Lee’s trial began eleven months after Mary Lou came home.
By then, the events that had once occupied every waking hour had begun to belong to another scale of time.
Mary Lou could go entire days without thinking about him.
That surprised her more than the arrest had.
She did not return to Korea for the opening arguments.
Prosecutors did not need her physically present. Her earlier statements were preserved, and if additional testimony became necessary, arrangements could be made.
Mary Lou had expected guilt.
Instead she felt relief.
Ji-hoon attended several days and called afterward.
He never dramatized what happened.
“His attorney challenged the ledger chain.”
“And?”
“The evidence technician explained it.”
“Successfully?”
“The judge told the attorney to move on.”
Mary Lou smiled.
Another day Ji-hoon said, “They showed Theresa’s notebook.”
Mary Lou became still.
“What did they say about it?”
“They explained the initials.”
“And her?”
Ji-hoon paused.
“They said she preserved records at personal risk.”
Mary Lou looked down.
That was enough.
Lee’s defense did what defenses did.
It challenged dates.
Questioned witnesses.
Argued that Choi had greater authority.
Suggested that certain actions had been misunderstood.
Pointed to gaps.
There were gaps.
Mary Lou had stopped being frightened by gaps.
Truth did not require omniscience.
It required enough reliable pieces to establish what had happened.
The prosecution had those pieces.
Some came from Choi.
Some from financial institutions.
Some from immigration and corporate records.
Some from Theresa’s basement.
And some came from Lee himself, preserved in communications he had apparently believed would never be examined together.
Near the end of the trial, prosecutors asked Mary Lou whether she would testify remotely about one narrow issue.
She agreed.
On the morning of her testimony, she dressed carefully.
Not for Lee.
For herself.
She sat in a small conference room with a court-approved video connection. A technician adjusted the camera. An attorney explained the procedure.
Mary Lou listened.
Then the screen changed.
The courtroom appeared.
She saw the judge.
The attorneys.
Rows of people.
And Lee.
For a moment, her body remembered before her mind did.
Her hands went cold.
Her breathing shortened.
She noticed it.
Then she put both feet flat on the floor.
Lee looked older.
That was all.
He no longer occupied the enormous shape fear had once given him.
He was simply a man sitting beside his attorney.
Mary Lou took the oath.
The prosecutor asked about a conversation from the period before Lee’s escape attempt.
Mary Lou answered only what she remembered.
When she did not remember exact wording, she said so.
When the defense attorney pressed her about inconsistencies in dates, she corrected one of her earlier estimates.
“You were mistaken before?” he asked.
“About the day of the week, yes.”
“So your memory is unreliable.”
“My memory of whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday was unreliable.”
The attorney waited.
Mary Lou did not fill the silence.
“And the rest?”
“You’ll have to ask me about the rest.”
Something shifted in the courtroom.
Not dramatically.
The attorney moved on.
He asked whether Mary Lou disliked Lee.
“Yes.”
The prosecutor objected.
The judge allowed the answer to stand.
The defense attorney leaned toward the microphone.
“So you want him convicted.”
Mary Lou looked directly into the camera.
“I want the court to decide from the evidence.”
It was the simplest answer available.
It was also true.
After forty-three minutes, she was released.
Mary Lou stepped outside the conference room.
Her knees trembled.
She sat on a bench.
The attorney who had accompanied her asked whether she needed water.
“Yes.”
He brought a paper cup.
Mary Lou drank half of it.
Then she started laughing.
The attorney looked concerned.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
That made her laugh harder.
She covered her face briefly.
“I’m not fine. But I’m finished.”
The distinction mattered.
Weeks later, the verdict came.
Lee was convicted on multiple counts.
Not every count.
Enough.
Mary Lou listened while Park explained the decision.
She did not cheer.
She did not cry.
She stood in her kitchen holding the phone while sunlight moved slowly across the floor.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Sentencing.”
“And after that?”
Park hesitated.
“For the case?”
“For us.”
His voice softened.
“You live.”
Mary Lou looked toward Theresa’s photograph.
“That simple?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Park laughed.
Sentencing took place later that year.
Mary Lou submitted no additional statement.
She had already said what she needed to say.
Choi’s cooperation continued to expose related financial schemes. Several investigations remained active. Some produced charges. Others did not.
There would never be one day when every wrong person was punished and every harmed person restored.
Mary Lou finally accepted that justice was not a door that opened once.
It was work.
Slow work.
Imperfect work.
Necessary work.
Ji-hoon recovered enough to return to his job, though he changed departments.
He told Mary Lou only after he had signed the paperwork.
“You changed jobs?”
“Same organization.”
“Why?”
“I was tired of being where everyone expected me to remain.”
Mary Lou smiled into the phone.
“That sounds familiar.”
His mother still worried.
He listened to her.
Then made his own decisions.
Mary Lou approved, though she was careful not to say so in a way that sounded like permission.
The following spring, she booked the trip she had talked about.
She chose Lisbon almost arbitrarily after seeing a photograph of yellow trams climbing a steep street.
When the confirmation appeared on her laptop, Mary Lou stared at it.
One passenger.
Her name.
Her passport.
Her itinerary.
No code.
No secret meeting.
No investigation.
No one waiting to tell her where she was allowed to go.
At the airport, she felt the old tension return.
Security lines.
Passport checks.
Announcements.
For one irrational second she expected an official to pull her aside and say there had been a mistake.
Nobody did.
The officer returned her passport.
“Have a good trip.”
Mary Lou almost laughed.
“I intend to.”
Lisbon was hilly enough to make her question the judgment of everyone who had recommended walking.
She got lost twice on the first afternoon.
She ate alone at a small restaurant and discovered that being alone in public did not feel lonely.
It felt spacious.
The next morning she sent Ji-hoon a photograph of a blue-tiled building.
He replied:
*You look happy.**
Mary Lou examined the picture.
She had accidentally included her reflection in the glass.
He was right.
On her final evening, she sat near the river while the light turned gold over the water.
She thought about Korea.
Not because she was trapped there mentally.
Because she could think about it now without returning to it.
Theresa.
Choi.
Lee.
The basement.
The ledgers.
Ji-hoon bleeding and alive.
Detective Park pretending not to care while checking her travel clearance three times.
Mary Lou had once believed surviving meant getting back to the person she had been before.
She understood now that there was no going back.
There was only carrying forward what deserved to come.
She took out her phone.
Ji-hoon had sent a message.
*Where next?**
Mary Lou looked at the river.
She typed:
*Home.**
Then she added:
*After that, I’ll decide.**
Click here to continue reading: PART 24: HOME WAS NEVER A PLACE THEY COULD KEEP
The Morning After Arthur’s Funeral, His Lawyer Brought a Blue Ledger That Made Twenty Years of Resentment Feel Suddenly Dangerous
Part 23 of 27
