by A. H. Kim
I was wrong.
It was a cold and wet Sunday, almost three years ago. Sam called to say that he was feeling cooped up, tense. He said he wanted to come visit me at my condo. I had just seen him a few weeks earlier at Le Refuge for Christmas, so I knew something was wrong. Sam was not one to stop by for a casual visit.
When Sam shows up on my doorstep, he’s shivering wet. He forgot to wear an overcoat. He isn’t dressed for the weather. His thin cotton sweater and khaki chinos are plastered against his body. His face is ashen, and he breaks down in tears as soon as he sees me. I’ve never seen him like this before.
“What is it?” I ask, running to the bathroom to get a towel to wrap him up in. “Is it the girls? Is something wrong with the girls?”
“Yes, it’s the girls,” he sobs, and then he shakes his head. “No, it’s not the girls. The girls are fine. It’s Beth.”
Sam allows himself to be led to the oversize armchair in my living room. I walk to the kitchen to pour two glasses of whiskey. I hand one to Sam, take a sip of mine and wait patiently while Sam collects himself.
“Beth wants a divorce,” Sam explains. “Last night, we had dinner, put the girls to bed and in the middle of Flip or Flop, she tells me that she wants a divorce. A fucking divorce.”
I feel a strange sense of anger mixed with relief. I think about Sam’s life with Beth: lavish homes, expensive cars, luxurious vacations, closetfuls of brand-new designer clothing. I think about my sweet, young nieces growing up into entitled brats like the vapid characters they watch so intently on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
“Sam, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but let Beth have the divorce. And then move on. I never wanted to interfere with your life, but I don’t think Beth is good for you. The only thing Beth cares about is money. Money and all the things that money can buy.”
“That’s not fair,” Sam says. “And it’s not true.”
“Yes, it is,” I insist. “And worse, over the years, you’ve become just like Beth. I barely recognize you anymore. Do you remember how we grew up? How our parents raised us? We went to public schools. We ate at home. We were grateful for the little things. You and Beth live like awful reality stars.”
Sam doesn’t say anything. He takes a long swallow of the whiskey. I can practically feel the burning sensation in my own throat. It feels good to be speaking my mind, and I hope Sam is open to seeing things my way.
“That’s not the point, Hannah. I don’t care about that stuff, the houses and the schools and the clothes. That could all disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter. All I care about is Beth—and the girls.”
And then it occurs to me: the girls—of course, the girls—nothing is more important.
“So, what happened?” I ask, relenting.
Sam tips back the last drops of whiskey. He walks to the kitchen and brings back the bottle of whiskey and fills up his glass.
“Sam?”
“Well, it all started when the St. Michaels police department called Beth to report an intruder at Le Refuge.”
“An intruder?”
“Yeah, only it wasn’t actually an intruder. It was just this producer from HGTV scoping out the property. Alex has been trying to convince Beth to let them do a feature piece about Le Refuge, and the producer jumped the gun.”
“Okay...so there was a misunderstanding. Why would Beth blame you for that?”
“Well, I sort of gave Alex permission to talk with the guy. Alex said he would split the money from the producer with me. I needed some cash to buy Beth an anniversary gift, and I didn’t want to use Beth’s own money.”
“I could see why Beth would be annoyed, but it’s hardly grounds for divorce.”
“Beth’s a really private person,” Sam explains. “She blew a lid when she heard a stranger was poking around Le Refuge without her knowledge. Particularly a stranger with a camera.”
It’s ironic to me that Beth, who has framed copies of her puff pieces from the Wall Street Journal, Time and Fortune displayed on the walls of her Princeton study, should be so protective of her privacy. She’s always struck me as someone who craves attention.
“Well, that’s just crazy. There must be something deeper at issue. Have you two tried marriage counseling?”
“Beth doesn’t want marriage counseling,” Sam says. “She wants out, and she wants full custody of the girls.”
