The Beloved Daughter (26 page)

“Sister!” Kwan greeted. I didn’t have to feign my relief as he hugged me. The officer spoke with my husband in Mandarin and handed him a large sum of money, all the while continuing to bow obsequiously toward us both.

Once we were alone in the car driving toward Sanhe I turned to my husband. “I thought you were dead!”

“Dead?” Kwan’s eyes opened wide before narrowing in anger. “So he told you I was dead? That fool of a traitor!”

“Mr. Kim?”

“Who else? The same man who sold you for eight hundred yuan while I was out risking my life to save his daughter.”

“So you weren’t shot?”

“No.”

“Arrested?”

Kwan snorted. “Not quite.”

“What happened then?” I asked.

“So-Young was kidnapped on the way to the nurse’s.”

“By whom? The police?”

“No. Mr. Kim never allowed me to tell you, but he and So-Young are not really from Seoul. They are from South Hwanghae Province, North Korea. After they arrived in Sanhe, Mr. Kim had their papers changed to show Chinese residency and citizenship.”

“So-Young never told me.”

“That’s because she didn’t know,” Kwan remarked. “She was very young when they came across the border. She suffered much in her homeland and doesn’t remember anything from her time in North Korea.” I thought of my friend, so gentle and so mature. I wondered how much she endured before finally escaping to Jilin Province.

“What does this have to do with the kidnapping?”

“Someone found out the Kims were in Sanhe illegally. It was all a trap, even the sick baby. They caught So-Young on the way to the nurse’s, then sent word to Mr. Kim demanding ransom money.” I thought about my four days alone in the deserted cabin on the mountainside, when I was so anxious over So-Young’s safety.

“Is that what compelled Mr. Kim to turn me in?”

In the passenger seat beside my husband, I winced as Kwan maneuvered the steering wheel with one hand and tugged on his knuckles with the other. “I went out to negotiate with So-Young’s captors. I couldn’t return to you earlier because the safe house was being watched. Mr. Kim was supposed to go to the cabin and bring you more food and tell you to wait a few more days. I never suspected he would do something as spineless and cowardly as sell you to the police for bribe money.”

“Is So-Young safe now?”

“She was already safe before Mr. Kim returned from betraying you on the mountaintop. I told the brutes responsible for the kidnapping that we would leave the region and give them the title to the safe house. We were all going to leave for South Korea. The plan would have worked out wonderfully. You, me, Mr. Kim, and So-Young … we could have all been in Seoul by now if it weren't for that dog’s greedy, underhanded treachery.”

“But now everybody is out of harm’s way?” I pressed, clutching Kwan’s forearm.

“They didn’t hurt So-Young, if that’s what you’re anxious about. She and her coward of a father are already in South Korea. They wanted me to come along as well, but I said that I would wait here for you, even if the kidnappers took over the house, and I had to live out on the streets.”

I never remember feeling so much respect and admiration for my husband. “But why would Mr. Kim tell me you were dead?” I wondered.

“Perhaps he imagined he was being merciful to you.” Kwan spat out his open window. “Maybe he thought if you believed that your husband was dead, it would make it easier to face all that abuse and torture he sold you into. It makes no sense to me.”

“He was thinking about So-Young. Parents will do many things for the children they love.” I wished that I could tell Kwan about the officer who rescued me, but I didn’t know if even that was safe. There were so many questions I didn’t ask Moses, so many things we didn’t have time to discuss. “You know that Mr. Kim ended up using the ransom money to buy me a Chinese passport and residency papers, don’t you?” I asked my husband.

Kwan shrugged. “If he hadn’t sold you, he wouldn’t have needed to. He was lucky that Mo …” My husband stopped himself mid-sentence and rubbed his cheek. “He was lucky that he knew someone who could help.”

Kwan was silent. I tried to think of something to say to lift his spirits. “I’ve never seen you drive a car,” I remarked, trying to sound light-hearted. “It suits you well.”

“I wouldn’t have had to drive it all the way out here if it weren’t …” Kwan’s voice drifted off, and he glared at the winding road.

“At least now we can go to South Korea directly since I have a valid passport.” Kwan clenched his jaw and said nothing. “After all,” I added, touching my husband’s hand, “our baby will need to grow up in a safe place, away from all the guards and police and surprise raids.”

Kwan turned to look at me until I was certain he was about to drive the car off the road. “Baby?” Kwan swerved at the last minute to straighten out the vehicle before it hit a tree.

I smiled at my husband, basking in his open admiration and surprise. As we drove back to Sanhe, my heart was filled with more hope than I thought possible when I woke up that morning a prisoner in the Onsong jail.

PART SIX

Seoul

South Korea

Called

“When you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” John 21:18

I smiled in spite of my exhaustion as the chubby toddler tickled my belly. My back ached, and my ankles were so swollen my shoes didn’t fit anymore. It was a miracle I could even walk.

“Baby! Baby! Wake up, Baby!” the almost three-year-old sang and blew a kiss on my abdomen. Since there was no longer any room for sitting on my lap, the girl from Mrs. Cho’s South-Korean orphanage cuddled next to me on the couch.

