Her Father's Secret

by Sara Blaedel

  Dorothy nodded; she seemed to understand what Ilka was going through. “I know. It’s almost too much to bear.”

  She was right, Ilka thought. It was really and truly almost too much to bear. Also, because the story she’d been carrying around inside her for her entire life turned out to be false.

  She barely managed to drag herself off the sofa and carry her cup into the kitchen. Dorothy followed, and apparently, she saw Ilka was struggling, because she offered to do the cremation herself. Artie could come by the next morning and pick up the ashes.

  Back in the car, Ilka realized that Dorothy might be the only person who had loved her father after he left Denmark.

  What in heaven’s name is going on?” Sister Eileen said from the doorway of the reception the next morning.

  Ilka jumped; she hadn’t heard her come in.

  “There’s a coffin outside under the carport. And what about those tables you’ve set out in the parking lot?”

  Ilka wiped the sweat off her forehead. She was standing on a ladder, unscrewing the big gold-framed mirror on the wall above Sister Eileen’s desk. “We’re having a clearance. The tables are for a yard sale. We need to be ready before school’s out and the parents come for their kids.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Everything in here of value, we have to sell.”

  Sister Eileen leaned against the doorframe. “So you’re selling a used coffin in a flea market in our parking lot,” she stated, without emotion. “You might at least have waited to empty out the entire house until Margaret Graham’s memorial service tomorrow.”

  Ilka could understand if Sister Eileen resented not being consulted. “I have to pay back Raymond Fletcher. I don’t want anything to do with the man. You were right, it was a mistake to take his money. And all I can sell is what’s inside here.”

  Ilka had racked her brain for a way out, and this was the only solution she could come up with. She had no one to ask for help, no place to go to borrow money. It was all on her. She’d even considered going to the hospital and begging Amber for a loan, but no. She was finished with that family.

  Dorothy’s story had torn her apart. Not only because of her father’s monumental screwup, which forced him to put his life in the hands of a man who treated others as pawns in his own cynical game, including his daughter. While Ilka was pushing the furniture together, she’d realized what hurt most was learning that her anger with her father all those years came from a story that wasn’t true. Her story. Everything she’d imagined, all her life, had been wrong.

  “But the coffin,” Sister Eileen said. “People will be offended by it out there. Think about the school across the street. It will hurt our image.”

  Ilka hopped off the ladder and shouted, “We don’t need an image! The business is closed. This is now a former funeral home.”

  Sister Eileen straightened up. “We still have a memorial service tomorrow at ten, and honestly, it would be nice if you could show a little bit of respect for Maggie’s family.” She turned and walked off.

  Ilka trotted after her and stopped her in the foyer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.”

  She asked Sister Eileen to come into the arrangement room, where nothing had been moved yet. She pointed at the sofa and plopped down in the easy chair facing it. Sister Eileen sat stiffly, her hands folded in her lap, as Ilka told her the story about Raymond Fletcher, about why her father had been forced to break off all contact with the daughter he’d abandoned. About how the old patriarch had taken her father from her. “You can see why I have to return Fletcher’s money. And I hope you’ll help me.”

  The nun nodded when Ilka asked if they still had the last two thousand dollars Fletcher had given her.

  “That means I need eighteen thousand dollars, plus whatever this last ceremony costs. I have to get ahold of that money.”

  She glanced around at the worn furniture. Everything in the house was old, and even if she managed to sell it all, it wouldn’t be enough. They’d have to sell the vehicles, she thought. She’d ask Artie to take care of that.

  The nun looked as if she was the one who had lost everything. Her hands were still in her lap as she nodded almost imperceptibly. Ilka waited for her to speak; she looked fragile, vulnerable.

  Artie had offered to contact a thrift store in West Racine. He’d also made a list of businesses that bought estates. Not that Ilka had any great expectations for how much they would pay. “Artie’s bringing a trailer after he picks up the urn at Dorothy’s. He’ll haul some of the bigger pieces away.”

  From out of the blue Sister Eileen said, “That’s why your father included you in his will. He wanted to make sure you came and found out why he had to stay away from you.”

  Ilka stared at her. She’d been thinking exactly the same thing: that he’d wanted her to know why he had abandoned his family. That was why he’d kept the old letters. He wanted to make sure Ilka knew he’d never forgotten her, and that all his life he had done his best to protect her. But it was a surprise to hear that Sister Eileen knew about it.

  “We’d better get busy if you want everything out there before school is over,” the nun said. She offered to take out the cremation jewelry in the glass cases. “It’s worth something. The boxes are in my desk. We also have several toys in the cupboard. Your father brought them out whenever there were children.”

  She pointed to the tall cupboard in the corner where they also kept various papers and order forms. “If we make sure the toys are in front, they’ll get the children’s attention when they come out of school. The parents will follow.” It felt as if she’d suddenly taken charge. They stood up and returned to the reception, where Ilka glanced through the window and saw the director of the American Funeral Group walking up to the front door. When he came in, the scent of his aftershave was so heavy that Ilka drew back.

  “I’m here to give you a final offer,” he said. He looked every bit as arrogant as at their last meeting.