Now I’m angry. How dare Beth threaten to take the girls? My nieces are the only blood relatives Sam and I have left.
“She can’t do that,” I say. “She doesn’t have any right.”
“Actually, she does. She made me sign a document before Claire was born.”
“What are you talking about? Why would you do that?”
“We had a different relationship at the time. It was before we got married.”
“Okay, well then I’m sure it won’t hold up in court. You’ve been faithfully married for almost five years.”
A cloud crosses Sam’s face.
“Sam, you have been faithful, haven’t you? Because adultery would be legal grounds for divorce.”
Sam takes another gulp of whiskey, and then refills the glass before it’s even half-empty.
“Hannah, I know this’ll sound strange to you,” Sam explains, “but Beth and I aren’t so hung up on the monogamy thing.”
“You mean, you have an open marriage?” I try not to sound judgmental.
“Not open, exactly. More like...partly open.”
“Partly open?”
“Yeah. You know Beth’s always complaining about being too tired for sex,” Sam says. “Well, once when we were fighting about it, Beth said she’d be fine if I found someone else to satisfy my...uh...my needs. I thought she was kidding until one day she told me Lise would be interested.”
“Lise? You mean your nanny, Lise? Isn’t she a teenager?”
“She’s not a teenager, and she’s not a nanny anymore either. She’s twenty-one and Beth’s personal assistant.”
“So, you and Lise—how long have you been...doing it?”
“God, Hannah, you make it sound so sleazy.”
I glare at him.
“I don’t know how long exactly. Beth hired her after Claire was born, so what’s that? Four years? Five?”
I do the mental math. Lise would have been sixteen or seventeen when she first got hired as Claire’s nanny. I don’t know what the age of consent is in New Jersey or Maryland or the places they’ve vacationed together, but sixteen or seventeen is awfully young. Then a terrible suspicion comes over me: perhaps Beth has been setting Sam up all this time. Maybe she’s been taking advantage of his ignorance and sexual desires to use as blackmail in case she ever needs it, and poor Lise has been the innocent pawn.
A couple weeks after Sam’s visit, I’m working late at the office, proofreading an article for the firm’s monthly newsletter. We send it out to our roster of clients in the hopes of rustling up new business.
“Fair Hannah,” a voice trills from behind me. It’s Thing 1—the former Supreme Court clerk from Indiana who shares my love of Masterpiece Theatre and Hugh Grant movies. “My computer crashed, and I need to finish editing my piece for the newsletter. Might I borrow Tracy’s?”
“Of course,” I reply. I walk over to Tracy’s computer and flick the power switch on. While we wait for the computer to boot up, I ask, “So, what’s your article about?”
“It’s a fascinating piece, if I do say so myself. One of those thrilling ‘ripped from the headlines’ cases. It involves a twenty-two-year-old receptionist who received a fifteen-million-dollar government bounty for blowing the whistle on her employer.”
“Huh, that sounds interesting. What did the employer do?”
“The employer was a Florida mortgage company who pressured appraisers to inflate home values for properties
with federally insured loans. For a while, these guys were making money hand over fist and living the high life off their ill-gotten gains. Vacations on St. Barts. Italian sports cars. Bottle service at Las Vegas strip clubs. The whole nine yards. But when the economy tanked, so did the mortgages, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for the federal government.”
“And then what? How did the receptionist get involved?”
“She filed a lawsuit against her employers under the False Claims Act.”
“I read an article in this morning’s Wall Street Journal about a False Claims Act case,” I respond, “but I didn’t really understand how it works.”
“There have been a number of high-profile whistle-blower cases in the news lately,” Thing 1 explains. “Most of the cases involve pharmaceutical companies or defense contractors, but with the recent financial meltdown, banks and financial institutions have come under focus, as well.
“Basically, anyone can blow the whistle on their employer if they believe they’re defrauding the federal government. So, here, the receptionist knew her bosses were faking the appraisals for the federal loans. She worked with an attorney to file a whistle-blower lawsuit. The US Attorney prosecuted the miscreants, who agreed to pay a hefty settlement, and then bingo—Little Miss Receptionist gets a cool fifteen million dollars.”
