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“May I borrow a needle and thread?” Mee-Kyong hated asking Mrs. Stern for anything, but she forced herself to look into the American’s eyes.
Mrs. Stern stood up from her computer desk. “Of course. Is there something you need help with? Do Kennedy’s clothes need some more adjusting?”
Mee-Kyong wasn’t worried about her wardrobe right now. “They still work fine. If you don’t mind, I just need to fix something up.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Stern’s expression was duly curious, but she adjusted her glasses and backed away from the computer. “Is there a certain color thread you’d like?”
“Red,” Mee-Kyong answered. “If you have any.”
Once she was alone again in her room, she took Sun’s torn dress down from its hanger. She fingered the clingy nylon, toying with the lacy hem at the bottom. It wouldn’t fit her anymore. Even on near-starvation rations at the Round Robin, she had barely managed to squeeze herself into it. The dress had been made for someone much smaller.
Mee-Kyong threaded the needle. She had only been trying to help Sun. She hadn’t planned to make Mr. Lee so angry. The child didn’t want to get married. What was wrong with manipulating the situation? Everyone could have had their way ... Everyone. She tied the thread in a knot at the bottom. This is the perfect time to get sentimental. You’re the one who stood by and let that man slaughter Sun right in front of your own eyes. Mee-Kyong clutched at the torn section of fabric. She had tried. No one could accuse her of not trying.
Could they?
She stabbed the material and yanked the needle through the blood-red cloth. Stupid dress. She pulled the thread through until the end nearly snapped, and then she pierced the fabric once again. Stupid hotel. She closed up the knife tear with one tight jerk after another. The stitches were uneven, obvious, ugly. Stupid, stupid girl.
Half an hour later, Mee-Kyong sat hunched over the torn fabric, crying like a baby stolen from its mother.
***
“You’re the one who keeps telling me what a great student she is.” Roger had lost count of how often he and Juliette had rehashed this exact same conversation. He figured it could be another dozen times or so until anything really sank in.
With light from the setting sun pouring in through the window, Juliette sat across from her husband and eyed the Scrabble board. “I know, I’m just worried, that’s all.”
Roger put down a twenty-point word. “You’re worried that she’s going to leave like the other Secret Seminary students, and you’re not going to know what happens to her, right?”
Juliette nodded and rearranged the tiles on her letter tray.
“I know, Baby Cakes. I know.” Roger reached his arm across the table, his sleeve grazing one of the letters near the side of the board. The game was almost over. He had nearly twice as many points as his wife.
“I keep telling myself I’m going to bring it up to her,” Juliette confessed, “but each time we come up here to study, I just fumble over the words. I guess I don’t want anything to change. I don’t want to think about sending her away. I want her to stay safe. She’s been through enough already.”
“Has she ever even talked to you about her past?”
Juliette shook her head. “No, but it’s obvious. And I keep second-guessing myself. I don’t want to push her too hard and have her agree and fly across the border, and I don’t want to bring it up and scare her away so she never wants to spend another afternoon here with me.”
Juliette’s eight-point word did nothing to even the score. Roger was already prepared with his next move. “You can second-guess yourself until you’re blue in the face, but Mee-Kyong needs to know if she’s saved or not. It doesn’t matter if she goes back to North Korea, if she heads off to South Korea or America or some other safe place, or if she stays here. All that matters is whether or not she’ll be prepared to face her Creator if she were to die right now.”
“She’s doing so well in her studies ...”
“You’ve said that before,” Roger reminded her and looked up from his tiles. It wasn’t like Juliette to stall this way. “I know the lessons are going smoothly. And I’ve seen her work. You’ve got her in this den doing Bible studies and copying Scripture for, what? Four hours a day? But no matter how well she does with it all, it’s not going to matter if it hasn’t changed what she believes.”
“She believes.” Juliette’s voice was strained.
“Have you asked her?” Roger stared straight at his wife and clasped his hands in front of him. She shook her head. He laid down a six-letter word. “You might want to get on that, Baby Cakes.”
***
Benjamin had worked his hands raw, but he refused to slow down. He grunted with each heave of the shovel before hefting the load off to the side. Mr. Stern didn’t need the fence completed until springtime, but Benjamin welcomed the physical activity. He paused once to wipe his forehead and noticed Mee-Kyong coming out the back door. “I thought you might be thirsty.” She passed him a glass of water. Benjamin drank the cup dry. “You’ve been out here all afternoon,” she remarked.
