Miracle Creek

“Modesty, blending in, invisibility: those were the virtues of wives, not notoriety and gaudiness. Wasn’t that why brides wore veils—to protect them from stares, to mute the redness of their cheeks?” 

Young’s thoughts as she enters the courtroom provide a glimpse into the way Young views her role: She is meant to be modest and unobtrusive. However, Young will have to discard this role to discover the truth and obtain justice.

“But it felt undeserved, wrong, like a prize won by cheating, and instead of buoying her, it weighed her down with worry that God would see and correct the injustice, make her pay for her lies some other way.” 

Although Young is relieved that no one has discovered their secret, she worries that God will punish them for it. This foreshadows what will happen in the rest of the text. Although their lie is seemingly harmless, it will have tragic consequences.

“His hands refused what his mind willed them to do. Or maybe that was a lie; maybe he’d wanted to do just enough to tell himself he’d tried his best. That he hadn’t let a boy die because he didn’t want to damage his precious hands.” 

Matt thinks about the fire and how he tried to help Henry. Matt worries that he gave up too soon because he was more concerned with his own safety than with that of a child. Matt seems to be too hard on himself; after all, he did lose his fingers and damage his hands. On the other hand, Matt is a self-centered character, and it is not unbelievable that he would act out of self-preservation.

“People talked so much about the loss of intimacy between married couples as the years progress, so many studies about the number of times a couple has sex in the first year of marriage versus the remaining years, but no one measured the number of hours spent holding your baby in the first year of life versus the remaining years, the dramatic dissipation of intimacy—the sensual familiarity of nursing, holding, comforting—as children pass from infancy and toddlerhood to the teens.” 

Young mourns the loss of intimacy between her and Mary. Before coming to the United States, Mary and Young were close. However, Mary cannot forgive her mother for allowing other people to dictate her behavior, both Pak and the Kangs. As punishment, Mary withdraws from the relationship. 

“A core of quiet, obedient and alone, wrapped by a carapace of low expectations. It was as if discarding her Korean name had weakened her, like cutting Samson’s hair, and the replacement came with a meek persona she didn’t recognize or like.” 

Mary reveals just how much coming to the United States has changed her. She alludes to the Biblical story of Samson, a heroic figure, stronger than anyone. However, he becomes involved with Delilah, secretly working for the enemy, who discovers that Samson’s power lies in his long hair. Delilah cuts his hair, and Samson loses his strength immediately. This allusion reveals Mary’s belief that the core of her identity was changed by the move, and her feelings of betrayal by someone she loved, in this case, her mother. 

“She grudged and envied and coveted and downright hated them, these women with their exquisitely normal kids.” 

Elizabeth recalls her feelings the first time she observed Henry behaving differently from the other children. Part of her desire to heal Henry has much to do with her own desire to be the parent of an “exquisitely normal” child.

“She couldn’t tell Shannon how it felt today, forcing herself to look everyone in the eye, listen to every word, take in every exhibit, all the while keeping her face still, afraid the slightest movement might set off a domino reaction of emotion. The cauterizing shame of a hundred people pelting their stares of judgment at her like poison darts. Accept and absorb the blame. Gulp it down, more and more, until every cell in her body was bursting. She hadn’t just been ready for it; she’d craved it, relished it, couldn’t wait for more of it.” 

Elizabeth reveals her real reasons for pleading not guilty: She believes she deserves punishment and is bizarrely pleased at the hatred she receives from the jury. This is one of the first indications that Elizabeth might not be thinking rationally. Furthermore, her behavior prior to these thoughts—violently and suddenly vomiting while thinking about how Henry died—makes the reader question Elizabeth’s guilt in Henry’s murder. 

“Not Teresa the Mother or Teresa the Nurse, but simply Teresa, a woman. The world of Rosa, Carlos, wheelchairs, and tubes becoming surreal and distant. The intensity of her love and worry for them growing fainter like stars at dawn—still there, but not as visible.” 

Teresa reveals her own desire for normalcy. Kim once again highlights how difficult it could be for those without children to understand what it is like to be a parent. Teresa wants to be her own person, which is a normal and acceptable desire. To an outsider, however, her desire to be away from her children might seem cruel.

