The Beloved Daughter by Alana Terry

cleansed and renewed, as if healing flowed from the Old Woman’s very fingertips. “I think today is a good day for you to tell me about your father,” the Old Woman said. There was a certainty in her voice that I couldn’t argue with.
    I sighed. Until the day she died, my mother and I kept our agreement to never speak of Father. I didn’t even know how to talk about him anymore. Where should I start the tale? And once I started, how could I find the words to describe the end of his history?
    But the Old Woman was waiting, drawing the words out of my mouth with her intense gaze.
    “Father was always strong,” I began, and for what must have been nearly an hour, I told the Old Woman about Father and his unwavering faith, which at one time had seemed more steadfast than the very mountains that surrounded my Hasambong hometown.
    “He sounds like he was a very courageous man,” the Old Woman commented after I described my father’s refusal to conceal his faith when we still lived in our small cabin in North Hamyong Province.
    “Yes. He was my hero,” I replied. “When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be just like him.” I looked over at my cellmate to see how she would respond.
    “And are you like him, righteous daughter?” probed the Old Woman. I still wasn’t used to the way the Old Woman could discern my every thought.
    “No,” I answered, shaking my head. “When I first came to Camp 22, I was mad at Father.” I told the Old Woman about my experience as a twelve-year-old in the detainment center under Agent Lee’s cruel custody. “As a child I was so proud of Father’s courage and faith. But each time Agent Lee came in to beat me, I grew more and more furious at Father for not signing the statement like they demanded. And angrier at God, too,” I confessed, though my doubts seemed foolish in light of the faith that radiated from the Old Woman. I looked at her to see her reaction to my words.
    “The Lord remains faithful even if we are faithless,” the Old Woman observed. “Little daughter, did not the apostle Peter also turn away in fear and deny his Lord?”
    I nodded, remembering the story that Father taught me as a child. “Never be like Peter,” Father had exhorted me. If only Father knew the future that awaited him, I thought in the Old Woman’s cell, he wouldn’t have made such a bold admonition.
    “After ten days in underground detainment,” I continued, “the National Security agent came and told me that I could start school in the main camp.”
    The Old Woman furrowed her eyebrows. “Why did they release you? And so suddenly?”
    I couldn’t stop the hot tears of shame that flowed down my cheeks. I hoped that the Old Woman would say something to fill the silence, but she was quiet.
    “They let me go,” I admitted and tried to take in a deep breath, “because my father signed the confession after all.”
    I hung my head and longed for some cleansing ointment to wash away the disgrace I felt at Father’s defeat. While I was in detainment, my father’s stubborn faith infuriated me. After he signed the confession, however, I had no choice but to believe that God failed him. And that thought terrified me more than all of Agent Lee’s torture devices combined.
    “And did they release your father then, too?” the Old Woman inquired.
    “No,” I whispered, desperately trying to fight away the grief that threatened to consume me. I wanted to end Father’s history there, but the Old Woman continued to stare at me, and I continued to speak.
    “After he signed the confession,” I went on and lowered my eyes, unable to meet the Old Woman’s penetrating look, “my father hanged himself in his cell.”
    I cried quietly into the Old Woman’s shoulder until a moan of agony welled up from deep within my soul. I was powerless to control its volume. Trembling, I let the Old Woman hold me, certain that if it weren’t for her strength and unshakeable faith, I would lose myself in a