Viking

by Daniel Hardman

  She’d known all along that it was dangerous to lean on Bezovnik. But really, what choice did she have? He’d been so ripe for a fleecing, so pathetically eager to preserve a decorous front for the company, that it practically demanded a little independent money-making. Her prolonged yawn curved into an avaricious smile. Shadowy finance had become as much a passion as the power play it bankrolled.

  That raised the ugly specter of Bruce’s audit again. The dimwit! If he was going to get creative, he could at least take the trouble to do it right. The last thing she needed was to waste her time babysitting some half-baked manipulation of banking records.

  She considered returning the call from her accountant friend. Between self-congratulatory platitudes and husky innuendo, he’d managed to convey the idea that Bruce’s shenanigans were still salvageable. When did she want to get together? Chuckle, chuckle.

  Oh, bravo! I’m surrounded by comedians.

  20

  When the chatter of the twins and the chirp of birds refused to go away, Julie sat up. She lifted the covers slowly, blinked, rotated away from the dreary light leaking through her curtains, and slid her socks onto the polished oak.

  She didn’t want to start this day.

  She really didn’t want to live the next few hours at all.

  Lean forward. Straighten the knees. Shrug on a sweater over the inadequate tee shirt, tame wild hair with an old baseball cap that smelled of grass clippings and Rafa’s aftershave. She walked down the hall to the bathroom and splashed water in her face and stood at the top of the stairs, listening to Kyrie and Lauren burble excitedly about the calves in the barn.

  She descended to the kitchen and surveyed the country breakfast that her parents had left partly eaten on the table. The room smelled of sausage and French toast and syrup. Her mom would be outside by now, probably fussing with the flower beds. Dad was no doubt in the barn, doling out straw and silage.

  The girls looked up and smiled a greeting, their mouths full.

  “Hmm” and “uh huh” were enough to get past the girl’s attempts at conversation. Julie speared a sausage onto her plate and stared glumly. For a moment the sight of it, lying brown and shriveled, all alone on the white porcelain, raised such visions of vapid mundanity that she had an urge to burst into laughter. Rafa’s dead. Have a sausage.

  Instead, she added some hash browns and toast and eggs, then dribbled syrup over the whole plate. Behind her, the door banged shut and her mother began to hum cheerfully as she ran water to rinse things for the dishwasher.

  “Hi,” Julie managed. She doubted she could sustain a normal tone of voice for longer than one syllable.

  Lauren pushed back from the table, wiping half-heartedly at the milk mustache dripping from her upper lip. “Hey, Grandma, want to come see Shiner?”

  “Who’s Shiner?”

  “Our calf,” Lauren responded, as she skipped toward the door. “She’s got a big black patch over one eye. Grandpa says that a black eye is called a shiner.”

  Lydia laughed. “I’ll come out later. Have fun.”

  Another bang of the door was the only response, and in a moment Kyrie hopped down and clattered after her sister with a wave. Julie was still staring woodenly at her plate.

  “Dolly dug up all my pansies and violets. Some days I could just strangle that dog!”

  Julie said nothing.

  Lydia lifted silverware and stacked syrupy plates atop one another while the silence stretched out. After a trip to the sink, she tried again.

  “Your father says he’ll give up on that tractor if it’s not working by lunch time. Maybe you could recruit him to go to the zoo with you.”

  Julie closed her eyes and let the silence stretch out.

  “I found your stack of paperwork on the counter. Looks like you’re all done. Want me to send it off for you?”

  “Don’t bother,” Julie murmured grimly as she pushed her plate away and stood up. “It’s all irrelevant now.”

  * * *

  Hours later, Julie awoke with a truly exceptional headache—a relentless pummeling that radiated outward from her forehead and temples to embrace her entire skull, and throbbed in protest with the slightest movement. She made one attempt to sit up, moaned weakly, and sank back to her pillow.

  After a minute the late afternoon sunlight streaming through gauzy curtains was too much, and she stirred just enough to pull the quilt over her eyebrows. She became conscious of the uncomfortable crinkle of denim around her knees and the pinch of a belt at her waist. Why had she tumbled into bed in her jeans?

