Fire Sweeping: The California Ballot Killings Book II

by H M Wilhelmborn

  “And I’m not giving you up, either,” he said.

  I hugged him. We held onto each other as Louise told us that Mike had to go, or Greta would suspect something.

  I got back home, and, missing my kids, I pulled my tablet out of my bag and watched videos of us together in happier times. I came across a video clip from a few years before, documenting Jon’s description of his first day at school.

  My sweet, thoughtful son. I worried about him most. There he was, telling his dad and me about his first day of school. He was carefree as he answered our questions about his first day. (Consistent with Linda Maywrot’s advice, I only reproduce below what my son said, not mine and Mauru’s questions and comments in response.)

  “There were books, recess, lunch, and snacks, Mom. Today was a short day. Because it was my first day of school. Andrew is my friend. I know. That’s the only one I’m friends with. I’m still at the same place where I went to kindergarten when I was five years old. Some of my friends are apart from my school. Mrs. Moore. We didn’t do too many drawings, Mom. The only thing we did lots of was books. Books and one paper to draw, and that’s all. And they gave us one more paper to draw on; that wasn’t fun. I drew Dad. Dad is my hero. Then I drew more pictures of me, and you, and Dad, and Nate. Yes, Dad is my hero. That’s the only thing we made at school, Mom. Mom, you love shopping at ConfiPrice. You never stop going to ConfiPrice. Sometimes they have competitions if you buy stuff at ConfiPrice. You can get prizes, but the prizes are rubbish, not nice, there. You said what, Dad? I’m busy watching TV, playing games, Dad. I just opened my new game—the one you and Mom got me for my birthday. And I need more games, please, because you and Mom want me to share with Nate. I don’t know about school, Dad. School’s kind of not nice. It wasn’t even handsome. It wasn’t even prettiest. And it doesn’t get prettier at the same time. Tomorrow I go back to school, and I don’t even know if they do vacation. First grade does vacation, Dad? I didn’t know if first grade does vacation. I wish I was a grown-up, and you skip school if you’re a grown-up. Is that why you and Mom skip school all the time, Dad? I never even saw you go to school, except to teach, Dad. I don’t want to be a kid anymore. And I want to get out of first grade today. I really want to get out of first grade. Can I have a buttermilk biscuit, please, Mom? No, just one teaspoon of preserves, please. And one also for Nate, please. Otherwise, he’ll even eat mine, and then he’ll bite me. Nate bites. Yes, like that. Thank you, Mom.”

  22

  She’s Just Let Herself Go

  I’d just been crying.

  To comfort myself, I’d been rereading Oh, Happy the Horse to Bear His Weight! by Ambrosia Skiffles.

  A package arrived for me.

  It was an envelope. Thinking it was from Mike (and only having Louise’s phone number), I texted her and asked if Mike had sent me a gift.

  Mike called me.

  He asked how I was doing.

  I told him that I was struggling, but I’d be OK. He said he missed me, he was in Sacramento on an assignment, but he’d be back in San Diego permanently in a month. He couldn’t wait to see me.

  Was he OK?

  Yes, it was good to be free, he said, and the number from which he’d called was a secure line.

  Had he just sent me a gift?

  No, because he was going to give me the gift in person when he next saw me. He had to go, but I should feel free to call whenever. He missed me, and he looked forward to seeing me soon.

  The envelope I’d received had no return address, and it had my name as “Janet Whit. Virdis.”

  I went to the kitchen, got a knife, and sliced the envelope open.

  Seven photographs.

  My heart sank. What now?

  As I flipped through the photos, I felt a sharp pain in my chest, and I wanted to vomit.

  I ran to the bathroom, puked my guts out, brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth, and gargled with mouthwash. I sat on the bathroom floor and tried to process what I’d just seen. Those were fakes. They had to be. Photos could be doctored; they could be manipulated in a number of ways.

  I stood up, went back to the kitchen, and I emptied the envelope.

  There was a computer chip and a birth certificate inside.

  I put the chip into my laptop (which I’d brought to the kitchen), clicked on the icon marked “Click Me, Janet,” and the video played.

