Abe started easy. Where Matt was from (Bethesda, Maryland), college (Tufts), medical school (Georgetown), residency (same), fellowships (same), board certification (radiology), hospital credentials (Fairfax). “Now, I have to ask the first question I had when I heard about the explosion. What is Miracle Submarine, and why do you need a submarine in the middle of Virginia, nowhere near the ocean?” Several jurors smiled, as if in relief that others also wondered this.
Matt stretched his lips into a smile. “It’s not a real submarine. Just designed like one, with portholes and a sealed hatch and steel walls. It’s actually a medical device, a chamber for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. H-B-O-T, pronounced ‘aitch-bot’ for short.”
“Tell us how it works, Dr. Thompson.”
“You’re sealed in, the air pressurizes 1.5 to 3 times normal atmospheric pressure, and you breathe in one hundred percent oxygen. The high pressure causes the oxygen to be dissolved at greater levels in your blood, fluids, and tissue. Damaged cells need oxygen to heal, so this deep penetration of extra oxygen can result in faster healing and regrowth. Many hospitals offer HBOT.”
“Miracle Submarine isn’t a hospital chamber. Is that different?”
Matt thought of sterile hospital chambers attended by technicians in scrubs, then the Yoos’ rusted chamber lying crooked in an old barn. “Not really. Hospitals usually use clear tubes for one person to lie in. Miracle Submarine is bigger, so four patients plus their caregivers can go in together, making it much less expensive. Also, private centers are open to treating off-label conditions that hospitals wouldn’t.”
“What kind of conditions?”
“A big variety. Autism, cerebral palsy, infertility, Crohn’s, neuropathies.” Matt thought he heard tittering from the back at the condition he’d tried to hide in the middle of the list—infertility. Or perhaps it was the memory of his own laughter the first time Janine suggested HBOT after the sperm analysis.
“Thank you, Dr. Thompson. Now, you became Miracle Submarine’s first patient. Can you tell us about that?”
Boy, could he. He could go on at length about it, how Janine staged it perfectly, inviting him to dinner at her parents’ house without one word about the Yoos or HBOT or, worst of all, Matt’s expected “contribution.” A fucking ambush.
“I met Pak at my in-laws’ house last year,” Matt said to Abe. “They’re family friends; my father-in-law and Pak’s father are from the same Korean village. Anyway, I learned that Pak was starting an HBOT business, and my father-in-law was investing in that.” They’d all been sitting around the dinner table, and the Yoos had hurried to stand when Matt walked in, as if he were royalty. Pak looked nervous, the sharp angles of his face accentuated by his tight smile, and when he gripped Matt’s hand for a handshake, his knuckles bulged into jagged peaks. Young, his wife, had bowed slightly, eyes downcast. Mary, their sixteen-year-old, was a copy of her mother, with eyes that looked too big for her delicate face, but she’d smiled easily, mischievously, as if she knew a secret and couldn’t wait to see his reaction when he found out, which, of course, was exactly what was about to happen.
As soon as Matt sat down, Pak said, “Do you know HBOT?” Those words were like the cue for a well-rehearsed performance. Everyone converged around Matt, leaning in conspiratorially, and spoke in turns without pause. Matt’s father-in-law said how popular this was with his Asian acupuncture clients; Japan and Korea had wellness centers with infrared saunas and HBOT. Matt’s mother-in-law said Pak had years of HBOT experience in Seoul. Janine said recent research showed HBOT to be a promising treatment for numerous chronic diseases, did he know?
“What was your reaction to this business?” Abe asked.
Matt saw Janine put her thumb in her mouth and gnash at the flesh around her nails. Something she did when she was nervous, the same thing she did at that dinner, no doubt because she knew exactly what he’d think. What all their hospital friends would think. Total crap. Another of her father’s alternative, holistic therapies that desperate, stupid, and crazy patients got duped into. Matt never said this, of course. Mr. Cho had disapproved of Matt enough, merely for not being Korean. If he found out that Matt regarded his whole profession—all of Eastern “medicine,” really—as bullshit? No. That would not be good. Which was why Janine had been brilliant to announce the whole thing in front of her parents and their friends.
“Everyone was excited,” Matt said to Abe. “My father-in-law, an acupuncturist for thirty years, was standing behind this, and my wife, who’s an internist, verified its potential. That was all I needed to know.” Janine stopped biting her cuticle. “You have to realize,” Matt added, “she got much better grades in med school than me.” Janine laughed along with the jurors.
“And you signed up for treatment. Tell us about that.”
Matt bit his lip and looked away. He’d known to expect the question, had practiced how he’d answer: matter-of-factly. The same way Pak had said that night that Matt’s father-in-law was investing, that Janine had been “appointed”—as if it were a presidential commission or something—a medical advisor, and they all agreed: “You, Dr. Thompson, must become our first patient.” Matt thought he’d misheard. Pak spoke English well, but he had an accent and syntax errors. Perhaps he’d mistranslated “director” or “chairman.” But then Pak added, “Most patients will be children, but it is good to have one adult patient.”
Matt sipped wine, not saying anything, wondering what in God’s name could’ve made Pak think that a healthy man like Matt might need HBOT, when a possibility occurred to him. Could Janine have said something about their—his—“issue”? He tried to ignore the thought, focus on dinner, but his hands shook, and he couldn’t pick up the galbi, the slippery morsels of marinated rib meat sliding through the thin silver chopsticks. Mary noticed and came to his rescue. “I can’t use steel chopsticks, either,” she said, and offered him wooden ones, the kind from Chinese takeouts. “This is easier. Try it. My mom says that’s why we had to leave Korea. No one will marry a girl who can’t use chopsticks. Right, Mom?” Everyone else seemed annoyed and remained silent, but Matt laughed. She joined him, the two of them laughing amid frowning faces like kids misbehaving in a room full of adults.
It had been at this moment, as Matt and Mary were laughing, that Pak said, “HBOT has high rate of curing infertility, especially for people like you—low sperm motility.” Right then, at this confirmation that his wife had shared details—medical details, personal details—not only with her parents but also with these people he’d never met before, Matt felt something hot in his chest, as if a balloon filled with lava had stretched and burst in his lungs, displacing the oxygen. Matt stared into Pak’s eyes and tried to breathe normally. Strangely, it wasn’t Janine’s gaze he needed to avoid, but Mary’s. He hadn’t wanted to know how those words—infertility, low sperm motility—would change the way she looked at him. If her previously curious (possibly interested?) look would now be tinged with disgust or, worse, pity.
Matt said to Abe, “My wife and I had problems conceiving, and HBOT was an experimental treatment for men involved in these situations, so it made sense to take advantage of this new business.” He left out that he hadn’t agreed at first, had refused to even address it for the rest of dinner. Janine said what she’d clearly practiced, how Matt’s volunteering as a patient would help launch the business, how the presence of a “regular doctor” (Janine’s words) would reassure potential clients of HBOT’s safety and effectiveness. She didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t answering, that he was keeping his eyes focused strictly on his plate. But Mary did. She noticed and came to his rescue again and again, laughing at his chopsticks technique and interjecting jokes about kimchi-garlic flavors mixing with wine.