  She wiggled her toes.

  No shoes. But socks. She never slept in her socks.

  How had she known it was afternoon instead of morning?

  Gingerly she rolled onto her side and bunched the pillow, careful to keep the lip of the covers between her eyes and the window. There was a disturbing dampness at her cheek that brought everything back.

  She’d cried herself to sleep.

  Rafa was dead.

  She remembered climbing out of the vid harness, stumbling up the stairs in the pre-dawn hours, the acrid smell of dust and the thunder of thousands of trampling feet still echoing in her brain, her heart racing from the sprint across the grassland; remembered falling into a nightmare slumber, then arising exhausted and miserable and numb, and shuffling down to breakfast with her mind still awhirl.

  And she remembered returning to bed again.

  How would she tell the twins? What would they say? How much had Daddy faded into a merciful intangible in their young memories since the night of the arrest?

  Zoo. She’d been planning a trip to Milwaukee. A glance at the clock told her it was hopelessly late for that. She groaned. If the fitful nap had accomplished nothing else, it had at least spared her the trouble of maintaining a façade of normalcy—but the girls would be disappointed and no doubt full of reproach.

  The phone buzzed softly on the nightstand by her ear.

  Julie lay still and willed the device to leave her alone.

  It did not comply.

  Finally Julie groaned, opened puffy, reddened eyes, and squinted at the screen. Not that it mattered; no matter what the topic, she wasn’t about to accept a connection.

  Mike Satler, the readout said. Who was he? She had a hazy recollection of contacting a real estate agent, seemingly an eternity ago. But that couldn’t be it; according to the phone this guy was calling from Houston.

  Well, he could leave a message.

  She’d watch it later.

  * * *

  Julie sat there all afternoon, lost in memories, paralyzed by her own emotions. Vaguely she was aware of Dolly barking, doors banging shut, chatter around the dinner table. What had her mother done about Lauren and Kyrie? Had they made the trip to the zoo without her?

  The sun went down, the house grew dark, and still she did not move. Sounds of brushing teeth and bedtime rituals came and went, but no knock sounded on her door. The old grandfather clock in the hall tolled the hours.

  Finally, long past midnight, some of the tension left her neck and shoulders, and she shook her head slightly. Her back was stiff and her legs were going to sleep. For the time being her eyes were dry. Time to get up and change the subject in this dreary non-dream she’d begun almost twenty-four hours earlier.

  Restlessly she rotated to prop her chin on the mattress edge at the foot of the bed. The photo albums she’d found—when? It seemed like an eternity ago—were still there.

  Feeling defiant, she hauled one book out and flipped it open, her free hand reaching out to power up the reading lamp. If she was going to be a widow, she might as well get used to it. She couldn’t run from Rafa’s shadow forever.

  There he was, smiling and handsome with frosting stuck to his chin. A youthful version of herself stood at his side, cake in her hand and eyes full of mischief.

  Julie turned the page.

  Hands were touching tenderly—a close-up of the ring exchange.

  The blur to
the image had nothing to do with photographic technique. Julie blinked and shook her head impatiently. Now she remembered this book. It wasn’t the professionally-compiled album that had cost them so much and occupied a place on the coffee table for years. These shots were all from her sister’s ancient 35 mm analog camera. Sandra and Rafa had collaborated on it as a Valentine’s Day present soon after the wedding.

  Sandra the shutterbug.

  Julie had kept it in her hope chest until a couple years ago, when the girls got it out in a fit of naughtiness and dribbled milk on half the pages. The memory of the indignant tongue-lashing that ensued brought a blush of embarrassment to her cheeks. Hopefully the girls wouldn’t remember that one when they got older.

  Julie had mailed it back to Sandra with a plea for repair. And obviously Sandra had never gotten around to digging up old negatives. Somehow the book had wended its way up into the realm of forgotten what-not in her parents’ attic.

