Second Chance (32 page)

At 12:37 p.m. on
February 23, 2002, she gave birth to a baby boy. She held his lifeless body in
her arms and cried. She told him about his father and she cried even more. When
it was time to let him go, she named him and kissed him one last time before
she reluctantly handed him to a nurse.

When her mother
came to see her at the hospital, bringing her boiled chicken and rice, she told
Sue, perhaps this was God’s will. That it was not meant to be and consider it a
blessing. Sue hadn’t seen or heard from her parents since that night she left on
her bike, and to see her mother again only to hear that this was God’s will was
too much to bear. It had been too lonely, too painful, too cruel. “Please
leave,” she told her mother. “Please leave,” she said softly, sadly.

When her mother
walked out of that lonely hospital room, leaving her to shed her tears in
agonizing silence, she wanted to close her eyes and sleep forever. The little
bit of hope she had was now gone.

The rest of her
family told her the same thing her mother did. God’s will? Sue couldn’t think
of it that way. How could she think of this as God’s will and a blessing that
she didn’t have her son with her? She had felt him, had heard his heartbeat,
had seen him, and had held him. If this was truly God’s will, what did she do
to deserve this? For being naïve? For being gullible? For not being a
mi
ntxhais zoo
(good girl)?

Sue used the
money she had saved to give her son a proper funeral and she picked out a
beautiful headstone for him. At his funeral, only her younger sister Mai Yia
and her pastor were present. The rest of her family either didn’t know or
didn’t care and to Sue, it no longer mattered.

Her mother took
more than the steamed rice and boiled chicken with her when she walked out of
Sue’s hospital room.

After the small
funeral service, Sue stopped at Indian Mounds Park. There, overlooking the city
of St. Paul, she let her tears fall. She cried and cried some more and thought
her tears would never stop. She wished she never met Jun Jae Park. She wished
she had never gone to South Korea. She wished she wasn’t such a fricking
romantic that she fell in love with the first guy that kissed her. She wished
she would have been a good girl and didn’t go to bed with the first cute guy
who paid attention to her. She wished she could turn back time and…and…she
buried her face in her hands and wished she’d been stronger.

By summer, Sue
was still working her full-time job at the bank and her part-time job at the
residential home. The work was mindless, but it kept her busy. She picked up
shifts others didn’t want and she worked double, sometimes triple shifts. Only
this time, she had no more reason to work than to dull her mind and her time.

When she was not
working, she slept. On her weekends off, she slept. Life just seemed so
meaningless, so empty, so lonely. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she got angry.
Most of the time, she just wanted to sleep the time away. She lost weight and
started to lose her hair.  The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her.
Maybe it was her diet or the stress in her life, the doctor had said, but
nothing metabolically wrong with her.

One day, her
friend Katie showed up at her door. One look at her and Katie burst into tears.
“Tony told me what you went through and said you were okay, but you don’t look
okay. You look like hell, Sue.”

“Thanks, Katie,
for pointing out the obvious, but really, I’m fine.”

“No you’re not,
and you know it.” Katie hugged her. “You should have gone to Europe with me. I
should have asked my father to convince yours and take you with me. Oh, Sue,
tell me, what happened?”

Katie had been
abroad, backpacking in Europe. She left when Sue returned from South Korea.
They were supposed to go together after graduation but Sue’s parents wouldn’t
allow her to go so the plans were abandoned until Katie met a young man name
Patrick Jacobson. Patrick convinced Katie not to miss out on the opportunity to
explore Europe.

Sue told Katie
what happened, every painful detail and oh, how the wound still bled after all
these months. Katie cried. The two friends cried and hugged and cried some
more. It was nice to pour out her soul to another living being and after the
crying and laughing, Sue felt much better. “Okay, enough about all this
depressing stuff. Tell me about you, Katie. Tell me about Europe and Patrick,”
Sue said, wiping her eyes.

“Well, where
would you like me to start?”

“Start with…oh, I
don’t know, Europe.”

“Well, all
right…”

CHAPTER
42

Summer 2002

The things that
haunt us most might not be the ghosts that lurk in the dark or monsters in the closets.
The things that haunt us could be in plain sight, sometimes, right in our
faces.