“Kind of like hitting the lottery.”
“Indeed,” Thing 1 concurs. “Most of these False Claims cases involve billions of dollars in government revenues, and whistle-blowers can get up to 30 percent of the proceeds. Even with the legal fees, it’s a nice chunk of change.”
“I suppose the corporations settle because they don’t want their executives to go to prison?”
“Alas, no. The False Claims Act is a civil statute, not a criminal one, so the government can’t seek jail time. The theory behind the act is that the most effective way to deter corporate malfeasance is to go after what these companies really care about—money.”
“Sounds reasonable, I guess.”
“Perhaps,” Thing 1 replies. “They say cheaters never prosper, but it seems to me that there are plenty of cheaters who are prospering quite nicely. Even when they get caught stealing billions, these corporate types land back on their feet. Maybe a little poorer, maybe a little wiser, but almost always in a good place. Meanwhile, under federal mandatory minimums, those poor bastards who commit minor drug offenses get sent away for years.”
Tracy’s computer finally springs alive, and Thing 1 sits down at her desk to type in his log-in and password. I return my attention to my own article: a bone-dry piece about changing regulations impacting longwall mining. The pompous partner who authored the article is an abysmal writer and even worse speller, which I find baffling in the age of autocorrect. Nearly every other word in the article is underlined with a red squiggle. Does he not realize what that means? But then again, the partner knows I’ll be proofreading the piece. Why bother to do the work if you know someone else will do it for you?
My phone buzzes on my desk. A photo flashes for a moment on the screen. It’s an email from my brother.
“Hey, when you’re done with that piece, would you mind emailing it to me?” I ask. “It might be helpful for something else I’m working on.”
* * *
The days and weeks following Sam’s death pass in a blur. Beth gets a temporary release from prison, and the two of us alternate between taking care of the girls and taking care of Sam’s funeral arrangements. The memorial service at the funeral home is packed, standing room only. There are friends from college, the country club, even God Hälsa. I’m touched to see so many of Claire’s classmates and teachers from Princeton Country Day. They show up in a true circle of community.
After Sam’s service, Beth and I are sitting side by side on the velvet lounging couch in their Princeton home. Claire and Ally are huddled together at Sam’s desk, working on an Alvin and the Chipmunks coloring book. There’s an empty box of Kleenex on the coffee table in front of me and Beth, and another almost empty one on the floor. My eyes are swollen from so much crying. I’ve avoided talking to Beth about the fire, the lawsuit, everything, but I can’t keep it in any longer.
On my lap is the Min family scrapbook with its well-worn Naugahyde cover. I open the scrapbook to the last page, and slide it over to Beth so that the book is balanced on our combined laps. There are two obituaries pasted on the page: my parents’ notice from the Buffalo Evening News, and Sam’s announcement from this week’s Princeton Times. I know them both by heart. After all, I wrote them. Beth rereads Sam’s announcement.
“It’s beautiful, Hannah,” she murmurs, her finger tenderly tracing the contours of Sam’s handsome photo. His face, as always, is open and devoid of artifice. Tears trickle down Beth’s pale cheeks.
“No, not that one—the other one,” I reply. I watch Beth’s bloodshot eyes as they slowly make their way down the yellowed announcement.
Professor Nick Min and Mrs. Nora Min of East Amherst died on December 10, 1994, in a fatal car crash with a drunken driver. They were both 54.
Professor and Mrs. Min were born and educated in South Korea. They emigrated to the United States in 1964 for Professor Min to pursue graduate studies at SUNY Buffalo with Albright Distinguished Professor of Linguistics William Schugart. Professor Min received his PhD in linguistics in 1970, and has served on the faculty of SUNY Buffalo since that time.
Professor and Mrs. Min are survived by their children Hannah and Sam, and were predeceased by their beloved daughter Doori.