  Turning another page, a vid disk fell into her hands. The label said “Familia” in Rafa’s handwriting. Frowning speculatively, she popped it in the terminal on the end table.

  It was mostly empty, except for some pictures of Rafa’s mother at the beach, looking younger and happier than Julie had ever seen her before. And there was a small, unnamed file that looked like a key for an electronic safety deposit box.

  That was odd.

  They had such a box with their bank account. It held copies of vital documents, mortgage papers, birth certificates.

  But this file was dated before their marriage. So it must open something different.

  What?

  She pulled up the file properties and pursed her lips. The issuer ID on the key was a big acronym that she’d never heard of before. Almost without thinking, she activated a virtual clerk, described her interest in the key and its origin, and sent it off into cyberspace to investigate.

  As soon as the screen cleared, she felt silly for her curiosity. What was she doing, dabbling in dusty remnants of a life that was irrevocably gone? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  Her anguish returned full force.

  Mechanically she pushed away the book, walked to the bathroom, undressed, and started a shower. The heat of steaming jets dispelled the lingering tautness around forehead and jaw and cleared some of the haziness and self-pity from her mind. Panic and the shock of defeat were not reactions she could afford to sustain. Perhaps grief was natural, but it didn’t give license to withdraw from her daughters or wish the world away.

  Julie donned new jeans and a baggy, well-worn sweatshirt, then swabbed at the mirror with a towel. As she pulled the brush through tangled copper hair, her eyes sought the dripping mirror and ran unbidden over backwards letters that said UCLA Cross Country. She put the brush down. Her fingers softly traced the words as she recalled the Orosco stretching out of sight between her shoulder blades.

  This is how haunting really works, she thought. No frightening phantom at the top of the stairs—just a hundred reminders woven so deeply and naturally into the fabric of a life that they remain part and parcel even when the threads are cut and the weaver is gone.

  The youth and attractiveness of the face in the mirror was overshadowed by grim rebellion. But there was no use looking back, no need to remake plans. Hadn’t she expected to become a single woman when yesterday began?

  Actually, Julie admitted with a queer mixture of relief and irritation, this was probably the easiest resolution in the long run. Rafa had died before she removed the band of gold on her finger. Though she was stricken with the outcome, it forever trumped the angst and guilt coloring all her perspective on the divorce. Eventually, widowhood might make room for peace where a voluntary turning of the back would leave lingering doubts and unhappiness.

  Then words from Rafa’s final letter came rushing to her mind. You and the girls will be better off if I die while we’re still married. She’d assumed Rafa was talking about financial and insurance considerations, but now she wondered. Had he seen an early death as a way to spare her the ambivalence of the divorce? Part of her rebelled at the thought. It was none of his business anymore. She was divorcing him, and with the best of reasons—the last thing she needed was a patronizing, hypocritical machismo concern for her feelings.

  But as she stared at the youthful red eyes in the mirror, the feeling faded.

  It was time to be honest.

  Silently her lips formed syllables too painful to utter aloud. She watched herself speak, unable to stop or turn away. Rafa wasn’t guilty, Julie. You know he wasn’t.

  And she nodded tremulously as a fresh flood of tears filled her eyes. She did know. It was undeniable; the knowledge of Rafa’s death would not have been so devastating if her heart wasn’t screaming in protest. He’d been foolish, perhaps. Maybe even untruthful about some things. But not duplicitous. Not evil.

  She’d walked away when the going got rough. And Rafa’s words stung because they were the plain, caring truth, not a self-serving prediction from beyond the grave: he’d bought a one-way ticket to his death so she could live with herself when he was gone.

  For a frozen moment she stood apart from her feelings, numbed by the fierceness of her reaction. She felt her heart swelling with recrimination. How could she have been so quick to doubt? How could she have forced such a wrenching decision from a man she loved? And how could she spoil his sacrifice now, by falling into a spiraling quagmire of depression and self-directed anger? The emotions swelled and raged, tearing ruthlessly at her heart strings all the more because she refused to protect them.

