Her Father's Secret

by Sara Blaedel

  He nodded. “They had a long friendship. They met back when Paul first came over. Frank was young, he was a groom in the stable your father worked for. Over the years they grew close—it’s like he was almost a son to Paul. And Paul was the godfather of Frank’s older daughter. Later on, when Frank had his own stable, your father boarded the pony with him.”

  Ilka was overwhelmed at learning he’d taken on responsibility for someone else’s child as a godfather, had considered this Frank to be his son. She felt split: She wanted to know more, yet it scared her. It was all too much.

  But a moment later, without considering the consequences, she pushed on. “Where does he live? Do you think it would be okay for me to go out there? It would be fun to hear about the pony.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I’m absolutely sure Karen would be very happy if you stopped by. She’s his wife. It’s not far away, an hour’s drive, maybe a little over.”

  Ilka wrote the name down and waited while Gregg brought out a notepad from his inside coat pocket and gave her a phone number. “If you look the number up, I’m sure you’ll find the address. I’m so glad I got to meet you.”

  His rusty voice had livened up during their conversation, and when Ilka scooted her chair back to leave, he smiled. “Anytime you need to be rescued from some other young man, just let me know.”

  She smiled back and turned to go, but then thought of something. “Do you happen to know if my father knew a woman called Maggie?”

  After a few moments he shook his head. “Don’t believe so. Not that I recall.”

  Ilka had borrowed twenty dollars from Artie for gas. She’d also asked him what he knew about his father’s friend, but Artie had only met Frank Conaway a few times, and he made no secret of his fear of horses. He wouldn’t dream of setting foot in a stable.

  She punched in the address on the GPS and turned on the radio as she left Racine. The highway ran straight as a string, all the way to the horizon, and she gripped the wheel to fend off the occasional gusts of wind. It didn’t take long to see this stretch wasn’t going to be a nice little Sunday drive. At least she wouldn’t get lost.

  As she neared the Conaways’, she and the car behind her had the highway to themselves. Farmhouses were spread out, some close to the highway and others set back, hidden by windbreaks. Fenced-in pastures and hay barns were frequent reminders that she was in horse country now. She noticed several training tracks beside pastures, horse trailers parked by driveways.

  Two gigantic round hay bales were stacked up beside the gravel drive leading to the Conaway family’s farm; a hand-painted sign with their address stood in front. Ilka slowed down and double-checked the address before heading up the driveway. She spotted the woods behind the buildings, then the trail leading from the broad barn. She didn’t at all consider herself sentimental, but the thought of her father leading the pony down that trail moved her.

  “Stop it!” she snapped at herself. As if him taking care of a horse was some great thing, when he hadn’t so much as sent her a single birthday card.

  Gravel crunched under the tires, and a small black-and-white dachshund raced around the house and started yapping. Before Ilka shut the motor off, the farmhouse door opened and a middle-aged woman stepped out. A little girl clinging to her from behind stared wide-eyed at the stranger.

  Earlier Ilka had called to ask if she could stop by. “But Frank’s not here!” Karen Conaway had said. Ilka suggested she could come later that week if it was more convenient, but that it didn’t matter if Frank was there or not. She just thought it would be nice to see where the pony had lived.

  “Of course, I understand, sure,” Conaway’s wife had said. “And I know my daughter would love to show you our stable. You’re more than welcome to come. I’d love to meet Paul’s Danish daughter too. We’ve heard the stories about you charming the pants off everyone at the track, after your father said you were named after a Derby winner.”

  Ilka had offered to bring along some kringles from Racine, even though the pastry wasn’t at all like what she was used to at home. But Karen told her it wasn’t necessary, that she’d baked some Danish cookies and she’d like Ilka to taste them.

  They greeted each other at the door before going inside. The dog hid under a kitchen chair while Karen handed Ilka the coffee cups. Her young daughter was shy, but she followed them into the kitchen and sat down at the far end of the table. Soon she was absorbed in coloring in a page in a coloring book, though every so often she glanced up at Ilka in obvious curiosity.