  She stared at him, irritated at the timing of all this. As if he was aware that she’d hit bottom. He held out a check, and she stared at him in disbelief when she saw the amount: thirty thousand dollars, ten thousand less than his first offer.

  “No thanks.” She walked angrily past him and opened the door.

  “This is my last offer,” he warned, still holding the check out. “You keep the house and its contents, but you have to shut down the business and give us your clients.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “We take your clients, but also your debt. Sign the contract, and this check is yours. You can go home to Denmark.”

  “One hundred thousand,” she said. “The same conditions and a hundred thousand, and it’s a deal. You take over the clients and the debt, we keep the house and contents.”

  Even his smile was arrogant. “You’re making the mistake of your life.” He folded the check demonstratively and stuck it back in his inside pocket. “There’s nothing here worth what you’re demanding, and you know it.”

  That may be, she thought. But the very fact that he’d showed up was proof he wanted the business. It was definitely worth something.

  His smile disappeared. “I won’t take your refusal as a declaration of war. I’m assuming you’re naïve, that your lack of experience in the business is why you’re acting against your best interests. But I will remind you, we’ve been accommodating and willing to help with your difficult situation.”

  She didn’t answer, and after a moment he added, “If you’d been the least bit responsive, if you’d bothered to learn about the business, you’d have known that our first offer was exceptionally generous. And now I’m even offering to relieve you of your debt. You’re making a grave mistake.”

  Ilka stood holding the door open for him. Seeing there was nothing left for him to say, he walked out.

  The door closed slowly as she watched him leave.

  “That was dumb,” Sister Eileen said.

  Artie walke
d in with Maggie’s ashes in a dark-brown urn. He laid it on the desk and said he couldn’t open the garage door. “The remote’s not working.”

  “Maybe we need new batteries,” Ilka said.

  Sister Eileen walked over and looked at the ceiling light while she flipped the switch. Nothing. She tried to turn the lamp on, but it didn’t work either.

  The next five minutes she and Ilka walked around trying every outlet while Artie checked the fuse box. The fuses were fine. Sister Eileen brought out a file from her desk and read for a moment, then looked up sadly and said that she’d forgotten to pay the electric bill.

  “They’ve shut us off.”

  Artie seemed to suddenly remember something. “Who was that guy that just left?”

  Ilka told him about the offer. “The man has no shame.” She felt the energy draining from her.

  “You should have taken the offer,” Sister Eileen said again. For once there was nothing disapproving or superior in her voice. Only worry. She looked at Ilka. The nun was right, she should have said yes. And yet.

  She shook her head. “I won’t be treated this way. I don’t want their money when it’s so obvious they’re taking advantage of my situation. And if it’s Raymond Fletcher who told them about my financial situation, then I won’t have anything to do with them.”

  “This might not be the right time to think about your pride. They’ll take over your debt and leave you the house. In any case it would solve a lot of problems.”

  Ilka sank down in a chair and nodded. It would solve many problems, and she could put it all behind her. She wavered; of course she should have accepted, she should have snatched the check out of his hand, taken the money and run. As fast as she could.

  “He’ll be back,” Artie said. “He’s just playing the big shot. We’ll be worth just as much to him tomorrow as we are today. He’ll come back if you change your mind.”

  Ilka smiled at him.

  Sister Eileen checked her watch. “We’d best get to work if we’re going to be ready by the end of school.” She stood up from behind her desk and turned to the mirror Ilka had tried to unscrew from the wall. She asked Artie to get it down, then opened the showcases in the foyer and carefully removed all the jewelry displayed on the mounds of velour. Then she moved on to the cabinets and emptied them. Ilka stood and watched in a daze. Finally, when Artie brought the mirror out, she got going.

  “There’s more velour in back,” Sister Eileen said. She suggested they carry out the tables used for memorial service buffets. “We can use the velour for a tablecloth. The larger things we can put on the ground beside the tables.”

  Cupboards, tables, her father’s entire office—everything was to be carried out. Lamps, mirrors, paintings. Porcelain from the kitchen. Stacks of plates, coffee cups, saucers, cake forks. Vases and candleholders. The two sofas in the memorial room by the dais for coffins. Also, several floor lamps. They had 150 identical chairs in the memorial room, but they decided to take only 10 of them out and tell people there were more inside.

  “We have boxes of tissues,” Sister Eileen called out from the kitchenette, where the top shelves were used to store supplies. “And three boxes of small chocolates. I’m sure we can sell them.”

  “Remember, Michael Graham and his family are coming tomorrow,” Ilka said. She suggested they concentrate on the back part of the memorial room, the section used only for large services.

  The piles were growing, and Ilka began carrying them outside. Meanwhile Artie wrestled to open the garage door manually. Sister Eileen spread the velour out over the white folding tables and arranged them in a wide horseshoe open to the street and the school across from them. Then she began setting out the vases and candleholders. Artie ducked into the garage to look for anything that could be sold.

  If Ilka accepted the offer from the American Funeral Group, there would be enough money to pay back Fletcher. The rest she would give to Artie and Sister Eileen; then she could pack up and go home. But she was in the grip of a melancholy that puzzled her. After all, she had the explanation she’d come for. More than that, she thought: The answers she’d gotten were already filling the emptiness she’d endured for so long. She felt closer to her father. And yet she hadn’t completely come to terms with everything. The fact was, she simply wasn’t ready to sell at any price.

