Chapter 7: The Statement She Can Stand Behind
The second post was still on Han’s phone when I woke. Beneath Sora’s accusation, an account I had never heard of claimed to have a source inside Haneul.
It offered no name, document, or detail only an employee would know. By morning, people were treating it as confirmation anyway.
Han sat beside my bed with a notebook open.
“I saved the post as it appeared last night,” she said. “Time, account name, and the responses attached to it. We can ask where the claim came from. We can’t assume the answer.”
I wanted to ask her to send them the photograph of my ribs.
The thought shamed me for a moment. Then I looked down at the hospital blanket and let myself be angry. I had not made my injuries public. Other people had made them something to argue about.
“Yesterday’s statement didn’t stop it,” I said.
“It wasn’t supposed to win an argument. It put your position on record.”
Han turned her notebook toward me. She had divided the page into three columns: what I knew firsthand, what we had preserved, and what remained unverified.
My denial of taking Daeho’s documents belonged in the first column. So did my denial of requesting Haneul’s confidential bidding files. The records of my disclosure and request for independent review belonged in the second.
The alleged employee belonged in the third.
So did the contents of the brown envelope Ms. Choi had seen Sora carry into Daeho’s study. So did the claim that a file had ever been missing.
“People want us to release her message,” I said, looking at the photograph Han had taken of Ms. Choi’s phone.
“Yes.”
“It would show Sora was talking about a missing file hours before she says she first noticed one.”
“It would show what she wrote and when. Ms. Choi can speak to the message on her phone. She cannot tell us whether a file was missing.”
I knew the distinction. I hated how little the truth seemed to weigh unless we offered up every person who had helped us find it.
Han closed the photograph.
“We can say more about your own actions,” she said. “Nothing about hers.”
I read the draft twice. It repeated my denial from the day before, then added that I had given an account of a physical assault to medical professionals and counsel and was addressing it through appropriate channels. It said I had requested an independent review of Daeho’s company’s bid because of my personal conflict, not to direct the result.
There was no description of the room where he hurt me. No scan. No mention of Ms. Choi.
“Do I have to call it an alleged assault?” I asked.
“No. You’re describing the account you gave. We can be precise about that.”
I made one change. Where Han had written I have chosen not to release private medical information, I crossed out chosen.
I will not release private medical information or identify witnesses to settle claims online.
“Someone will say that means I have something to hide,” I said.
“Someone already has.”
I approved the statement. Han sent it through counsel, the same way she had sent the first.
For a few minutes, neither of us reached for a phone. A nurse came in, checked on my breathing, and waited while I shifted upright. Even with her help, the movement took longer than I wanted.
“Would you like the curtain closed?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
It was such a small question. She did not need to know my family name or what strangers thought had happened in my marriage. She asked, and she let the answer be mine.
By early afternoon, the independent procurement panel called Han. She put the call on speaker after checking that I wanted to hear it.
The panel’s liaison explained that they had asked the account behind the second post to clarify its description of an inside source. The person running it had voluntarily shared the message on which the description was based.
“It came from an outside communications intermediary,” the liaison said. “That intermediary claimed to have heard from someone at Haneul. No employee was named or independently identified to us.”
“Does the intermediary represent the bidder?” Han asked.
“We have not established that. We are preserving what was shared and making inquiries through the regular review process.”
The words were disappointing in their caution. They were also better than a confident accusation built on a guess.
“Could an employee still have said something?” I asked.
“Yes,” the liaison said. “We cannot rule it out. We also have no basis at present to confirm it.”
Han asked whether the panel had learned more about the replaced disclosure page in Daeho’s company’s proposal. The liaison said they had requested the submission history and an explanation from the bidder. The panel had made no finding about why the page was changed.
After the call, I watched Han write down the liaison’s exact words.
“An intermediary,” I said. “Not an insider.”
“An intermediary who claims an insider. That’s as far as we can go.”
“If I had let my grandfather call the reviewers, he might have gotten an answer faster.”
“He might have gotten an answer he wanted,” Han said. “That isn’t the same thing.”
I thought of my father’s voting interests waiting in a trust I had not yet finished claiming. People already spoke as if I could pick up a phone and command Haneul to reject a bid. I had asked the panel to treat it fairly, even though the proposal came from the man who had broken my ribs. I needed their answers to mean something beyond what I could demand.
Near three, Daeho made his own statement.
Han read it before showing me. He called our marriage a painful private misunderstanding. He said accounts of what had happened in our home were being distorted for public attention. Sora, he added, had raised a legitimate concern about company documents, though he presented no evidence to support it.
He ended by asking everyone to respect our privacy.
For a moment, I could hear him on the mansion’s marble floor, naming the price of each rib.
“Privacy,” I said.
Han set the phone down. “You don’t have to answer him today.”
“He’s asking people to believe I turned a misunderstanding into an assault.”
“You’ve stated what happened to you. Your medical team documented your injuries, and we’ve kept your account. His statement is preserved too.”
I looked at the draft message on my phone. I had written three sentences before Han arrived that morning and never sent them.
You know what you did.
You know why you stopped.
Tell them what Sora said.
Every word was true. None would make him tell the truth.
I deleted the draft.
“Don’t issue anything else,” I said. “Not to answer that.”
Han nodded, though I could see she was measuring what his words might require later. She had never promised that silence would protect me. She had only made sure I could decide what I was willing to say.
My grandfather called after seeing the coverage. He asked whether I wanted him to come.
“Not if it means leaving a meeting for me,” I said.
“The meeting can wait.”
“I know. That’s why I’m asking you not to.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I’m sorry they are talking about you this way.”
“I wish they weren’t talking about Ms. Choi,” I said.
She had not been named. I knew how little that guaranteed. Anyone determined to find a witness might start with the people who worked in Daeho’s house.
“Has someone contacted her?” my grandfather asked.
“Han will check what she wants us to do if anyone does. Please don’t contact her yourself.”
“I won’t.”
He kept that promise without making me thank him for it.
Near evening, Han stepped into the hall to take a call. I heard none of it. When she returned, she shut the door gently and checked that the nurse had finished her visit.
“Park contacted me,” she said.
“Daeho’s assistant?”
“Yes. He used my office number. He asked first whether Daeho would know he called.”
I remembered Park from company dinners: always standing a little behind Daeho, carrying a folder or looking for a quiet place to answer another call. Until now, all I knew of his part in this was that he had recognized my photograph in Haneul’s notice and told Daeho who I was.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I would not promise secrecy I couldn’t guarantee. He still wanted to speak.”
Han sat beside me but did not take out her notebook.
“He says there is an email in the company system from earlier that evening. It concerns Sora’s claim about the documents. His description of its timing conflicts with her published account of first noticing a problem around eight-thirty.”
“Did he send it?”
“Not yet. I asked him to preserve what he has and to consider getting his own counsel before sharing company records. We need the email itself, not just his description.”
I gripped the edge of the blanket. We already had Ms. Choi’s message from five forty-seven. Another record might help establish when people knew Sora was making the claim. It could not, by itself, tell us whether Daeho had listened.
“Why tell us now?” I asked.
“He didn’t say. He sounded frightened when I asked to speak with him again.”
May you like
Han’s phone lit up on the table. She read the new message, then passed it to me.
Park had written: I can meet you tonight. Please make it before Mr. Kwon learns that the email still exists.