  Karen poured coffee. “My husband knew your dad most of his adult life. In fact, Frank was the one they sent to pick Paul up at the airport, when he flew in from Denmark.”

  Ilka sat down at the plank table. Karen placed in front of her an old-fashioned cookie tin covered with elves and gold hearts, similar to the ones Ilka’s grandmother had.

  “Your father bought this at the museum. Have you seen it yet? They have tons of Danish things, and occasionally they hold a bazaar.”

  She offered Ilka a vanilla cookie. It was a bit odd for Ilka to see what to her was a Christmas cookie in late September. She laid it on her saucer and waited for Karen to serve her daughter juice and a cookie and sit down herself.

  “Paul gave me the recipe. I also make the flat brown cookies. But Lily and I like these the best.”

  “I didn’t know my father could bake Christmas cookies.”

  “They’re not Christmas cookies to us,” Karen said. “They’re just Danish cookies. Or like your dad said, Danish smo-kay-ger, right?”

  Ilka smiled. “Smah-kay-uh.”

  “I don’t think he baked either. He just handed me the recipe and said if I got bored, he’d be happy to taste them. He was a charmer, that dad of yours! He gave me the cookie tin too.”

  “How long did my father and your husband work together before he went into the funeral home business?”

  “It was before I met Frank, so I don’t really know. At first I got the feeling something had happened that kept Paul away from the stable. I thought it was weird Frank was friends with an undertaker! I got used to it, though.”

  She smiled sheepishly. “When Paul married Mary Ann, Frank and I were invited to the wedding. After that, he started showing up at the stable here and there.”

  Ilka hadn’t touched her coffee or the cookie. “What happened?”

  Immediately she regretted asking; Karen looked uneasy, as if she wanted to ignore the question, but then she straightened up and focused on what to say. “Well, I don’t know all the details. It wasn’t something people talked about. But when someone struggles with an addiction, they can lose control, the devil gets the upper hand. That’s what happened with your dad.”

  “He gambled?” Ilka said, to help her along.

  Karen nodded. “Frank said that when he came over, the plan was that he’d make a big investment in the stable he’d been hired to manage. Several other investors were involved too. And private people also put up some of the money. They aimed to establish one of the most successful trotter stables in North America. And the way I understood it, your dad’s job was to hire the best sulky drivers and get on the good side of the best breeders, so the stable would get first dibs on the new foals. That’s how he met Mary Ann. Her dad owned the stable.”

  She paused and gazed out the window.

  “But he couldn’t stop himself. The bets were small at first, but he also gambled when he traveled around visiting racetracks, scouting the sulky drivers and horses. My husband thinks it got serious when he tried to cover losses by upping his bets. It ended up with him losing it all.”

  Karen peered at Ilka for a moment. Checking to see if she could handle the rest, Ilka thought. Lily had stopped drawing and was staring at them.

  “So besides losing all the money he’d brought with him, nearly two hundred thousand dollars, he also gambled away the investors’ money. Frank called it a fever Paul couldn’t shake. He was deep in debt, and it was a disaster for every
one involved. Frank can give you more details. I remember once they talked about Paul leaving it all behind, going back to Denmark. But he knew he couldn’t just run, it would catch up to him. Things didn’t settle down until he got married.”

  “But what about all the money he owed?” Ilka asked.

  “His father-in-law covered the debt. Mary Ann was expecting their first child, so I’m guessing Raymond Fletcher wanted the scandal to go away.”

  “When did my father meet Mary Ann?”

  “They were married a year or two after he came. It all happened pretty fast.”

  “I guess so,” Ilka mumbled. Lucky that she and her mother hadn’t known, she thought. “And that’s when he started the funeral home?”

  Karen nodded. “He needed a job to support his family. More coffee?”