“Could it be that by turning right rather than left one day a year ago—an impulse, no more a ‘decision’ than picking which tie to wear—he’d changed everything? If he’d turned left, would Henry still be alive, head intact, and Matt at home right now, hands unmangled, taking pictures of a sleeping newborn instead of at this decrepit lot, spying to figure out if the man who could tie him to a murder weapon still worked here?” 

Matt drives to the 7-11 after learning that the cigarette used to start the fire was one he had purchased. Matt’s thoughts highlight once again how even the smallest and seemingly unimportant action can have unexpected consequences. 

“An exotic plaything to quench some deep-seated psychosexual aberration? Fetish implied something wrong. Obscene, even. And the word Oriental—it conjured up alien images of third-world, backward villages from long ago. Geisha and child brides. Submission and perversion.” 

When Janine discovers the notes between Matt and Mary, she thinks back to when she heard one of Matt’s relatives claim that Matt had a fetish for Asian women. Janine is humiliated at being reduced to an “aberration,” but these words also plant a seed of doubt in her mind, that perhaps Matt does not love her for herself, but as the fulfillment of some “obscene” fantasy. 

“To Koreans, being sparing with words signaled gravitas, but to Americans, verbiage was an inherent good, akin to kindness or courage. They loved words—the more, the longer, and more quickly said, the smarter and more impressive. Quietness, Americans seemed to equate with an empty mind—nothing to say, no thoughts worth hearing—or perhaps sullenness. Deceit, even.”

Pak’s thoughts explore the clash of two cultures, Korean and American. They also reveal just how much Pak is bothered by the ways in which others perceive or understand him.

“Besides, ‘recovery’ implied a baseline of normalcy that had been lost, whereas autism was supposed to be an inborn trait, which meant, of course, there was nothing lost to recover.” 

Elizabeth’s thoughts reflect just how misunderstood she was by those around her. Painted by Abe and the protestors as someone who wanted to stamp out Henry’s unique personality, Elizabeth reveals that she didn’t know about these alternative treatments, or understood that autism was something that could possibly be cured. It introduces as well the clash between cultures: those who believe autism is an abnormality meant to be eradicated, and those who believe autism is a personality meant to be celebrated.

“Elizabeth told herself that TJ wasn’t her child and everyone had their own way of doing things, but she ached for TJ, hated seeing him stagnate while Henry soared, and she yearned to take control and restore the parity between them, and with it—yes, she could admit it, she wanted this back most of all—her closeness with Kitt.” 

Once again, Elizabeth’s thoughts reveal that she is a much better person than anyone recognizes, including herself. She nags Kitt about the diet not out of superiority but out of a desire to help TJ. Additionally, this quote emphasizes the motif of honesty; much of the story would have been different had Elizabeth been honest about her needs.

“Later, he’d hyperanalyze every frame of his memory of this moment for any clue that she wasn’t the enthusiastic participant he’d assumed her to be—had she squirmed to get away? had she mumbled no, however faintly?—but the truth was, he’d been oblivious to everything except the parts of her body in contact with his, and her reactions, her sounds and movements—those hadn’t been a factor at all.” 

Matt’s thoughts reveal both his guilt and essential selfishness. He worries that he assaulted Mary, that he misread her cues, before admitting that he hadn’t been thinking of Mary as a person at all, only his own needs and desires.

“But when the sun was in just the right position, like now—morning, when the sun climbed above the trees into the middle of their makeshift window, perfectly framed by the square hole—it surged in, the square beam of light so strong it looked almost solid for the first meter before diffusing into an ethereal brightness that flooded the whole shack and gave it a fairy-tale quality. Floating motes of dust glittered in the veil of sunlight. Birds chirped.” 

Young’s thoughts about her home reflect the theme of narrative: Here, this one position can make Young forget that she lives in a shack “that drooped to one side” (54), with no privacy. The way the story is told alters the way we perceive it.

“But it was these everyday indignities, these small chunks of lost minutes, that got to her most, made her think how “normal” parents had no idea how good they had it. Oh, sure—moms of infants got a taste of this, but anything was bearable when it was temporary; try doing it day after day, knowing you’d do this until you died, that you’d be fricking squatting in a van peeing into a jar when you were eighty, driving around your fifty-year-old invalid daughter to God knows what therapies they’d have by then, worrying who’d take over when you died.” 