“Just working.” Benjamin set the glass down, suddenly forced to admit how tight his muscles were. He stretched from one side to the other and then arched his back until he was looking up at the bright sky. Self-conscious, he straightened up. “Need something?”
Mee-Kyong was still leaning against the side of the house, her arms crossed over her chest. She cocked her head to the side and eyed Benjamin’s shovel. “Do you want an extra pair of hands?”
He squinted at her, not sure he had heard correctly. “You want to help?” He couldn’t decide if he should decline her offer politely or laugh her away outright.
Her eyes were dead serious. “I’m tired of copying. I could use a distraction.”
“Only one shovel.” He shrugged.
“So we’ll share.” Mee-Kyong stretched out her hand. “You’re not like other Christians, are you?” Mee-Kyong started to dig without even asking for directions.
“Meaning what?”
“The Sterns ... they’re always talking about Jesus and heaven and prayer and salvation. But you, you don’t really talk about anything.”
“Not much to say.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Mee-Kyong was huffing. She had only been at it for a few minutes, maybe five at most, before she passed the shovel back to Benjamin. Even as he worked, he felt her intense, curious stare. “Where do you come from?” she asked.
This time, Benjamin didn’t slow down at all. “Does it matter?”
“Would I have asked if it didn’t?”
Benjamin glanced once at Mee-Kyong before slicing the soil with the tip of the shovel. “Closed book. You know that.”
“Maybe it’s closed between us and the Sterns. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it with each other.”
Benjamin looked back to his work. “Rather not.”
Mee-Kyong shrugged. “Well, then, I have a different question for you. If you’re a Christian, why do you go out drinking so often?”
Benjamin’s back stiffened. He wiped a dirty hand through his sweaty hair. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not stupid.” Mee-Kyong crossed her arms. “Given what you know about me, don’t you think I can smell booze from half a kilometer away?”
Benjamin shrugged. “Everyone’s got secrets.”
She turned her head to the side, the way girls do when they want to flirt. “What secrets do you think I’m carrying around?”
“Closed book.” Benjamin resumed his work.
***
Eve dragged the vacuum down the hallway and into the guest bedroom. She knocked once but didn’t pause before opening the door. Mee-Kyong had been in the den all afternoon, working on her Scripture assignment. Eve heaved the vacuum in and shut the door behind her. It wasn’t fair that the new girl got the big bed, when Eve’s mattress was no larger than a child’s. Mee-Kyong was only a few centimeters taller than she, certainly not enough to merit double the sleeping area.
She skulked to the closet and fingered the clothes on the hangers. Some of them she remembered Kennedy wearing. Of course, at the time she never questioned why that spoiled American brat had dozens of spare outfits, some she only wore a few times a year. Kennedy was the Sterns’ daughter. Obviously she would have a nice wardrobe. That didn’t explain, however, why Mee-Kyong was wearing all the leftovers Kennedy didn’t take with her back to America. Wouldn’t they fit Eve just as well? When was the last time the Sterns had given her anything new?
Eve took a sheer blouse off the hanger and held it up to her shoulders. Turning from side to side in front of the ornate mirror, she imagined how she would look in it. Her figure would certainly fill it out better than Mee-Kyong’s. She turned to put the blouse away, and something draped over the chair in the corner of the room caught her eye. She walked over and fingered the soft nylon fabric. She picked it up by one of the stringy shoulder straps. She had seen that kind of dress many times before.
Mrs. Stern thought she knew all about Eve and her past, but the fat American was completely clueless. Mrs. Stern had spent all her energy lately clucking over Mee-Kyong like an old mother hen, but whatever the new girl went through, it couldn’t measure up to what Eve had suffered. Torn from her family, ripped from her old life, used up by men who didn’t care about her and would never love her. She clutched the red dress so tightly her knuckles were white. It didn’t matter where Mee-Kyong came from, or how sorry Mrs. Stern was for her. Whatever she thought she had suffered would pale next to the misery Eve had endured, and nobody would convince her otherwise.