  “No thanks.” Her stomach ached from what Karen had told her. She pushed the half-full cup away.

  They listened to the girl’s crayons scratching in the silence that followed.

  “I’m looking forward to meeting your husband.” Ilka didn’t know what else to say. And she needed to get up, move around. She kept jiggling her cup, until the teaspoon inside hopped out and clattered on the table.

  “Things are a bit difficult at the moment.” Karen looked away. “But I’ll have him call you.”

  “It wouldn’t have to take long,” Ilka hurried to say. “I just want to talk to the people close to my father in the years after he left. There’s so much I don’t know. Maybe all I really want to know is how he felt, if he was happy. And if your husband doesn’t have time to meet with me, a phone conversation is okay.”

  “I understand, and of course Frank will talk to you. How long are you staying in Racine?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Karen stood up, and Ilka carried her cup over to the sink.

  “Don’t bother with that, just leave it,” Karen said. She asked her daughter if she wanted to show Ilka Benjamin’s old stall.

  “Yay!” The girl jumped up.

  Ilka slipped her jacket on out in the hallway and peeked into the living room at the high ceiling, heavy furniture, empty walls. Several rows of shiny trophies stood on shelves of dark wood.

  “Frank isn’t a sulky driver, of course, but sometimes trophies are handed out to an entire team when a driver wins a race. And it means a lot to my husband to be appreciated that way. If it was up to me, I might decide they don’t all have to be here in the living room.”

  She smiled, then walked over and opened the door. The mood was lighter now, and the little girl was already headed to the stable. Ilka asked Karen if she’d heard her father mention a woman named Maggie. She frowned in thought, then shook her head.

  “Is it someone he met at the racetrack?”

  Ilka shrugged. Of course, that was a possibility. “It’s just that she wrote a letter to him, and I’m trying to track her down.”

  “Sorry I can’t help.”

  Ilka held out her hand and thanked the woman for letting her come on such short notice. Suddenly the situation felt awkward: A handshake seemed too little, a hug too much. Ilka smiled at her and walked over to the girl waiting at the stable door. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes a moment before stepping inside.

  The stable was cool and dark. Lily chattered happily as they walked down the row of empty stalls, but Ilka wasn’t really listening. The smell of horses was so intense that she guessed they’d just been let out to pasture. A handmade plaque hung from the last stall; the crooked letters spelled out BENJAMIN. The pony’s stall was smaller than the others, and it was filled with food buckets and other things for the horses. It led to a room where a harness hung from a hook up by the ceiling.

  “I did that.” The girl pointed to a drawing, a whirlwind of dark colors. “My big sister did all the others, but she’s in school.”

  Ilka nodded. She was touched by the hearts and small, finely detailed horse heads surrounding the pony’s name. Obviously, the Conaway girls had loved him.

  “I can show you where his saddle was,” the girl said, eager to move on. Her mouth suddenly turned down. “It’s just hard to open the door.”

  Ilka smiled at her, even though her mind was elsewhere. “Maybe your father can help you fix it.” She followed Lily to a low wooden door she had to jerk open; inside there was more tack and a saddle stand with a pony blanket.

  “Mommy says he won’t be home for a long time.” Lily had lost interest in the saddle and the room, so Ilka closed and latched the door.

  They walked back along the stalls in silence, and when they stepped outside the little girl ran off.

  On the way home Ilka’s thoughts were on what Karen had told her. Which was why she first noticed the dark car when she pulled out to pass a truck. She kept an eye on the car in the rearview mirror. It looked like the one she’d seen on her way out to the Conaways’, though she wasn’t sure. But it was following her on the long, straight stretch of highway. When she slowed, the car didn’t pass her.

  A gas station appeared up ahead. She slowed down again, but she waited to signal until she turned in. The dark car drove on. It must be the Conaways’ stable, she thought, that explained why her heart was hammering, why she was so emotional. She watched the car disappear.

