had to wait until it was a good time to go in there and I am afraid the news is not good. The woman took the brunt of the hit and there was more than one calamity going on internally at the same time. So far, it has been touch and go, for her, but Dr Burns is the best in the operating room and if anyone can pull her through this, it will be him. Someone will be out with an update soon so you can wait here, or if you want to check on Jacks, they are taking him up to a room now.”
His beeper went off and looking at it, he headed for the door.
“Just make sure you let them know at the desk where to find you when your niece comes out of surgery.”
“Thank you.”
She made it to the room before they had Jacks up there and she waited, not sure what to do. She rarely had a conversation with Jacks alone and was sure she was not the first person he would want to see when he opened his eyes.
She did not have to worry because as they rolled his bed into the room, he was still out. The stitches stood out across his forehead and his normally tanned face was pale. He remembered waking up, thinking of Honey but he could not stay awake.
Anna was thinking that she wished Sang-mi were there. She always knew what to do. There must be someone to call and it was then she thought about the cell phone. Why she had not thought about having Jacks’ cell phone in her purse, she did not know but now remembering, she dug around until she found it.
Looking under contacts, she found Dwight’s number. The name was familiar.
“Hello? Yes, this is Anna from Sang-mi’s Kitchen. You do not know me, but Jacks does. He is in trouble and I have no idea what to do. He needs someone and your name was familiar so I called your number. Can you help him?”
Dwight could tell the woman was upset so he used his best ministering tone to calm her before being able to get the information he needed.
He was in the church studying and after he got off the phone with Anna, he left to walk over to the parsonage to share the bad news with Sheila. He knew this was going to upset her, so he made lighter of the accident than it had sounded to him. When he relayed the news to her, she still asked,
“What are you going to do? They need someone there, you should go.”
She was upset, but trying to stay calm, for she had the baby to think of. She refused to give in to the waves of hysteria she felt trying to form within her. Something told her it was worse for Honey than what Dwight was saying.
“Dwight, you have to go! If…if things go badly for Honey, Jacks is going to need someone he can lean on.”
“I know you are right, but there is something I have been keeping from you and you should know before I leave to go back to that place I have come to dislike a whole bunch. Before Sang-mi died, she was working with Jacks to find his birth mother. He talked with me before they left for New York and he thinks Sang-mi’s death may have been suspicious.
Now hear this…I do not know Sheila, what I may be walking into if I go up there. Do not get me wrong! I am not afraid in the least, for myself. It is you, Gem and this baby I am concerned about.”
He had his arms around Sheila by the time he finished and could feel the tiny bump the baby was already making. Tenderness filled him for his vivacious and beautiful wife, while she fought the urge to scream with irritation at him and Jacks.
The idiots, what were they thinking? The thought was there and immediately she was ashamed for neither were idiots but the irritation, she would have to deal with later. Right now, they had to pull together for Jacks and Honey’s sake.
“We will be fine darling. God will take good care of us you know. You go make travel arrangements and I will pack you a bag. If I were not pregnant…well I am though and I will stay here and take good care of our babies. Now hurry, if it is not too late you may make the direct flight and be there in less than three hours. Oh, and we can talk about keeping secrets from each other sometimes down the road when you return, right?”
Dwight gave her a sheepish affirmative nod and went back to his office. Within the hour, he was on an express flight once again to New York, the whole time remembering the last time. He felt within his spirit an urgency that he had not conveyed to Sheila. He opened up his bag, after he was settled in his seat and if the people who sat around him noticed he was reading from his Bible and at intervals moved his lips in silent prayer, they gave no indication. He knew he went not alone on this mission and he was wearing every piece of armor that a Christian could wear. He was ready.
12
“Hey, Cranford?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember that guy in your report back before Purcell uh…well the one involved with the rooftop ritual?”
“Yeah, I’m not likely to forget him. Why?”
“Something just popped up on the screen here about him and a hit and run.”
Cranford went over to where Frank was sitting at his desk.
“What does it say?”
“Here, let me get up so you can sit here and read it.”
Cranford allowed Frank to get up and he took his seat. When he finished reading, he sat back thoughtfully.
“Want to do some alien hunting today? I smell one pretty close to this hit and run…come on. Let’s go see what is going on with this guy. There has got to be a reason they keep targeting him.”
Frank was ready but as Cranford was beginning to find out, the man stayed on ready. This was his life. He lived and breathed it for it gave him the sustenance he needed to live. The hope, that someday he would see the people most responsible for the horror of the life he endured, all found and done away with for good.
They headed to the hospital to see Jacks and Honey. In the car, Cranford looked over at the man driving. He was not one for wasted words and idle chitchat so they drove the distance in complete silence. Cranford’s thoughts could not help but go back to the night he learned the truth about Frank. After the stake out when Frank told him his story, Cranford understood why he was willing to die to save the kids used for sacrificial rites. He was also learning very fast that Frank neither wanted nor expected pity from him or anyone else, so he made sure to give him a hard enough time so he did not see the compassion he could not help but feel. Mixed with that compassion was fury. Pure, unadulterated fury, which drove him to stay on this case with Frank instead of resigning immediately after what he witnessed. Evil monsters and every one of them deserve to roast in hell. To do what they did to a child and not just one, but dozens bred in test tubes or born into the family of these evil people, just for the purpose of what they did in the warehouse that night. Feeling a wave of nausea sweep over him as he remembered the terror he had felt, he forced himself to think about something else.
It was a good thing the whole truth was still unknown to him, for he would have been divided in the ways to handle such knowledge. For this reason, Frank kept his secret to himself and himself only would have to answer for his actions.
When they got to the hospital, Jacks was still sleeping. After introducing herself to the two detectives, Anna walked out into the hall with them.
Cranford was curious about her connection to Jacks, asking her as much and she explained.
“We were married to brothers and widowed within months of each other, which caused us to form a much closer bond than most in-laws, I think. Anyway, I guess I have known Jacks as long as Sang-mi, just not as well. She saw something in him that made her want to help him. I never was around much when he was…I live in the apartment over Sang-mi’s Kitchen. That is her restaurant. I would see him on occasion when he came by there to see her but Jacks and I didn’t really have a close relationship.”
�
�Then how did you come to be at Sang-mi’s house when this happened and do you know why Jacks would be here in the city with his wife?”
Before she said anything, the look on her face spoke volumes.
“Apparently, you don’t know that Sang-mi passed away a few days ago. They came for the funeral.”
He shook his head.
“I am sorry. She was a unique woman. She was not that old though. What was the cause of death?”
Anna gave a pleasant little laugh just thinking of Sang-mi and age or as most who knew her, ageless, for she had that quality about her.
“Sang-mi would have never been old, even though she turned sixty-nine two weeks ago. They said it was a massive heart attack. Thank God she didn’t linger and suffer!”
Frank, listening to the conversation up to this point without participating, never took things at face value.
He asked,
“Did she have heart problems?”
“She did take some kind of medicine for her heart but she never complained about health issues and seemed to be healthy enough. The doctors said it is not unusual for someone with high stress to have a massive heart attack even without prior heart related problems.”
“What was the source of her stress, the restaurant?”
“Good gracious no! That place was such a joy for her…and me too. Why, if it were stressful, we would have never stayed with it for all these years. Sang-mi spent a lot of time helping those less fortunate over past Dale Street. If you know that part of town then you know how bad it is. That is most likely where the stress came in, her worrying about this one and that one, always helping people. Not that she ever confided that part of her life to me. She did not and just as well for she knew my nerves never were as good as hers and me ten years younger!”
Another Deception Page 7
