Miya was blushing furiously.She then took in another spoonful of her soup, and whispered humbly, while still staring at the bowl, "I-It wasn"t a natural delivery."
The old woman looked at Miya carefully, almost sizing her up. She then slowly asked, "Cesarean surgery?"
Miya nodded.
"C-section. Yes."
The room fell into silence after that, except for the sound of Ben slurping at his gla.s.s of milk. Miya hurriedly gobbled down the soup, wanting to escape the atmosphere which had somehow turned very awkward.
Once she was done, she picked up Ben, thanked everyone profusely and almost ran out of the kitchen. Her relief didn"t last long though, for Charlie followed her out and came with her into her room as well.
Night fell.
It was almost time for dinner.
Mr. Park sat in his room, his body leaning into the couch. His eyes were closed, and wrinkles marred his otherwise flawless skin. He was either asleep, or in deep thought. Somehow, he looked like he had just aged ten years. He was exhausted.
When he heard the sound of his wife"s footsteps, a faint smile spread on his lips. He didn"t open his eyes, but knew by instinct that she was hesitant to approach him.
"It"s bad, huh?" he called out.
Charlie took that as his willingness to talk about the matter.
She sat on a chair across him.
"Worse," she then replied.
Mr. Park sighed deeply.
"What did you find out?"
Charlie looked at him, concerned.
"We don"t have to discuss it right now."
"You know we do."
That was all the permission she needed.
The old woman walked up to a large cupboard in her room and unlocked it with a code. Then pulling out a thick folder from within, she locked it again and reoccupied her seat. She put the folder on a table, which was placed between her chair and Mr. Park"s couch.
She sat firmly in her seat. This time when she spoke, her back was straight, and her eyes harsh. Her voice had lost its warmth, it was stern and meant business.
"Should I go easy on you?" she asked.
Mr. Park slowly shook his head, still not opening his eyes.
Charlie let out a deep breath.
"I have only you to blame for this. You were the eldest, the most experienced."
"Go on," Park sighed.
"She burnt her own father alive."
Mr. Park jolted at the words. He immediately opened his eyes and sat up straight. His face was the embodiment of horror.
"W-What?!" he shouted, his heart leaping to his mouth.
"When she was twelve."
"Are you sure?"
Charlie motioned towards the folder.
"It"s all in there."
While Park took up the folder with shivering hands, his heart thumped as he looked at his wife in fear. Her eyes said that she wasn"t trifling with him. In fact, why would she? Especially when it concerned Jimmy… the boy was like a son to her.
Charlie went on.
"You told me to research on Miya"s childhood, since you had zero leads on that. I found one. To be honest, her childhood is common to one of any of the lower cla.s.ses. Promiscuous, alcoholic mother. Father, a raging gambler. In short, a violent and abusive childhood."
Mr. Park had opened the folder, but he was unable to see the contents. His mind was too deep in shock.
"Should I go on?" Charlie asked.
He nodded weakly.
Twenty years ago, when Mr. Byeong Park had married Charlie Swan, she was working as the state"s Commissioner of Police. Post marriage, she had quit the job and decided to become a homemaker. Together, they had built a small, happy family. And even though they didn"t have any children, Jimmy had always been more or less like a son.
Charlie had never completely let go of her job, though. She still had deep contacts within the police department, and sometimes took on work as a freelance researcher as well. There were times when she was free and guided other researchers and investigators on how to do the job too. However, she had never once worked for the Hunter Corporation.
The Hunters were family. And she never mixed business and family.
Until now, of course. When the issue was of a girl that Jim had already married.
Park had especially requested her a.s.sistance a day before, because he had been unable to find any trace whatsoever of the girl"s childhood.
Charlie cleared her throat and went on.
"I was surprised too, when I heard about the father. But it"s confirmed. I pulled out her entire call history for the past five years. Got each location traced. While most were to random pay phones, some were to co-workers and friends. I got some students of mine to talk to them, and only one girl said something worth noting. Almost n.o.body knows of her past, but this girl said that she had once seen Miya go into a hospital named Avante. Sure enough, we saw that at least two calls were made per year to that hospital from Miya"s phone."
Mr. Park nodded numbly.
"She did set fire to the man, but she got only about sixty percent of him. The guy went into a coma. He"s been in that state for the past fifteen years."
All strength left Mr. Park"s body. He couldn"t even think anymore.
Charlie continued.
"Miya has been going to visit him once every year for the past five years. She pays for his bills too. It didn"t make any sense to me at first, but then I found out that her father used to live in a village called Lang with his family. That"s where I got really lucky and we figured out most of her childhood.
There are several oddities here and there, but I have most of it. Her father"s name is Tao, and Tao is a famous man in the village Lang even now. He was a notorious gambler back in his day, so I naturally a.s.sumed he must have been abusive, which in turn made Miya attack him at such a young age. That"s the first strange part. The man was as meek as a sheep. He was never known to be violent. He never even raised his voice at his promiscuous and drunkard wife. The village elders confirmed that.