  She parked between two rows of gas pumps and gathered her thoughts. Should she have gone back and asked Karen what Lily meant when she said her dad wouldn’t be home for a long time? But she hardly knew the woman, and if they were breaking up…No, she couldn’t go down that road.

  The truck she’d passed earlier stopped beside the diesel pump farthest to the right. The driver jumped down out of the cab. His full beard covered most of his face, and his cap was turned backward. He looked like one of the men she’d seen at the bar the evening she met Larry.

  Suddenly she felt lonesome. It wasn’t that she had a lot of friends back in Copenhagen, but she missed running into people she knew, seeing a familiar face at the bakery or when she stopped by a café for coffee. She didn’t have a network of friends in Racine, people she felt connected to. She was alone, a stranger, and that was fine for a while, but it wasn’t going to work in the long run. Definitely not with the way things had gone. She closed her eyes; yes, she missed her apartment, her daily walk in Østre Anlæg, the old Copenhagen park. When she got home, she was going to get a cat!

  Stop it, she mumbled to herself, looking around as if she’d just woken up. Now, wouldn’t that be lovely, Ilka the crazy cat woman. Christ!

  A car behind her honked, and Ilka pulled over to a marked space and shut the engine off. She scanned the matches that had come in on Tinder. Quick dates. No obligations. Possibly ending with sex, possibly not, but at any rate a human being to be with. She wrote to a blond man, Jeff, and suggested they meet for a drink. Sounds good, he wrote back. He asked if she was new in town. Yes, she wrote. He offered to pick her up and take her to a bar north of Racine on Lake Michigan that was built into the bluffs along the shore, like a grotto. But she wrote that she’d rather stay in town, so she could walk home. They agreed to meet at a bar beside the old jazz club, which Ilka thought must have closed decades ago. She’d passed by there a few times on the way to the pub.

  She dropped her phone in her bag and pulled out of the filling station. The white center stripes flickered by on the deserted highway. Suddenly she remembered that she hadn’t emptied the refrigerator back home in Copenhagen before she left. Or the trash. That would be loads of fun to come home to, that and all her dead plants. She’d have to ask someone to go over there. Mom.

  For the past several days Ilka had avoided returning her mother’s calls. She was going to go crazy when she heard Ilka was bringing home a debt of a few million kroner, exactly as she’d predicted. It would haunt Ilka the rest of her life, limit her in so many ways that all she’d be able to do would be to try to keep her head above water.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d cussed her father out. “Thanks for absolutely nothing except all the s
hit you’ve dumped on my head!”

  She yelled in anger, felt like crying, screaming even louder. And in this hurricane of emotions, Ilka had no idea what to do about everything. Or what to do with herself, for that matter.

  Traffic picked up as she approached Racine. She noticed the dark car again, several cars back. She stopped at a red light, but when it turned green she didn’t move. The drivers behind leaned on their horns, and she turned on the emergency flashers. Gradually they began driving around her. She waited for the dark car to pass so she could see the driver, but it stopped directly behind her. When she turned and headed into Racine, the car followed.

  She still wasn’t sure it was the car that had followed her to the Conaways’, but she was convinced it was the one that had driven on when she’d stopped at the filling station. She sped up, and the rest of the way home she avoided looking in the rearview mirror.

  When she walked in, Ilka recognized Jeff from his profile photo. Which was easy to do, because he was the only customer in the place. He was leaning over the bar, talking to a girl drying glasses, and they turned and looked at her. For a moment the situation was awkward; the girl clearly was aware that though they didn’t know each other, they were there to meet each other. Ilka noticed the look they exchanged before he turned to her and smiled. She walked up and said hello to him and nodded at the bartender, who asked what she’d like to drink.

  “Why don’t we go for a walk instead,” she said, even though he had a full glass of beer in front of him.

  He hesitated a moment before nodding and laying a few dollars on the bar. He held the door for her on the way out.