A funeral is scheduled for noon on December 15 at Amigone Funeral Home in Amherst, with a reception to follow at Lee Chu’s Restaurant, also in Amherst.
“I didn’t realize you had a younger sister,” Beth says. “Sam never mentioned her.”
“He had no reason to,” I say. “He never knew her. She was born when I was three, and she died just two years later.” Beth takes a closer look at the page.
“Her name was Doori?” Beth asks.
“It means two in Korean. Hannah means one.”
“And Sam? Does it mean...”
“Yes, Sam is three,” I say. “What can I say? My dad was a linguist.”
“Tell me about her,” Beth asks. “Tell me about your sister.”
I’m overwhelmed by Beth’s words. No one has ever asked me to talk about my sister before. The story spills out of me. I tell Beth about the little sister who came into my life and left it suddenly and far too soon.
“My parents told me Doori was a gift from heaven. That my job as a big sister was to take care of her. In retrospect, I think they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t feel jealous of her, to make me feel like I had a special job. Even when I was young, I loved to have a purpose.”
“Claire takes after you that way,” Beth says. I’m surprised how much it warms me to hear Beth acknowledge that.
“I took my job very seriously,” I continue. “I loved holding Doori and giving her a warm bottle of milk. I used to lie by her side on my parents’ bed, watching her sleep and making sure she didn’t kick off her blankets or roll off the edge. My mother said I even potty-trained myself because I didn’t think it was right to change Doori’s diapers if I was still in diapers myself.”
“I could totally see you doing that.”
“And then one day, when Doori was almost two, she died.”
It’s shocking to me how, nearly a half century later, Doori’s death still pains me.
“I’m so sorry, Hannah. What happened?”
I’ve never had this conversation with anyone before: not Sam, not Owen, not even my parents. It’s a conversation I’ve always needed to have.
“My parents never talked about it, so it was a mystery to me for a long time. I remember finding Doori in her crib, limp as a dishrag, ugly purple bruises up and down her legs. I ran as fast as I could to tell my parents that
Doori was hurt. They rushed her to the hospital. The nurses wouldn’t let me into her room. I sat by myself in the hallway, holding her favorite teddy bear. I remember telling the bear, ‘Doori will be fine, don’t worry.’ But Doori wasn’t fine.”
I catch myself as a sob bubbles up from my center. Over forty-five years of sorrow that I’ve tucked away find the light of day at last.
“No one ever told me what she died of,” I say. “I figured it had something to do with the bruises. Years later, after my parents died, I found Doori’s death certificate. And it was only then that I learned Doori’s actual cause of death—something called meningococcal septicemia.”
“I’ve never even heard of it,” Beth says.
“I know, I hadn’t either. I looked it up after I found the death certificate. Apparently, it’s very rare. It’s caused by some kind of bacteria that most of us have in our bodies, but babies and young children are especially susceptible due to their immature immune systems. Mothers can transmit the bacteria just by giving them kisses.”
“I’m so sorry, Hannah.”
“Doori’s death hit me hard. It hit all of us hard. Like Sam used to say, I was a lonely child who did everything I could to make my parents happy. The only quibble I have with his story is that my parents didn’t wait all those years because they had trouble conceiving—they waited all those years because they were still in mourning.
“When Sam was born, my parents didn’t tell me I was responsible for taking care of him. They didn’t need to. The moment I saw Sam’s perfect little face, I vowed to myself I would do whatever it took to keep him safe.”
“And you did that his entire life,” Beth says. “Until you couldn’t.”
When I look up from the Min family scrapbook, I see something in Beth’s eyes that sends a chill through me. Beth knows the truth, and she understands.
“It’s okay, Hannah,” Beth says. “You did what you thought was best. For Sam. For the girls. I’m not mad at you. Not anymore.” I am both frightened and relieved. My entire life, all I’ve ever wanted was for someone to accept me, faults and all.