Teresa reveals here just how difficult it is to parent a child with disabilities, once again a commentary on culture and on narrative. The narrative surrounding Teresa is that of a real-life saint, Mother Teresa, who is sweet, kind, and loving. However, Teresa is also someone who gets frustrated, tired, and angry—like Elizabeth, Young, or any other parent. Teresa indicates here that what she, Kitt, and Elizabeth experience is much different than what parents of children without disabilities experience. 

“At the end of the day, you love Rosa, I love Henry, and we’ve both sacrificed everything and we’d do anything for them. So if a tiny part of us has these thoughts a tiny part of the time, thoughts we shut out as soon as they creep in, is that so bad? Isn’t that just human?” 

Elizabeth consoles Teresa for occasionally wondering if she did the right thing in praying for Rosa to live, no matter what. Elizabeth is logical and compassionate, and her words contrast with the Elizabeth on trial, who believes that she deserves to die for occasionally scratching and pinching her son.

“She once read that sounds left permanent imprints; the tonal vibrations penetrated nearby objects and continued for infinity at the quantum level, like when you throw pebbles in the ocean and the ripples continue without end. Did her words, their ugliness, penetrate the walls’ atoms—the same way Henry’s pain at hearing them permeated his brain—and that last dive, when Henry was sitting in that same spot within those walls, the ugliness and the pain collided into a blast, blowing apart his neurons and torching him from the inside?” 

Elizabeth’s thoughts reveal the depths of her depression and irrational thoughts: She fears that the negative comments she made about Henry remained in the chamber weeks later and were somehow responsible for the explosion.

“She hurt her own son, abused him and made him believe she hated him, and forced him into a chamber to burn while she sipped wine and popped bonbons in her mouth. It was time to unpause her plan and do what she knew she had to do, what she’d known for the last year she had to do, with no pros or cons, no analysis, no hesitation.” 

Elizabeth’s decision to commit suicide references the fight she often had with Kitt, who claimed that she would sit on the couch and eat bonbons all day if TJ achieved the same progress as Henry. Elizabeth believes that when she did not go into the chamber with Henry, she abdicated her responsibilities to him, that this one decision undid the love she had for him.

“After they all said they couldn’t make her birthday dinner, she said it was no problem, and actually, she was meeting up with a guy later anyway, a doctor, and when they teased her, said he sounded like an old perv who was just after sex, she said he was a gentleman, a friend who cared and listened to her problems and was going through a hard time himself. They’d laughed, called her naïve, and they’d been right.” 

Mary reveals the depths of her isolation and her shame over what happened with Matt. She did want Matt to think of her romantically, and she believes that somehow makes her responsible for his behavior. Ironically, her friends are right, but not in the way Mary believes: Matt should have been the responsible one, as the adult in the situation; Mary is not to blame.

“Young […] couldn’t stop looking into her daughter’s eyes and drinking in what she saw there: a need for her, a longing to connect, to confide. How long had it been since they’d had real intimacy, contact beyond the fleeting glances they exchanged while discussing the logistics of everyday life? It was strange, almost magical, how this connection changed everything.” 

Only when the truth has been acknowledged can Young and Mary regain their former connection and intimacy. This happens because Young discovers the truth, and she also stands up to Pak and insists on the truth. Young fights for Mary, the opposite of what she had done before, and this restores Mary’s faith in her mother’s love for her.

“I’ve seen you, how tortured you’ve been, all your tears. It’s been killing you, going to court, seeing how your choices have destroyed so many lives.”

Young acknowledges two things here: first, that Mary is responsible for her actions and, second, that Mary is nonetheless still a good person, tortured by her guilt. Young is proud that Mary feels so deeply; it reassures her that she did not raise a monster.

“But now that Mary and Pak were in prison, she wondered if it was truly fair that Mary faced years in prison—ten minimum—when many others who’d contributed to the causal chain that night got nothing.” 

After Mary confesses, Young wonders why others were not punished, especially Matt. Pak is sentenced to 15 months in jail, and Matt gets only probation. This could be a brief but strong commentary on racial injustice: Kim might be asking why the Korean man who lied to protect his teenaged daughter received a more severe punishment than the white doctor who assaulted a teenager and lied to avoid punishment.