13
Rescue
On the following Saturday, the boot camps resumed.
When Ginny walked into class and smiled at her, Mido felt relief.
The little girl looked fine. Her pretty oval face was sunbrowned, her hair held back by a thin black plastic headband.
Ginny sat in her usual seat at the front table near Mido’s desk and nibbled on one of the pretzel rods Mido had put out for the students before class.
“Take a few minutes to settle in. Have your snacks, and we’ll go over the practice exams.”
Mido tapped Ginny’s shoulder and took her to the hallway.
“How are you, Ginny? I’m so glad to see you.”
Ginny’s eyes filled with tears. No one here ever looked at her like that. She missed her father, who always took her side.
Mido told Ginny to wait and popped her head into Peter’s room next door, asking him to keep an eye on her class. “I need to talk with Ginny for a few minutes in the lounge,” she told him.
In the empty lounge, Mido gave Ginny a glass of water and motioned for her to take a seat on the couch. She put a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.
“What’s the matter, Ginny?”
Mido passed her a tissue.
“My parents can’t pay Mrs. Chiu, but they don’t think I should come home because I’m doing well here, and they can’t afford the plane ticket. My mother says that she will make more calls, but we don’t have family here—”
“What did your guardian say?”
“I can’t stay for free. She says she’s sorry, but she can’t afford to do that. Each bed has to be used for a paying student.”
“I see.”
“She’s paid for the hagwon through the month, so I’m allowed to finish out the next two weeks, she said. But my parents owe her a lot of money.”
“I’m glad you told me. What a grown-up you have to be now,” Mido said, feeling awful. “These are big things for even adults to think about. I admire you.”
Ginny reached for another tissue.
“Miss Mido, thank you for bringing the worksheets. I finished them. I have them in my bag for you to check later,” Ginny said, trying to steady her breathing.
“I know you did the work. You’re a wonderful young person, Ginny.”
“Where will I go, Miss Mido?”
“I’m sure your parents will let us know.”
“Will I have to go to foster care?”
“What? No, no.” Mido shook her head, but she didn’t actually know what would happen to the child.
“I want to stay here. I want to go to UCSF and become a doctor.”
Mido laughed in surprise. Her middle school students occasionally said things like this, but it never felt normal to hear. How did someone so young know about foster care, or UCSF?
“I promised my grandmother that I’d become a heart doctor. She has a weak heart that has irregular beats.”
Mido patted the girl’s shoulder.
“If anyone could become a heart doctor, I think you could.”
“Dad lost his job and everything. Our house and the car. They had to move back to Busan, where my grandmother lives. Mom said the school near Grandmother is not good enough for me. My little brother is too young, so it doesn’t matter for him.
She wants him to come here, too, because he was also born here, but he was so young that he had to go back with them.
But I wanted to stay, so my mother found Mrs. Chiu for me. ”
“You were born here?”
“Yes.”
“Your Korean is so good.”
“We only speak Korean at home. We lived here, then moved back. Mother said all their extra money was spent on me so I could be in California.”
Mido didn’t understand why a parent would tell a child this.
“Your father lost his job because of the economy. The IMF Crisis is not your fault. Your parents sent you to school here because they wanted you to be educated in America.”
“We owe Mrs. Chiu money, and she’s always talking about it.”
Her eyes shining, Ginny stared at the refrigerator, still trying to calm her breathing, unable to face her teacher. She was eleven years old and perceptive enough to understand that she was alone in this country and the adults didn’t know what to do with her.
“Miss Mido, where did you go to college?”
“I started at University of Sydney. In Australia, but I couldn’t finish because I moved here with my family.”
“Are you going back? To Australia?”
“It’s unclear.” Mido patted Ginny’s back. “Let’s wipe your face and return to class. Everything will work out.”
At the end of the day, after the kids left, Mido tidied up the classroom.
Peter knocked on the doorframe and entered.
“She came back?”
“Ginny?”
He sat down near the snack table and opened a new tub of pretzels.
“I think I must have eaten a thousand pretzel rods since I started here. I never ate a single one before. Not in England, Andover, or Yale. I had no idea how many of these I could eat. Have you ever had one with the chocolate and caramel on them?”
Mido shook her head no. “Ginny’s parents can’t pay the guardian fees. The guardian is going to kick her out because she needs to rent out the room. I can’t believe an eleven-year-old has to deal with this shit.”
“Are you cursing? There could be children here.” Peter glanced around dramatically.
Yun and Lion passed by the classroom.
“Hey, is this cocktail hour?” Lion asked. “What are people drinking?”
Peter smiled. “I didn’t find any beer in the faculty lounge fridge, but let me know if there’s a secret stash anywhere. I’ll never tell the boss.”
At the pizzeria next door, Lion ordered pitchers of soda and beer for the table and a sausage pie. The Coke came out first, and Lion poured everyone a glass.
“You’re saying that Ginny doesn’t have a place to stay? She’s eleven!” Dismayed, Yun looked at Lion expectantly.
He shook his head at her unasked question. “We can’t just take a student into our house, Yun.”
“I have an extra room in my place,” Peter said, “but I can’t take in a little girl who’s not my family. That looks bad. Right?” Peter glanced at the women.
“Peter, that would not work. We have to do something, though,” Yun said.
Lion puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.
“It’s not like a stray cat. She’s an eleven-year-old human. We can’t just take in children who have no place to go.”
“You can’t take in every child, I guess, but that guardian is scary, Lion,” Peter argued. “I met the lady. I wouldn’t want to stay with anyone calling my parents debtors.”
“I can help out with taking care of her,” Mido said.