Then one day, something happened, I suppose. He slapped the girl, and she attacked him the way she did. Tao was taken to the hospital and Miya was sent to a mental health facility. She managed to break out from there within a month. That"s strange part number two. From the age of twelve, till the age of twenty-two there was no trace of the girl. Once she escaped the mental facility, it was like she disappeared for ten years straight.
Until one day, five years ago, she was found by Tao"s distant cousin. He couldn"t recognize her at first, but they met in the hospital, in her father"s ward. She didn"t tell him a lot, and he was afraid to talk to her too, but she told him she had been back only a few months ago. She begged him to keep it a secret, of course. Tao"s cousin was afraid enough to oblige. She also took on the responsibility of paying the bills, which the cousin had been doing for the past ten years. The luck that I met with was that an investigator of mine could talk to this cousin. He still lives in the same village.
The icing on the cake, though, is this. When Miya returned, she was already pregnant. And she is living under a new ident.i.ty now. Her actual name isn"t Miya. It"s Kasu."
Mr. Park could barely breathe.
He felt like a sucker punch had been landed directly into his face.
"As for her mother, she left the village soon after the incident. n.o.body knows of her since then."
Several minutes pa.s.sed, as Charlie looked at her husband with a neutral face. She couldn"t believe how irresponsible he had been, in allowing Jimmy to marry someone like that. She sympathised with him too, though. She knew he couldn"t be very firm with Jim, and G.o.d knew the boy could be arrogant and wilful.
When Park had finally taken in all the information, he took a gla.s.s of water and gulped it down in one go. What he actually needed was some whiskey. Neat.
"Is she psychopathic?" he finally asked, his eyes holding no emotion at all.
Charlie shook her head.
"I don"t think so. I went through whatever you have on her life since she returned. There"s a lot of violence in her past, but I don"t think she"s actually mentally ill. The reason, as a village elder put it, that she was sent to a mental health facility instead of a juvenile rehab when she attacked Tao was because people actually considered her to be mad back then. She was a very quiet child, unresponsive, and bullied. Her mother was abusive too. I"m a.s.suming she stopped responding to people as a kid. The villagers thought she was mad anyway, and with such a closed community, they probably wanted to keep the police away. The family was quite dysfunctional as it is. With the father in the state he was in, the mother fleeing and the daughter considered insane, I think the villagers might actually have been happy to be rid of the family.
Her pattern since she has been back is pretty much normal. She got enrolled in a social help group, has been taking care of her child. Came clean on drug tests that these cooperative societies conduct at random. That makes me believe that she"s not mentally ill. But, I"m not putting that possibility completely off the table. She did get involved in incidents of a.s.sault."
Mr. Park didn"t say anything at all.
The fact that this woman"s name too wasn"t real made him look at the situation with disbelief. And when he remembered her small stature and her cute demeanour, he couldn"t a.s.sociate such a dark history with someone like her.
And then, suddenly, an idea crossed across his mind.
Despite everything, something in him still wanted to defend the girl.
"Charlie," he said grimly, "Is there a possibility that this girl isn"t Kasu? What I mean to say is, what if the child who left and the woman who returned are two different people? There"s a huge ten year gap anyway. What if, for some reason, Miya is a.s.suming Kasu"s ident.i.ty, and Kasu never actually made it?"
Charlie shrugged, and then shook her head.
"I thought of that too," she said, "And so I got the investigator to confirm from Tao"s cousin as to how he had recognized the girl. The man said it was the face. He could never forget it, that it had haunted him every time he went to meet Tao. But he told us of other identification marks too. Two, and both pretty unique.
When Miya set the fire, and Tao went into coma, two days later her mother actually shot her own daughter in rage. That was why the woman ran away. The wound was on Miya"s stomach, and it left a mark. Other than that, when the girl was eight, she was attacked by a wolf once. Almost the entire skin on her left shoulder had been torn off. That too, left a rather unique mark. Now I know, that against all odds, for two girls to share a similar gunshot wound is still possible. But to share a gunshot wound, and a ripped shoulder mark? Impossible."
Mr. Park said weakly, "Did you check her?"
Charlie nodded.
"I followed her into her room, once she left the kitchen. I told her how I had heard that Cesarean surgery left a mark and that I"d never seen it. I also fussed over her not having taken a proper shower since her arrival. Told her I"d rub her back, stuff like that. She agreed after some effort. That"s when I saw it. Just above her C-section scar, was the mark of a gunshot. It was unmistakable. And because she undressed for a shower, I saw the shoulder wound too.
There"s no mistake about it. It"s her."
Miya, Miya, Miya.
Mr. Park sighed.
She just couldn"t have been a regular girl.
Park thought about how much this complicated things, especially since the divorce wouldn"t happen for an entire year. Also, there was the matter of informing Jimmy, who but obviously was smitten with the girl.
Charlie took the folder from his hands.
"I still can"t believe you let someone like that into the family, Byeong. I have only you to blame. But I also request you to get this done away with quickly. The girl has to leave."
Mr. Park nodded silently.
Charlie was right. There was no way she would now stay in the family.
Especially since she had such a shady, unbelievable history.
There was but another thing that he found unbelievable though.
It was the fact that Miya was actually 27, when she looked barely 18.
Sighing, the both of them looked at the clock.
It was time for dinner.