Sue discovered
the extent of her disgrace purely by accident. It was during her grandmother’s
funeral. Sue was sitting on the second row at her grandmother’s wake with
Katie. Three women whom she had never met before spoke animatedly about someone
who was apparently at the funeral. When she heard her name, she thought it must
be a different Sue. But something about what they were saying caught her full
attention. She knew then they were talking about her.

“I heard it was a
Jap who knocked her up. See, this is why I tell my daughters to stay away from
those foreigners. They will leave you with a bastard and nothing else!” one
woman said.

“You must be
mistaken. For sure it was a Korean. I heard she went to Korea. Reason was, she
was studying there and returned pregnant,” another woman replied. “Did you know
she was trying to hide that bastard of hers? I heard she move to live with a
white woman.”

“Oh, how
shameful! Shameful indeed. It was a Korean. Yes, that’s right. No, wasn’t it a
Chinese?” the third woman said. The other two women shook their heads in
disagreement. They eventually agreed it must have been a Jap who impregnated
Sue, though there was no doubt Sue had been with a Korean. “I hear she is the
smart one, too. I feel so sorry for that father of hers. To lose a son not long
ago, now a mother and a disgraced daughter! Tsk, tsk, and to think, she is
studying to be a doctor. Huh! Doctor my behind!” the third woman added.

They laughed and
continued their analysis of her behavior, of the shame she had brought her
proud father, how glad their good daughters did not carry bastards. “No
respectable man would marry her now,” they said. “Maybe she will be suitable as
a second wife to some poor fellow,” they joked. “Or maybe to a Caucasian who
beats their wives, yes that must be it. The way these girls are now days. All
that makeup. All that hair being dyed blonde. And, oh, don’t forget the way
they speak to their parents! No respect. No respect at all! Shameful, shameful
indeed!” they continued.

Sue felt sick.
She was sitting right there with them and they spoke about her as if all she
ever done thus far was to shame her parents. The women even turned to her and
advised her not to follow in the footsteps of this Sue they spoke of. “You look
decent. Don’t dye your hair.” “And don’t shame your parents,
mi ntxhais.
Heed our advice and respect your elders.” “Oh, yes, listen to her, heed your
elders indeed.” “And don’t involve yourself with foreigners. They don’t love.
They beat and they divorce.”

They didn’t even
know her. Yet these women knew all about her
shame
and her
bastard
.
Her bastard. The child she lost, the child she still mourned was a shameful
bastard. She felt nauseous.

Things didn’t
improve. For the rest of the funeral, Sue did her best to be respectful. She
helped her mother as much as she could. She greeted mourners. She served
drinks. She cooked. She cleaned. She served breakfast, lunch and dinner. She
stayed at the funeral home overnight to keep vigil of her grandmother. She
prayed. She cried. She was the perfect daughter. At least to those who didn’t
know her name. Most of the guest called her “
mi ntxhais
,” the Hmong word
for “daughter.” But the gossip circulated and once in a while, she would see
someone pointing toward her, whispering something juicy to another person.
Young or old, gossip was gossip and the more
shameful
the better. Shame.
Oh, how she hated that word.

At the burial,
while her family shed tears and said their goodbyes, she heard someone whisper,
“That
mi ntxhais
is Sue. Yes, that’s her. Pretty isn’t she? What a
shame! I’m telling you, these girls now days are chasing after those Caucasians
like a bitch in heat.”

“Oh, but it
wasn’t a Caucasian that got her pregnant. Didn’t you hear, it was a Jap,”
someone whispered back.

“Oh, yes, you are
right.” “No, no, it was a Korean, I’m sure of it,” more whispered.

God, make them
shut up! Shut up. Just shut up!
She screamed in her head.
I’m so sorry
my love. I didn’t shame you. Your father wasn’t just some boy. I loved him.
God, I’m so sorry. I’m not ashamed. Please know that. Please
, she silently
pleaded.
As God is my witness, you are not a bastard.

On the outside,
she was the picture of a mourner. Dark circles surrounded her eyes from lack of
sleep. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Her hair was a mess. She was
pale and fragile.

