Her Father's Secret

by Sara Blaedel

  Outside in the evening light, she sized him up. He was short-legged and muscular, and good-looking, though with a serious, somewhat stubborn expression. The air was cool but not cold. She’d been told that Wisconsin could get a hard frost in late September. Or it could be eighty degrees all the way into October. Right now it was somewhere in between.

  Ilka smoothed her hair back, tried to make it behave, but the wind kept blowing it into her face. Her hair was thin and a bit sad-looking to begin with.

  They walked down toward the marina. “How long have you lived here?” she asked. Was he using Tinder just for sex, no strings attached, or was he the dating type? While walking he told her a lot about the town but very little about himself. By the time they reached the pier and passed by the hotel, she realized he hadn’t answered her question. At least now she knew the population of Racine was just under eighty thousand.

  He stopped so their shoulders were touching. They were the same height, but either he didn’t notice she was a beanpole, or else he didn’t care. He didn’t seem to be reacting to her physically, and she wondered if he might just be lonely and in need of company. Then he pointed out along the pier, and she felt his hand on the small of her back.

  “My boat’s over there, you want to see it?” His voice was lower now, with a different feel to it.

  She smiled and nodded. The only other person on the pier was a man coming from the parking lot, carrying a small bag.

  On the way to the boat, she wrapped her arm around his waist to make things a little easier. It was a fine-looking motorboat, brimming with features that anyone interested in boats would notice, but Ilka was only interested in the man glued to her, stirring her body. She felt his back muscles clenching under his sweater as they walked in unison to the boat. Jeff jumped down and lifted the short gangplank into place, then held his hand out and helped her over. A real gentleman.

  When he let go of her hand, Ilka swayed for a moment. She’d never been much of a seagoer, and even the mild rocking did something to her sense of balance. She was afraid of getting seasick if she lay down. Which meant they’d just have to stay on their feet. And really, there was no reason to drag things out. He didn’t seem all that interested either.

  She followed him to the small cabin hatch and ducked her head as she squeezed her way down the short steps. There wasn’t much room below. A few empty beer cans and a pizza box lay on the countertop at the bottom of the steps. The narrow opening toward the front, too tight to be called a doorway, led to another room with an unmade bed. She wasn’t about to crawl in there; she already felt claustrophobic. Maybe she should find some excuse and get out of there, but he seemed like a decent guy. When he brought two beers over to the table, she reached for him and pulled his shirttail out. He looked surprised as he set the beers down.

  Darkness was falling outside, and the small portholes didn’t let much light in anyway. Maybe she was just paranoid from the episode with the car, but several times she had the feeling someone was walking on the deck above. She pulled off his shirt, and he unzipped his pants. Before she could react, he pushed her head down and shoved his cock in her mouth. She almost said something; she was the one who’d started all this, it seemed like she ought to have some say in the matter. But when he unbuttoned her blouse, she squirmed out of it and unhooked her bra and threw it on the floor. He began moaning, then he pulled out of her mouth and lifted her up. She winced as he began kissing her breasts; they were small, embarrassingly so to her. His focus, though, centered on his throbbing erection. His eyes shone, his hands were all over her, and his heavy breathing felt hot on her neck. Finally, he yanked down her pants. Ilka was dripping with sweat as she laid her hand on his chest and felt his heart pounding. She surrendered to the heat of his body, trembled as the hair on his arm brushed against her naked skin. He turned her around and pushed her against the table, then he pulled her panties down with his finger and entered her.

  Ilka rarely felt uneasy even when with a man she didn’t know. She’d never experienced anyone wanting more than she did, and this was no different. She was totally into it, into his violent thrusts; her thoughts and worries about the future were in another world. She came with a scream, her anger joining the spasms running through her body. A moment later he gripped her hips tightly and came with a final thrust, then he collapsed onto the table as they caught their breath. She pulled away and turned to him. No kissing, no signs of affection. This had been a release, nothing more.

  As she gathered her clothes, they heard footsteps crossing the deck and onto the gangplank. She turned to the steps, and Jeff pulled on his pants and raced up the steps and outside. Ilka banged her head on one of the beams when she stood up. “Shit!” She rubbed the back of her head.

  Jeff peeked down through the hatch. “You all right?”

  “Is someone there?”

  Jeff shook his head. She didn’t ask more. He’d reacted, and that was all that mattered. Someone had been there. She hadn’t even considered whether he was married, but if he got caught, that was his problem. He’d served his purpose.

  He hopped back down into the cabin. “You want a beer?”

  She noticed the boat’s toilet beside the small kitchen, and another bedroom behind with more headroom. It didn’t matter, though; the table had been fine. Her body felt relaxed and light, refreshed. She almost thanked him, but she caught herself. The silence felt a bit strained, as if he was wondering if he ought to invite her out, so Ilka quickly said she needed to get going.

  He handed her a can of beer as a final friendly gesture, but when she said she was meeting someone, he lowered his arm. He looked relieved.