“Lion, we have to take her, or at least get her a ticket home, right?” Yun said, her head tilted to the side, and Lion covered his eyes.
At Communion, the ones who took the bread and wine proceeded down the center aisle to receive the sacrament from the ministers.
Held once a month at Gospel Presbyterian, Communion Sunday was a parade of congregants—for some, a slow march of bowed heads in private contemplation; for others, a full strut in glorious peacock mode, heads tall, bodies draped in vivid colors.
Many wore their best clothes, but there were as many who abhorred fancy dress or luxury clothing, eschewing excessive consumption.
When Shin and Danbi marched to the head of the Communion line, Shin was noticeable in a sharp navy suit and a silver-striped necktie, and Danbi in a tight-fitting white skirt suit with nude-colored heels.
It was the first time Helen saw the woman who had caused her family so much grief. Her husband had described her, but Danbi’s beauty still took her by surprise. John had not said that she was gorgeous, but she was.
When the service ended, Helen and John left the narthex as quickly as they could.
Bo and Mido followed, not understanding why their parents were in such a rush to exit. Normally they lingered to talk with friends, and they often caught up with Lion, Yun, and Nari.
“Aren’t we having lunch at the Patio?” Mido asked. “I was going to see Yun.”
“We have to go home,” John said firmly.
They still only had one car, and as usual, Bo had driven.
“Okay, let’s go,” Bo said, shrugging.
As they went to the parking lot, the family could hear Shin calling out to John.
Shin and Danbi walked briskly to catch up to the Koh family in the parking lot.
Ignoring Shin, John and Helen continued to the car, and Bo and Mido kept pace with their parents, uncertain as to what they should do. Before that horrible business with Danbi, of course, they would have greeted Shin, who had been like an uncle to them, yet Bo and Mido knew enough to say nothing.
It was no use trying to avoid them. As they neared Bo’s car, Danbi appeared, a wide smile on her face as if nothing had happened in the intervening years since she’d last seen John in that Seoul conference room.
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
John and Helen didn’t respond.
“We wanted to know if you could have lunch today,” Danbi said. “We could eat here, or go somewhere much nicer.” She turned to the children. “Of course, you’re invited, too, unless you have something else to do.”
Bo and Mido bowed their heads, no differently than they would have with any of their parents’ friends. Danbi was not much older than they were, and Bo’s first thought was of Shin’s wife, Mary, who had always been so kind to them.
John turned to the car, and Bo opened the front passenger door.
Helen looked directly at Danbi. “Please leave us alone.”
John got in the car, grateful that Helen had said this because Danbi was not a person he could manage.
“We just took the sacraments,” Danbi said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’d hoped you would accept my apology,” she said to John, now facing forward in the passenger seat, unable to meet her gaze.
“I said I wanted to apologize,” Danbi said again, her tone businesslike and crisp.
John faced her. “Why now? You’ve had years to do this.”
“It’s a small community here in Orange County, and this is the best church. I thought we should clear the air. Let the past be the past. There’s no need to keep avoiding each other,” she said, her attractive face calm and full of light.
Helen glared at her, astonished at the audacity. “You ruined my husband’s career and hurt our family.”
“Your husband tried to ruin me. What choice did I have?” Danbi replied. “I had to save my career, and my man.”
John turned to Shin. “Please leave us alone. I don’t have any good feelings left of us. Let me at least have peace.” He smiled sadly. “You don’t mean any of this apology. We cannot go back to what we were. It is broken.”
The rest of his family began to settle into the car, but Danbi held open the driver’s-side door before Bo could close it.
“You’re supposed to be Christians,” she said. “You’re supposed to forgive. I already forgave you for what you did to me. I think you should grow up.”
“Bo, start driving,” John said.
Shin took Danbi’s hand.
“Let them alone. You tried.” Shin led her away.
Back in the apartment, Helen put a pot of water on the stove to boil.
There was rice already in the cooker, so she took some cold ingredients and rolled up gimbap.
It was the fastest thing she could think of.
Although she couldn’t imagine eating, she needed to do something to feed them, so she made four rolls anyway.
When the water was heated, she added soybean paste, dried seaweed, and tofu to make soup.
Mido set the table and they sat together. They bowed their heads in a quick, silent prayer.
“I’m being tested,” John said. “I don’t think I can go to that church anymore.”
Helen covered her mouth with her right hand the way she did when she was thinking of something to say.
“Why are they following me?” John asked. “Why can’t they stop?”
Mido had never seen her father this agitated, and it worried her.
“We could find another church,” Bo said.
“They’ll find us again,” Helen said. “We cannot run away.”
Mido touched her head, remembering.
“I was supposed to talk with Yun and Lion. I better call them.”
“Have you told Yun and Lion about that woman?” Helen asked her daughter.
“No, no. I have to talk with her about Ginny.”
“Who?” Bo asked.
“She’s one of my students. She’s in my regular class and the boot camp for the specialized high school exam.”
“Is she okay?” Helen asked.
“Her parents owe the homestay guardian money, but they want Ginny to stay in America.” Mido surveyed their small apartment. There was no room for another person. “She’s only eleven and definitely our brightest student.”
“What will happen to her?” Bo asked, picking up his soup spoon.
“Not sure,” Mido replied. For the first time in her life, she wished that she were a wealthy and powerful person.
It had seemed wrong to want this for her own family since they had each other and were able to find jobs.
This period in their lives was a temporary setback.
Eventually things would work out for them, but Ginny was eleven, and she was alone.
“I wish—” she started to say, and saw her father’s crestfallen expression. She knew he felt the same way.
“Everyone has troubles,” John said. “Even little children.”