  Suddenly she looked away from the mirror, braced open palms on the gleaming counter, and began to cry quietly. In her mind’s eye she was on the beach again, feeling the grittiness of wet sand and the sighing wavelets dampening her rolled-up cuffs, holding Rafa’s hand as he went down on one knee with the brilliant moon hanging full and yellow over his shoulder. She remembered his smile as he looked up at her with those clear brown eyes—eyes that communicated so much more than his lips ever managed. Let me love you, Estrellita. It was all he’d said to propose. No long speech, no explanation. But she knew what he meant.

  And somehow, the torrent of bitterness could not abide that simple sentence. Let me love you, Estrellita. It faded to a whisper, then only a memory that gave way to a warm, unspeakably tender peace. Hadn’t she said yes? Wouldn’t he still want that answer?

  Julie padded barefoot over damp linoleum and across the cool strips of oak on her bedroom floor, feeling closer to her husband than she had in months. She was still conscious of regret and sorrow—in fact, she was keenly saddened by her own decisions and how they’d deepened the hurt—but like a breath of fresh air, Rafa’s words dispelled internal accusation and made self-forgiveness possible.

  “Thank you, Rafa,” she whispered softly.

  * * *

  Though her heart was lighter, it still brimmed with emotion, and Julie’s mind and body felt no need for sleep. She lay on the bed for ten minutes, wet hair pressed against her neck by the doubled-up pillow, without even yawning.

  Too much to think about.

  As the old grandfather clock downstairs struck half past, her stomach growled. It had been almost twenty hours since her attempt at breakfast, and another ten before that since she’d really eaten.

  Julie pulled on some slippers and cat-footed down to the kitchen, suddenly glad to put aside complex considerations for a moment. In her own home, the fridge had never been much fun; Julie was an adequate but unenthusiastic cook, and Rafa seemed to eat leftovers no matter how unappetizing. But her mother’s icebox was always well stocked with delectable tidbits—stray slices of pumpkin pie, fresh strawberries and cream, hard-boiled eggs. Pulling open the door to make a surreptitious inventory recalled a host of memories from her younger years and brought a faint smile to her lips.

  She placed a square of lasagna in the microwave and settled down at the table. While it heated, she cut a slab of bread and popped it in the toaster.
Despite her efforts to remain quiet, the old black lab stirred by the back door and walked stiffly into the kitchen, her nails clicking softly on the ceramic tile.

  “Go back to bed, Dolly,” Julie whispered affectionately.

  The dog eyed her for a moment, then shook her graying muzzle in an almost human gesture of tolerance, and vanished back down the hallway. Julie spread butter on the toast, hesitated, then grabbed a sticky bottle off the lazy susan and dribbled a generous dollop of honey on top.

  As she worked her fork through the now-steaming layers of pasta and sauce, Julie felt the buzz of the phone in her jeans. She must have pocketed it out of habit. She dug it out and thumbed through the menus. Yes, there was still something waiting for her. What had the guy’s name been? Sander or Slatter or something?

  An unfamiliar face filled the screen, and Julie hurriedly lowered the volume as he began to speak.

  “Mrs. Orosco, my name is Dr. Mike Satler. I’m a scientist at MEEGO in Houston. I was working with your husband. The database listed a number in L.A. for you, but my phone says I’ve been forwarded somewhere else. So I hope I’ve got the right person.” He paused, clearing his throat uncertainly. “I waited to call because I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. I imagine by now you’re aware that Rafael is missing and presumed dead.”

  Again he paused, and Julie wondered fleetingly why he looked so uncomfortable. Surely if he was in the viking business he’d made the dreaded calls to relatives plenty of times before. He wasn’t very good at it.

  “Anyway, I feel like you should know that I am not satisfied with MEEGO’s handling of the situation. I have reason to believe that your husband may have survived the stampede.”

  Julie’s fork froze. The man was gesturing dismissively. “I think it would be a mistake to be overly optimistic at this point. But there is definitely something odd about the way the company reacted. Give me a call so we can discuss it.”