How pathetic.
I’m becoming what they want me to be. I’m becoming the shameful woman everyone
talked about. How pathetic indeed. But no more. Please God, give me strength
.

She buried more
than just her grandmother that day. She decided there were some battles that
weren’t worth shedding blood over. These gossip whisperers tortured her,
interrogated her, rubbed salt and lemon onto a freshly opened wound, willing
her to respond. They wanted her anger. They wanted her blood. All to add to
this juicy story of a good Hmong girl gone bad. She could set them straight,
these gossip whisperers. She could correct them there and then, that what they
heard and said weren’t true. But she would only add fuel to the fire. She would
only give them another reason to repeat the gossip and more gossip to
circulate. No, she decided
. I’ll not correct them. Why must I
? She would
fight with the weapons she had. She would fight them on her grounds. This was a
battle of time and time was all she had.

In time, either
her story would be forgotten but to Sue, the damage was done. What they said
changed the course of her life, whether she accepted that or acknowledged that
fact, it didn’t matter.

Sue took Katie’s
advice and registered for classes that fall. She moved out of her apartment
into a dorm. Before classes resumed, on a warm September afternoon, Sue went to
Indian Mounds Park and said goodbye to those she had lost. She allowed herself
to cry for the last time on that day. She lost so much in the span of a year
that no one, except Sue, knew how hard it was to continue living. When she left
the park that day, there were no more tears and no need for them. She had shed
enough tears to last her a lifetime. No more. “Goodbye, loves,” she whispered
to the wind. “Goodbye.”

CHAPTER
43

February 2010

Sue made Jae more
noodles before returning to the search results about Khyba. She clicked on the
video results. There were several videos and Jae took over directing the links.
Sue was impressed how many were posted and laughed at the comments people made
about Khyba. There were fan made videos with still photos of him and videos of
his Korean dramas,
Summer
and
Sweet Lullaby
.

“What is
Summer
and
Sweet Lullaby
about?” Sue asked Jae.

“You’ve never
seen them?”

“No.”

“Have you seen
any of my work?”

“I’m sorry.”

Jae placed his
bowl down on the coffee table before he began. “
Summer
is about a man
who fell in love with a woman name Summer. Their love was brief, but
meaningful. Like ours.” He winked at her.

She smiled.

“
Sweet Lullaby
is more complicated. I played a character name Shin, who fell in love with a
woman name Soo Jin. The relationship between Shin and Soo Jin started out
tragically. Shin eventually learns to love Soo Jin and spends fifteen hours of
the show discovering just how much.”

“What happens at
the end of
Sweet Lullaby
?”

“You need to
watch the show to find out.”

“Just tell me.”

“Watch it,
sweetheart.”

“Fine,” Sue said,
clicking on a music video for
Sweet Lullaby
.

Jae stopped the
video. “Watch it when I’m not around. I would rather not watch myself.” Sue
nodded. Jae skipped through the Korean drama videos and only played his music
videos. He clicked on a video titled
Vows
. “You inspired this song and
many of the ones I wrote,” he told her.

“Did I now?” she
replied, watching the video start.

The video began
with a close up of his handsome, flawless face then progressed to show his
muscular body. The screen darkened then the image of a church appeared as a
slow, acoustic guitar solo began to play. Two teenagers stood in front of … the
altar. That altar. Her eyes widened in recognition. Unlike his other music she
heard this evening; this song was slow, melodic.

She had heard
this music before.

“
I vow to you
upon my soul, to cherish you I would

To love you
until death do us part

I vow this
love to you alone…

I pray each
night we’ll meet again, to show you

That I’ve kept
my vows…”

Sue had often
wondered what Jae remembered of their encounter in Seoul. She had part of the
answer. The music video showed two teenagers jumping off cliffs and sleeping
under the glittering night sky, flashing in between their march to the altar.
Seeing a very memorable and extremely painful part of her life shown with all
its romanticism to millions of viewers made her felt a mixture of horrified
sadness. Was that possible? She was horrified at the knowledge that this man,
perhaps, had loved her just as much as she loved him. Yet, she was saddened at
the knowledge that there had been so many years wasted on grief and anger.