“Auntie Chung-Cha?” asked her twin, pulling my arm. She was the more vocal of the two sisters, and much more serious as well. “When can I hold your baby?”

“Not yet.” I stroked her jet black hair. It was just long enough for me to tie up in two short pig tails. “You have to wait until Baby is born.”

Mrs. Cho entered the room, and the girls stopped touching my belly. “Look at these pillows.” Mrs. Cho shook her head. She clucked her tongue at the girls and suppressed a grin. “You pick them up right now.” The twins jumped off the couch to obey, but as soon as the pillows were in their proper places, the sisters cuddled next to me once more, rubbing my abdomen whenever Mrs. Cho happened to look away.

“Can I help you with anything?” I offered my benefactress, earning my own glare of disapproval from Mrs. Cho. Since I arrived at her home in Seoul nearly five months earlier, the orphanage matron refused to let me assist her in any household work. My days were filled resting and playing with the orphans for as long as my limited energy would allow. “You need practice with children,” Mrs. Cho often reminded me with a grandmotherly smile.

“Auntie! Auntie!” The little girl’s pigtails bobbed up and down as she tried to get my attention. “Why isn’t Uncle home?” She pouted.

“Uncle Kwan had to go away. He’ll be back soon.” I tried to sound cheerful, but I don’t think I succeeded. Mrs. Cho came up behind me and rubbed my shoulders.

“Come out now, Baby!” her sister commanded to my midsection, raising her voice and pursing her lips together. She put her hands on her hips.

“The baby isn’t ready to come out yet,” the pigtailed twin scolded, then turned to me as Mrs. Cho repositioned a barrette in her hair. “Will Uncle Kwan be home when Baby’s born?”

“Hopefully,” I sighed, although with each passing day and each contraction of false labor, it became harder and harder to hold on to hope.

Kwan returned to China thirteen days after we arrived at Mrs. Cho’s orphanage in Seoul. Those two weeks we spent together brought with them the sweetness of new marriage that we could never find for ourselves in Sanhe. It probably didn’t hurt that we had spent the past three weeks separated, convinced we would never be together again. In Seoul, safe from the threat of raids and repatriation, Kwan and I did very little but talk and dream together about the child we conceived.

“He’ll be strong,” Kwan told me. “Like your father.”

“Perhaps it’s a girl.”

“Then she’ll be beautiful,” Kwan declared, “like you.”

Unfortunately, the bliss Kwan and I experienced once we were finally safe in South Korea was short-lived.

“Pastor Tong was arrested again,” my husband told me only a week and a half after we arrived in Seoul.

I was frightened by the determined look etched in Kwan’s face. “Is it a harsh sentence?”

“Life.” When Kwan wrapped his arm around me, I realized I was trembling.

“Who’s left to care for the church?”

“Mr. Kim is already here in South Korea.” Kwan cracked his knuckles. “Not that I would trust that double-crossing dog to offer spiritual care to anyone.”

“So who does that leave back in Sanhe?” I wondered why this news sent chills up my spine.

“That pastor’s son.” Kwan sat on our bed next to me. “He’s now the only one.” Kwan stared at me for so long I finally looked down at the floor.

“I’m going back,” he announced, in that instant curtailing whatever honeymoon period we enjoyed.

Kwan stood up. “I’ll do everything in my power to return before autumn.” That promise was made nearly five months ago. Sitting on Mrs. Cho’s couch beside the two twins, I watched out the window while some of the older children played outside in the snow. I leaned my cheek against one of the girl’s head and thought about the last time I saw my husband. He came into our room just moments before his cab was scheduled to take him to the airport.

“I’ll be back soon.” Kwan brushed a stray strand of my hair behind my ear. “And then there will be plenty of time to massage your back once your belly is large and swollen.”

“Why are you leaving at all?” I forced myself to take a deep breath. I didn’t want Kwan to see me panic.

“They need me there.”

“You’re not their savior.”

I tried to turn away, but Kwan held me against his chest. In Seoul I was always surprised at Kwan’s protective love now that we were expecting our first child. I despised myself for not encouraging him more in his work for the Lord. I wanted to keep my husband here with me and forget about our pasts.

“I’m sorry,” I admitted. “I just wish you didn’t have to go.” Kwan leaned over and kissed the top of my head. His hand rested on my abdomen, and he rubbed it gently.

“I’ll be back soon. I’ll take two months to help train some new leaders, then I’ll return in time to see my wife grow large and plump. Think of all the children here eager to play with Auntie. You’ll hardly notice that I’m missing.” With his free hand, Kwan ran his fingers through my hair.

“What if something happens?” Away from Sanhe and the constant terror of surprise raids and repatriation, I grew even more dependent on my husband.

Kwan held me close. “God will take care of us.” I cringed.
Didn’t Father make the same promise so many years ago?

I handed Kwan his passport and travel papers. Kwan leaned over and whispered to our child tucked away in my womb, “I love you, precious one.”

You see, beloved daughter, that even as he was getting ready to leave in order to fulfill the work of the Lord, your father was thinking about you. Before you were born, he adored you – the precious daughter he would never meet.

Beloved

“Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long.” Deuteronomy 33:12