Compliments paid in hushed whispers. “Your daughter has so much potential. It would be a shame to waste a talent like hers.”
Tears ignored in the darkness of night. “Please don’t send me away, Mama. I don’t want to go with him.”
Threats and coercion. “You’ll go with him because your father and I told you to.”
Eve needed to get to Benjamin. She flung the red dress back over the chair and retreated from Mee-Kyong’s room. Benjamin would understand. It had been so long ...
With old memories warming her fluttering stomach, she scurried down the stairs on tiptoes and rushed to the back door. Her hand was already on the handle when she saw them. For a moment, Eve froze, and then she flung the back door open. “What are you doing out here? Did you finish all your copy work?”
Mee-Kyong leaned back against the house and lifted her gaze just enough to give Eve a passing glance. “I decided to take a break.”
Eve fixed her hands on her hips. “Did Mrs. Stern say you could?”
“You can mop a floor whether or not I’m out here, can’t you?” Mee-Kyong turned toward Benjamin, who heaved shovelfuls of dirt over to the mound next to him.
“We’ll see,” Eve growled, but Mee-Kyong wasn’t even looking at her. “We’ll see,” she repeated to herself. She stomped back into the house and up the stairs to the intruder’s room.
***
Roger was right. Juliette had to stop comparing Mee-Kyong to the Secret Seminary students. She had spent hours each day worrying Mee-Kyong would slip over the border and never contact the Sterns again. But Mee-Kyong wasn’t Hannah, or Simon, or any of the others. She was a battered woman who obviously had come to them from horrific circumstances, a rescued girl who deserved a new chance at life — a chance Juliette had been loath to mention.
She thought back over the past several weeks with Mee-Kyong. They had studied Scripture together, broken down the history of the Bible, outlined the life of Christ and a dozen other characters. But Juliette had never reached out to Mee-Kyong and asked her the most important question of all: Do you know what it means to be saved? And the more she thought about it, the more she realized her husband was right. She didn’t want to lose Mee-Kyong. She wasn’t ready to carry the girl through another year of training only to send her across the border to her death. She couldn’t pour her tears and sweat and prayers into Mee-Kyong for twelve months just to turn her out and never hear from her again.
Of course, Juliette was getting ahead of herself. Mee-Kyong hadn’t even accepted Christ yet. If any of their Bible studies on salvation and forgiveness had meant anything, she still hadn’t made any official declaration of faith. Juliette just needed to take it one step at a time. She wasn’t rushing into another round of Secret Seminary training. She was just sharing the gospel with someone who needed it. Juliette didn’t know anything about Mee-Kyong’s history, except that she was in the hotel district and dressed for the part when Roger found her. She hadn’t said more than a few words those first days at the Sterns’. She just hovered around like a frail ghost. Over the next weeks, her body got stronger, her face filled out, her color improved, but the haunted expression never left her eyes.
Juliette’s own past wasn’t a feel-good, family-friendly sitcom, either. She hated the stress of growing up as an ambassador’s daughter, and when she went back to the States for college, all that pent-up tension and resentment snapped out of her like a slingshot. Juliette shut her eyes. She couldn’t think about her own college experience without growing even more anxious for her daughter. She hoped sending Kennedy off to Harvard was the right decision, but how could she be sure? Roger always teased her for worrying too much, but sometimes Juliette wondered if she really just cared too much. If she didn’t love her daughter, it wouldn’t matter if Kennedy rebelled against everything her parents had tried to teach her. If Juliette’s heart didn’t break for Mee-Kyong and her silent, secret trauma, it wouldn’t matter if she ever returned to North Korea or not.
Juliette swept her hair off her shoulder. Sending Mee-Kyong back across the border wasn’t the issue. Her salvation was. She took a last sip of tea and headed toward the den.
***
“It’s time. Your travel plans are all arranged.”
Agent Ko took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“I’m sure you are. Agent Ryuk will give you the information you need when you meet him.”
“How soon?” Ko wanted to sound prepared but not too eager. The director was a genius at picking up verbal nuances.
“When can you get out? Did you tie up all your loose ends?”
“All but one. It won’t take long.”
“Well, hurry. I’ll make sure Ryuk’s expecting you.”