  The funeral is at the Lutheran church in West Racine at twelve thirty,” Sister Eileen said when Ilka walked into the kitchenette the next morning. She’d had a long, dreamless sleep, interrupted only by her alarm clock ringing, and when she woke up she’d felt rested and ready to go. And a bit disoriented; she’d been uncertain about where she was, though the sound of Sister Eileen rustling around below quickly reminded her.

  “The body is on a stretcher in the cold room,” the nun continued. “The family approved the white wooden coffin, so that’s taken care of, but we still need flowers to decorate it and the rows of chairs in the church. The family didn’t say what flowers they wanted, only that they be in autumn colors.”

  Ilka put down the carafe of coffee. The other day she’d made it clear they had no money for flowers. She’d already emptied her own account to keep the funeral home going, and the fact that they were losing money made it impossible to ask the bank for a loan.

  “Artie’s taking care of the flowers,” Sister Eileen added.

  It seemed as though Sister Eileen enjoyed watching her face turn white. Like now, as Ilka pictured him walking around the cemetery, gathering up wreaths and bouquets. But she saw no other solution. “What if he gets caught?”

  “Then we’ll have one more problem on our hands.” Sister Eileen walked back to her office in the reception.

  Ilka closed her eyes and leaned her head against the doorframe. Might as well be bars on all the windows and doors, she thought. She felt trapped, with no way out of the mess her father had put her in. She’d never dreamed of being an undertaker, had never wanted to live in a small city like Racine either. When she was younger, she would have given anything to have even occasional contact with her father, but right now she wished he’d completely forgotten his daughter from his first marriage and instead let lovely Leslie and awkward Amber and their sharpshooter mother deal with his mess.

  But he’d left the business to her, and no matter how much she struggled or how hopeless the situation seemed, that meant something to her.

  Artie barreled in from the parking lot. “Can you give me a hand here?” He threw an armful of orange and yellow chrysanthemums on the floor. “There’s more outside.”

  Ilka stared at the mound of flowers, not wreaths or bouquets, but cut flowers, fresh. She followed him out. “Where have
you been, a greenhouse?”

  He grabbed another armful from the pickup bed. “You could say that. I got ahold of some greenery too. You any good at binding flowers?”

  Ilka shrugged. She’d never done it, but just like her job as a school photographer in Denmark, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t learn. She’d taught herself photography, and that had worked out okay when she took over the business after Flemming’s death. So, what the hell; surely she could learn to tie flowers together too. She waited for Artie to gather up the last of them.

  “Where have you been?” she asked when he shut the tailgate. “Out at the common grave?”

  He stopped and looked up at her a moment before shaking his head. “I drove by, I admit that, but a family was there in mourning, so I didn’t stop.”

  “So where have you been?”

  He walked past her without answering. “I think there’s string and wire in the flower room.” He nodded at a door beside the trash container.

  Ilka picked up the flowers on the floor inside and carefully laid them on the table in the flower room. Artie tossed down the greenery. “You’ve got an hour, then I have to drive them over to the church.”

  “What do I make, wreaths or bouquets?” she yelled. But he was already gone, so she went to look for the funeral contract Sister Eileen had laid somewhere. She was hoping to find some videos on YouTube explaining how to tie up wreaths and flowers, because the only time she’d ever tried it was in seventh grade, during a “vocational evening” when students could check out various workshops. All they’d made back then, though, was a table arrangement. How to arrange flowers in a vase to make it somewhat symmetrical. They’d never gotten to bouquets like this. Ilka went upstairs for her iPad and grabbed a pair of scissors in the office, then she yelled to the two others that she’d be in the flower room.

  Twenty-four small sprigs of chrysanthemums. The wrong flower, because their blooms were too large for the small vases at the end of each row of pews. Ilka gave up on a casket spray; it was too difficult to make the flowers stand up in the middle and lie down at the ends of the coffin. Instead she’d made a type of table arrangement directly on the coffin, though without a vase. Then she’d placed cut flowers and greenery loosely on top of the coffin lid, her own variation of a tied bouquet. More modern. The question was if they would stay put when they lifted the coffin. Several times she’d almost thrown in the towel, but finally she fetched a roll of tape in the office and taped the flowers to the lid, with the next flower covering each piece of tape. It ended up looking like vines surrounding the flower arrangement.

  When Artie was ready to leave, she said, “We need to be very careful when we carry the coffin.”

  He made no comments on the alternative decoration, though she thought it looked really nice. At least from a distance. She helped him carry the coffin to the hearse, but before they reached the parking lot, the tape started falling off. They set the coffin down, and Ilka ran back for the tape, but when she returned Artie was already wielding a staple gun; each sharp crack signaled another flower fastened to the coffin. When he was finished, he claimed they could turn the coffin upside down without the flowers falling off.

  Ilka watched him drive away. She felt leaden, all the way down to her feet. She couldn’t handle this, she was incompetent, and besides, she was broke. Not only economically, but mentally. She couldn’t even do this last funeral without ad-libbing. Cheating.

  After lunch they sat down in the office. Ilka had made coffee and tea and set a bowl of small chocolates on the table, along with a large notepad. “Forget about me,” she said. “This is about finding the best way I can help you two, because my decision is definitely going to change your plans for the future.”

