14 #2
“I’m asking myself how I can be so selfish,” she said. “I’m a hypocrite. I am so sorry.” The words tumbled out of her mouth. Mary hadn’t planned on saying any of this.
John found the plastic box filled with napkins and disposable utensils left over from takeout meals. He pulled out some napkins and handed them to her. Mary wiped her eyes.
“I’ve known your husband for a lifetime. He would never steal money.”
Mary couldn’t speak.
“Where is he now?”
She pointed toward the parking lot.
John gestured to her bag.
“May I have the documents?”
She handed the manila envelope to him.
“Why don’t you stay here for a bit? I’ll be back after I speak with him.”
John asked Nari to order Mary some lunch. He picked up a blue ballpoint pen from the reception desk and went to the parking lot alone. Shin got out of the car, and as he started to speak, John held up a hand.
“We’re going to the bank. They have a notary.”
Ever punctual, at six o’clock, John arrived at Shin’s house. Nari would close the salon without him. Shin invited him in and offered tea. Mary was gone.
“Did you take her to the airport?” John asked, checking his watch.
“No. She had to return the rental,” Shin said. Joey had been able to change her return ticket, and Mary saw no reason to stay another night.
“I’m not supposed to be speaking with you,” John said. “That’s why I didn’t return the calls.”
“I understand,” Shin said. “I appreciate you coming here.”
John had never been to his house. Its grandeur astonished him, and Shin sensed what he was thinking.
“The bank owns the house, and now it’s underwater.” Shin let out a hollow laugh.
John didn’t ask about the cars in the garage.
“Is there something you need? From me?”
“I have to go away for a few days. I was wondering if you could take Anna. If she could stay with your family. I thought maybe Mido could watch her.”
“What? Mido is in Seoul.”
“Anna is very easy. I have to take care of a few things, and I can’t take her with me. It’s already been so disruptive with Danbi being gone.”
John was puzzled. He’d assumed that Shin wanted information about the church finances for the investigation, and DH had instructed him not to say anything.
“Where are you going?” John asked.
“I was going to try to raise some money. For the lawyers. I have a friend in New York who might be able to help. Anna goes to school from eight thirty to four, and now she has hagwon. I enrolled her in the one in Cypress, so you won’t need to drive to Woodbridge.”
“You don’t have a babysitter or housekeeper?”
“Had to let them go. Money.”
“How many days?”
“Four, maybe five. You’re the only person I trust.”
John covered his mouth. At home, it was only him most nights, and Bo came over on the weekends.
“I know it’s short notice, and I’m very sorry to bother you. Danbi just ruined everything. Anna is such a good kid. Reminds me of your Mido.”
“How old is Anna?”
“She turned nine in March,” Shin said, smiling. From the side table, he picked up her framed third-grade portrait. She wore a white shirt and a navy blue pinafore. That morning, for picture day, Danbi had braided Anna’s long hair and tied a blue velvet ribbon on the tail.
“Where is she?”
“Still at the hagwon. If you could pick her up for me, I’d really appreciate it.”
John checked his watch. It was almost seven o’clock.
“Does she eat dinner there?”
Shin nodded, trusting that she must. He didn’t know.
“I packed her suitcase already. It’ll only be a few days. Please.”
John inhaled deeply. Helen would have known what to say.
On Saturday morning, John went to work, and Bo stayed home with Anna. He made her French toast with strawberries for breakfast.
“What would you like to do today?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She stared down at her bare feet. Her mother said she had her father’s wide feet. She had already washed her face and brushed her teeth without being reminded and dressed herself in a pink T-shirt and jeans.
“Did you want to watch television?”
“My mother doesn’t let me do that. She said it will ruin my brain. When she was a girl, she never watched any.”
“She’s not entirely wrong. Do you like movies or video games?”
“I’m not allowed to play video games.”
“I see.” Bo smiled. “Well, I’m not very good at them anyway. My brother DH is amazing at all kinds of games. He’s also an athlete.”
“May I read the books in Mido’s room?”
“Aren’t they too old for you?”
“There are books for my age, too. I saw some.” She wasn’t sure if that was allowed, but the containers were open.
Anna walked toward Mido’s room, and Bo followed her.
In the corner were a large open footlocker and a milk crate filled with some of their old books.
“Oh wow,” Bo said. “You can definitely read them.” He sat on the floor and rummaged through the piles.
The locker contained the Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, and the smaller one had all seven volumes of the Chronicles of Narnia as well as The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Return of the King.
The Two Towers was missing. A big stack of Shakespeare plays was tied together with plastic twine.
Bo knew his mother had put these aside, and Mido must not have been able to part with them.
“Is this what you want to do today?”
Anna smiled and reached for a Hardy Boys mystery.
“I like series books.”
“I think there’s over fifty of those, but we didn’t have them all. We borrowed a bunch at the library. Those are the ones we got for birthday presents. We all read them.”
“Do you ever go to the lakes?” she asked suddenly.
“Which lakes?”
“The ones in Woodbridge. Near my house.”
“Oh, right, there are two of those. East, West?” Bo wasn’t sure. “North or South? I’ve never been there. Isn’t that funny? It’s so close, too.”
“North and South. My dad and I used to go sometimes. To look at the ducks and coots. You’re not supposed to feed them or catch them.”
“Coots?” Bo didn’t know what that was. “Is that the fish?”
Anna laughed. “No! It’s a bird. It’s a dark-gray bird with a white beak and red eyes, and it looks like a duck, but it isn’t a duck. They have skinny green feet that aren’t webbed.”
“Wow. Thank you for teaching me that,” Bo said, and he meant it.
“Coots eat up the expensive shrubbery and poop a lot, and people in Woodbridge don’t like them,” she said. “Dad told me. People prefer the mallards. Mallards are wild ducks.”
“Do you like the coots?”
“They’re okay.” She shrugged. “They can’t help being coots.”
Bo smiled. “Yeah. They can’t help it.”
Anna sat cross-legged and opened The Secret of the Old Mill.
“Do you want to go to one of the lakes today? I can take you.”
Anna stared into space like she was thinking about it, then shook her head.
“I’m going to read now. Maybe later.”
“Cool, I’ll do my reading, too, then. I’ll be over there.” He pointed to the kitchen. “You can hang out with me if you want. There’s a comfy armchair, which my brother calls the Throne. You can have it today, which makes you the ruler of the kingdom.”
He left her in Mido’s room with the door ajar and set up his books, legal pads, and laptop on the kitchen table where she could still see him. Within a few minutes, Anna brought her book and sat in the armchair not far from him.
Anna was as sweet and mild-mannered as Shin had described. She stayed in Mido’s room without complaint. After four days, the weather grew colder. When John looked through her suitcase for a sweater, he found the letters in the zippered section, one for Anna and another for John.
The police discovered Shin’s body in the garage. He had never left for New York.
Bo took a week off from school to come home and help his father with Anna. Before the funeral, Shin’s lawyer brought John a white bankers box with his name on it.
Shin had left him written instructions for the insurance agency and information relating to Anna—babysitter names and pediatrician contacts, immunization records, and her birth certificate.
There was an old insurance policy on his life for $1 million with all four children as the beneficiaries.
He’d left a letter for the boys and Mary.
“What did his letter for you say?” Bo asked his father.
“That his family was better off without him. He asked me to care for Anna. He apologized. He said thank you.”
The letter to Anna was unsealed, and Bo advised that they read it just in case: “Be a good girl. Appa is so sorry and loves you very much.”
Shin did not mention anything about the child’s mother.