***
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Mee-Kyong copied the characters and let her eyes linger on the page before she went to the next verse. Who had looked over her in her distress? Who had cared about her while prison guards raised her behind barbed wire?
Nobody.
Even into her adulthood, who cared for her? Who delivered her from Pang and his unpredictable violence? Who rescued her from Mr. Lee’s attack in the Round Robin Inn? She took care of herself. Mee-Kyong had survived, but it wasn’t because the Sterns’ all-knowing deity had stepped down from heaven and condescended to come to her aid. It was because she was smart. Smart and determined. She didn’t let a life of slavery destroy her spirit. That’s why she was still alive. That’s why she was here and not in the Round Robin or the prison camp or some makeshift gutter grave.
She had just moved on to the next verse when Mrs. Stern came in, balancing two cups of tea on her dainty tray. Mrs. Stern set the arrangement on the table beside the Bible and notebook. “You’ve been working hard. Another few days, and you might complete all the epistles.”
Mee-Kyong responded with the expected smile and shook a cramp out of her wrist.
Mrs. Stern poured the tea. “I think it’s fair to say you’ve earned yourself a snack. What do you think?”
Mee-Kyong accepted the mug and muttered her appreciation. The temperature outside had been dropping steadily with the promise of a fast-approaching winter, and she was chilled from her break outside with Benjamin. She lowered her face into the steam from her cup.
“You’re awfully quiet.” Mrs. Stern stirred a spoonful of honey into her tea.
“I guess I was just absorbed in my work, that’s all.” Mee-Kyong knew she had responded appropriately when Mrs. Stern beamed at her.
“And what particular passage in James are you working on right now?”
Mee-Kyong turned her notebook around to show her benefactress. “Orphans and widows.”
Mrs. Stern adjusted her glasses and read the passage out loud. “So true,” she breathed afterward.
“I thought you said it was all true.”
“It is. You’re absolutely right. Which, in a roundabout way, is why I’ve come to talk to you.”
Mee-Kyong felt her eyebrows furrow before she had the chance to stop them. Something in Mrs. Stern’s face reminded her of a cat preparing to pounce on its prey. “Talk about what?” She turned her head to the side and watched Mrs. Stern from the corner of her eye.
“Well, let’s see.” Mrs. Stern wiped her glasses, which had fogged over with her last sip of tea. “You’ve been here for a while now. You’ve been an excellent pupil, and I couldn’t be happier with your studies.” Why did it feel like Mee-Kyong was back in one of her nightly self-criticism sessions at Camp 22? Mrs. Stern kept her glasses in her hand and opened and shut one of its hinges methodically. “But there comes a point in your life when you need to make the shift from book-learning to actual personal experience.”
Mee-Kyong kept her eyes on the desk. The cost of room and board had just increased.
“I certainly don’t want to rush you.” Mrs. Stern waved one hand as if she could flick away the very thought. “But I wanted to know where you stand right now. In your heart, I mean. What do you think about all this we’ve been studying, deep, deep down in your soul?”
Some moments in Mee-Kyong’s life were determined in a flash, a single moment with no hesitation. When Pang told her he could help her escape Camp 22, she didn’t lay awake for nights on end pondering her next course of action. She didn’t waste time deliberating before stabbing Mr. Lee back at the Round Robin. Mee-Kyong forced her posture to match the conviction in her tone. “I believe.” She watched Mrs. Stern’s face wrinkle, frown, and eventually melt into a cautious smile.
“You’re sure? I mean, you don’t need more time to think about this?”
“I’ve already thought about it.” What else does she think I’d be doing while I’m cooped up here copying Scripture for hours every afternoon?
Mrs. Stern put her glasses back on. “You know what you’re saying? You’re saying you agree that Jesus is everything he said he is, that he died for your sins and came back to life.”
Mee-Kyong wanted to rush her answers and end the interrogation, but she forced herself to respond with stately calm. “I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit, and yes, I believe.”
Mrs. Stern’s smile found its way all the way up to her eyes. “That’s wonderful news.” She turned her face away for a moment and nudged her glasses a little higher on her nose. “Very, very wonderful.”
Mee-Kyong tried to look duly pensive. “I guess I just don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.”
“Happen?” Mrs. Stern poured another round of tea. “You get baptized, of course.”