  Sister Eileen stared out the window. Not demonstratively as she sometimes did when Ilka spoke. This time she looked resigned. Which was exactly how Ilka felt. She was ashamed of herself for giving up, but there was nothing to do about it. Besides, she barely knew these people, and it wasn’t her fault their futures were threatened.

  And yet…maybe it really was her fault. If only the memories of a father who’d abandoned her hadn’t been so disruptive when she’d arrived in Racine, if only she’d kept her head and trusted Artie Sorvino to do what was best for the funeral home and her by selling it to Golden Slumbers, none of them would be in this mess. She’d been thinking about that since she watched Artie drive off with the coffin. She’d reached rock bottom and dragged them down with her. Now she had to find out what she could save. For their sakes.

  “I’ve called the American Funeral Group, and they’ve agreed to meet with me today. But before I talk to them, I need to know everything we want included in a contract.”

  Neither of them spoke, so she turned to Artie. “Are you still interested in taking over the house? I can say that’s part of the agreement, that you do the embalming and reconstruction work for them. So you’ll have work, but as a freelancer.”

  “It would be great if you can get that into the contract. I’d hate to not have a job when they take over.”

  Ilka thought of his house out by Lake Michigan. It couldn’t be cheap. “Then that will be a condition.”

  She turned to the nun. “How about you, would you like me to see if they’ll keep you on, move you over to their offices, or…”

  Finally the nun turned to her. “Don’t think about me, I’m not an employee.”

  “Of course I’m thinking about you; you live here, you’re part of the business. Or I can also make it a condition that you continue living in your apartment.”

  She had no idea about the rules the nuns had regarding their volunteer work. She didn’t even know if Sister Eileen wanted to stay, now that her father was gone. A lot of the time she didn’t seem to want to be here. Or maybe she just didn’t want to be around Ilka.

  “Just let me know when they take over, and I’ll be out by then.”

  Artie had lit a cigarette without her noticing. She was about to say something, but if they were all on their way out anyway, what difference did it make if he smoked inside?

  “I’d really like you to stay,” he said, blowing smoke to the side as he looked at Sister Eileen. “’Course we don’t know if I’ll get any work, but if I do I need someone to run the office.”

  Her father had always taken good care of Sister Eileen, Artie had told her. Now she felt guilty, as if she wasn’t living up to her obligations, but she didn’t see what more she could do. “I’ll tell them you have to stay in the apartment.”

  “But what about you?” Artie asked. “You have any idea how much you need to get out of debt?”

  Ilka nodded. Apart from the $60,000 Artie had chipped in to pay back taxes, which could be seen as a down payment on the house, she owed just under $240,000. Surely that wasn’t an unreasonable amount for them to pay, though in fact she had no idea what the funeral home was worth. The deal with Golden Slumbers she had scuttled included them taking over her father’s customers and the large bank account consisting of payments for prepaid funerals. Though money was freed up only after a funeral was held, it did represent significant value. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself. It might not be cash right here and now, but it was guaranteed revenue. Luckily the account was inaccessible, which meant the money hadn’t disappeared into the hole her father had dug.

  Ilka had been shocked to learn how expensive funerals were in the United States, often twice or three times as much as in Denmark. No wonder people made arrangements—so their children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to go into debt. And yet it seemed a bit morbid to her that so many young Americans paid into burial accounts.

  “Surely they’re interested in taking over the prepaid funerals,” she said. “It’s money in their pockets.”

  Artie nodded.

  “Not unless some of the people who have paid do in fact die,” Sister Eileen said.

  Ilka studied her a moment before standing up. “I have to be there in twenty minutes, and I ne
ed to change.”

  She probably should have asked their advice before contacting the funeral home chain, but she’d hit the wall. And she was the one heavily in debt, not them; no matter how much she wanted to help them, she had to think of her own situation. Which was what kept stirring in the back of her head. If she couldn’t sell the funeral home, her future back home in Denmark was a big question mark, because her photography business was rapidly going down the drain.

  She stopped at the door and turned to them. “I wish we could go out and celebrate when I get back, but I can’t even afford a full tank of gas. So you’ll have to wait until everything’s taken care of.”

  That wasn’t entirely true; she did have sixty-eight dollars. But that was it. She had no more money, anywhere.

  Sister Eileen didn’t look all that disappointed as she stood up. “I truly hope you know what you’re doing.” She left the room.

  “Don’t you think it’s better I do this?” Artie said. “It didn’t turn out so great the last time you locked horns with them.”

  Ilka shook her head. He was right, though; her last meeting with the American Funeral Group had not been a success, to put it mildly. At the time, Ilka thought she’d already had the business sold, and she’d been less than hospitable when two men showed up and practically bullied their way into the funeral home. Finally, Ilka got so mad that she almost shoved them out the door.

  Fortunately, the episode hadn’t been mentioned when she called them before lunch to set up a meeting. And they asked her to come that very day—a good sign, she thought.

  Ilka parked behind what until recently had been the Oldhams’ funeral home. The family had owned it for several generations, until a sudden tragedy forced them to sell the business almost overnight. Ilka had heard that the funeral home chain planned on running the business the Oldhams’ way, so the change in ownership would be less obvious.