Fairy Tales

Once upon a time there was a girl whose entire life was a lie.

The Void

A universe that can wink into existence can wink out again.

Four days passed. I eat. I do homework. I don’t read. My mom walks around in a fugue state. I don’t think she understands what’s happened. She seems to realize that she has something to atone for, but she’s not sure exactly what it is. Sometimes she tries to talk to me, but I ignore her. I barely even look at her.

The morning after I realized the truth, Sana took samples of my blood to the SCID specialist, Dr. Kim Dahyun. We’re in her office now, waiting to be called. And even though I know what she’ll say, I’m dreading the actual medical confirmation.

Who will I be if I’m not sick?

A nurse calls my name and I ask Sana to stay in the waiting room. For whatever reason, I want to hear this news alone.

Dr. Kim stands when I walk in. She looks just like the photos of her on the web—older white girl with graying hair and bright black eyes.

She looks at me with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

"Hi miss Myoui Mina? I'm Dr. Kim. Kim Dahyun."

She gestures for me to sit, and waits until I do to sit himself.

"Yes, I am Mina, Dr. Kim." I smile, nervously.

“Okay Minari, let's get straight to our discussion. Your case,” she begins, and then stops.

She’s nervous.

“It’s OK Dr. Kim,” I say.

“I already know about it.”

He opens a file on his desk, shakes his head like he’s still puzzled at the results.

“I’ve gone over these results time and again. I had my colleagues to check to be absolutely certain. You’re not sick, Ms. Mina.”

She stops and waits for me to react.

I shake my head at him. “I already know,” I say again.

“Sana—Dr. Hirai Momo —filled me in on your background.” She studiously flips through a few more pages, trying to avoid saying what she says next.

“As a doctor, your mother would’ve known that. Granted, SCID is a very rare disease and it comes in many forms, but you have none, absolutely none, of the telltale signs of the disease. If she did any research, any tests at all, she would’ve known that.”

The moments I heard that, the room seems to fade away and I’m in a featureless white landscape dotted with open doors that lead nowhere.

She’s looking at me expectantly when I finally come back to my body.

“I’m sorry doc, did you said something?” I ask.

“Yes. You must have some questions for me.”

“Then, why did I got sick in Hawaii? I even passed out for few days!"

“People get sick, Mina. Normal healthy people get sick all the time.”

“But even my heart stopped for a few minutes. Is it normal too?”

“Yes. I suspect myocarditis. I spoke with the attending in Hawaii as well. She suspected the same thing. Basically at some point in your past you probably had a viral infection that weakened your heart. Had you been experiencing any chest pain or shortness of breath when you were in Hawaii?”

“Yeah.. I did,” I say slowly, remembering the squeezing of my heart that I’d willfully ignored.

“Well, myocarditis seems like a likely candidate.”

I don’t have any other questions, not for her anyway. I stand.

“Well, thank you very much, Dr. Kim.”

She stands, too, agitated and seeming even more nervous than before.

“Ah, Miss Mina, before you go there’s one more thing.”

I sit back down. “Because of the circumstance of your upbringing, we’re not sure about the state of your immune system.”

“What does that mean?”

“We think it’s possible that it’s underdeveloped, like an infant’s.”

“An infant?”

“Your immune system hasn’t been exposed to a lifetime of common viruses and bacterial infections. It hasn’t had time to get experience with fighting these infections. It hasn’t had time to get strong. Because you'd never went out miss.”

“So I’m still sick?”

She leans back in her chair. “I don’t have a good answer for you. We’re in uncharted territory here. I’ve never heard of a case like this. It may mean that you’ll get sick more often than people with healthy immune systems. Or it may mean that when you do get sick, you’ll get very severely sick.”

“How will I know?”

“I don’t think there’s any way to know. I recommend caution.”

We schedule weekly follow-up visits. She tells me that I should take it slowly as I start to see the world—no big crowds, no unfamiliar foods, no exhaustive physical activity.

“The world isn’t going anywhere,” she says as I leave.

AFTERMATH

I spend the next few days searching for more information, for anything that will explain what happened to me and what happened to my mother. I want a diary with her thoughts laid out in legible ink.

I want her madness clearly delineated so that I can trace its history and my own. I want details and explanations. I want to know why and why and why.

I need to know what happened, but she can’t tell me. She’s too damaged. And if she could? Would it make a difference? Would I understand? Would I understand the depth of grief and fear that could’ve led her to take my entire life away from me?

Dr. Dahyun tells me that she thinks my mom needs a therapist. She thinks it might be a long time before my mom able to tell me what exactly happened, if ever. She guesses that my mom suffered some sort of a breakdown after my dad and brother died.

Sana uses all her persuasive powers trying to convince me not to leave home. Not just for my mom’s sake, but for my own. My health is still