  Sister Eileen interrupted her thoughts. “We also have eight boxes of square candles, should we set them out too?”

  Ilka nodded and went over to help Artie carry a buffet from her father’s office. As she was about to go back inside, a woman approached and asked if everything was for sale.

  That was easy, Ilka thought. She smiled and nodded at the woman, who was mainly interested in the vases, but when Artie came out with one of the armchairs from the arrangement room, she fell in love with it. When she found out there were two of them, she bought them on the spot. She’d recently moved to Racine, her son had just started in the school across the street, and she needed furniture. Could she go inside and look around to see if they had more she could use?

  Artie opened his mouth to say yes, but Ilka broke in and asked what specifically she needed. It was better that the woman believe it all came from a private home, not the funeral home.

  “An armoire, and a dining table and chairs.”

  Ilka handed Artie her phone and asked him to go up to her father’s room and take a picture of the old armoire. It wasn’t large, but it was a beautiful teak piece with shelves on one side and room to hang clothes on the other.

  When Artie came back down and showed her the photo, the woman bought it. And the table in the middle of the foyer, used for the large flower vase. Along with six chairs from the memorial room, they could be used in her dining room. Moments after she paid, the next customer showed up, and before Ilka knew it all the vases were gone. Only two candleholders were left. Several large paintings and the glass cabinet were also sold. They hadn’t even brought out the jewelry, nor the toys. Basic necessities for a home went like hotcakes, she thought. She folded the bundle of bills and went inside for more.

  She spotted the car when she came back out to the parking lot. Davidson’s black four-wheel-drive wheeled into a parking space as far from the yard sale as possible. Sister Eileen was dickering with someone on the price of her father’s desk, and Ilka thought she heard the nun swear when the customer walked away.

  Davidson approached her carrying an urn. He looked stern as he nodded at the tables. “What’s going on here?”

  “We’re selling out.” Before she could stop herself, she’d explained that she was trying to get out of her debt to Raymond Fletcher.

  Davidson eyed the table with the unopened boxes containing twenty individual boxes of tissues that Sister Eileen had just set out. “How much do you owe him?”

  Ilka regretted having mentioned the debt. “Twenty thousand dollars.” She added that they’d already brought in $380, even though they’d barely gotten started.

  “I’ll buy the rest,” he said. “Tell them to shut it down.”

  Ilka looked at him in confusion. “But most of it’s inside, we haven’t even carried it out yet.”

  He already had his checkbook out. She stared at his pen as he signed the check for twenty thousand dollars. She hadn’t even known that people over here still used checks, it had been so long since she’d seen one in Denmark. She hesitated before accepting the check when he handed it to her. Why was he doing this?

  “Let’s go inside, I’ll show you what you’ve bought.”

  Davidson waved her suggestion away. “I’m not taking any of it, you keep it. Unless you really want to get rid of it. I can send a few of my men over to haul it away.”

  Ilka shook her head and looked at the tables as she told him she’d rather keep it all. The funeral home would have to be emptied at some point, but it didn’t have to be right then. The rush of customers from the school had ended, the last few cars had driven away, but Sister Eileen stood attentively behind the porcel
ain and glasses, waiting for new customers. Ilka walked over and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You can start packing it up. I’ll get Artie to come help. It’s all over, it’s all been sold.”

  Sister Eileen glanced over at Davidson, then she nodded and started gathering up the glasses.

  I need your help,” Davidson said.

  Ilka had been expecting that. She hadn’t believed he would hand out so much money without wanting something in return. “Why don’t we go inside?”

  Still holding the urn, he followed her to the back entrance. Ilka glanced at him as she held the door. She hadn’t noticed before, but he looked sad, solemn.

  He stopped and looked over at the hearse in the garage. In principle it was his, though it seemed he’d already forgotten the yard sale and the check he’d just written. Artie was cleaning up. There weren’t any coffins inside, and the blankets used for covering the dead were stacked in a pile. Corpse blankets; at least they got out of trying to sell them, she thought.

  Most of what had been in the office had been sold, and the desk was still out in the parking lot, but she pulled over two chairs and told him to have a seat.

  He went straight to the point. “I know this sounds a little bit morbid, but could you help me get something that would determine your father’s DNA?”

  They both stared at the urn. “The ashes won’t help,” he said, answering her unspoken question.

  Ilka fidgeted in the chair. It must be important to him, given the size of the check he’d just made out. And that worried her.

  They sat for a few moments in silence, but then she nodded and said she would look around. “There’s a comb up in his room, and a pair of glasses. Would that help?”

  He laid the urn down in the windowsill, and she wondered if she should offer him something to drink.

  “Did you know your dad wasn’t Leslie’s biological father? Fletcher claims my dad was the guilty party, and he says he can prove it.” He laced his fingers together, as if he needed something to hold on to. “His lawyer contacted me this morning. They’re making a claim on the money I inherited from my grandfather. They say it should be divided equally between me and Leslie.”