  I vomited into the trash can in the kitchen. I stood up, held my hands over my head, and I felt my chest constrict. I sat on a bar stool and continued watching the video. I vomited again.

  It was a crystal-clear video of Mauru being intimate with another woman.

  I didn’t know who she was, but she looked nothing like me, sounded nothing like me, and acted nothing like me. The video was date-and-time stamped.

  December 18, 2032, 13:33:09.

  I had no recollection of that day, of where we were, of where Mauru said he was.

  I tried to recall that day, but all I came up with was that on Saturdays, Mauru sometimes asked if it was OK for him to spend the day with his buddies.

  Jon was three months short of three years on that date. Nate hadn’t yet been conceived. I was almost thirty-three, and Mauru was almost thirty-two.

  As I looked at the screen, I was getting such a headache that I told myself to breathe deeply. I took two aspirin. The video had closed captions.

  “Because she’s the mother of my son, babe,” Mauru reassured the woman. “Because my parents and my sister wanted me to marry her. I could never love her as much as I love you, Ginger. She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go. I try not to mind it, but it’s sometimes so difficult to get turned on by her. I need medication to get aroused. That would never happen with you because you make me feel like a man. Look.”

  My mind went blank.

  My hands were trembling. I was crying, sniffling, but I knew emotion was useless. Nothing could undo what I’d just seen. I flipped through the photos again as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

  I recognized the place.

  The photos were taken on seven different occasions at Gatherers & Hunters.

  In each of them, Mauru stood with a boy and a woman.

  I studied the photos.

  That was the boy we’d seen when we visited!

  It was the boy they called “Giulio.”

  In one of the photos, Mauru was kissing the woman standing next to the boy. In another, they all stood happily, like a family.

  The most recent photo, in which they were all laughing with what looked like apples in their hands, was dated a month before.

  I blew my nose into a paper towel.

  I looked at the birth certificate.

  CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH

  STATE OF CALIFORNIA

  Name of Child-First: Heath

  Middle: Marium

  Last: Wilhelmborn

  Sex: Undesignated/Non-binary

  This Birth – Single, Twin, Etc.: Twin

  Date of Birth – MM/DD/CCYY: 07/04/2033

  Hour – 24-Hour Clock Time: 0710

  Place of Birth – Name of Hospital or Facility:

  Gatherers & Hunters Commune

  Name of Parent – First: Mauru

  Middle: Giulio

  Last: Virdis

  Name of Parent – First: Ginger

  Middle: Ardbrae

  Last: Wilhelmborn

  Parent or Other Informant – Signature: [Mauru’s signature]

  Relationship to Child: Father [Mauru’s handwriting]

  Date Signed: 07/10/2033

  Date Accepted for Registration

  – MM/DD/CCYY: 07/12/2033

  I stood up and walked around the condo, muttering obscenities to myself.

  He was ashamed of me! And he was making fun of my weight!

  I played the video over and over again, incredulous.

  “She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go. I try not to mind it, but it’s sometimes so difficult to get turned on by her. I need medicati
on to get aroused.”

  I sobbed till my throat hurt and my eyes burned.

  I wanted to call Mike, but I was too overwhelmed to say anything coherent.

  “She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go.”

  Mauru’d signed his illegitimate child’s birth certificate with the name “Mauru Giulio Virdis.”

  I didn’t even know that “Giulio” was his second name. I’d been married to him for over a decade, had had four children with him, and he’d never once told me his second name was Giulio—

  “She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go. I try not to mind it, but it’s sometimes so difficult to get turned on by her. I need medication to get aroused.”

  He was looking directly into the camera, which he adjusted every so often.

  “She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go. I try not to mind it, but it’s sometimes so difficult to get turned on by her. I need medication to get aroused.”

  I drove to Maria’s place, and she was about to go grocery shopping with her parents and Sacha, her daughter.

  “I think you should stay with Janet,” Rigoberta told Maria when she saw me sob at their doorstep. “Papa and I will take Sacha for some ice cream first, and then we’ll do the shopping so you have time together with Janet. Take care of yourself, Janet. It’s always good to see you.”

  I showed Maria the documents, and we watched the video together.

  I cried again.

  “Well,” Maria said, trying to cheer me up, “I can see why you and Mauru had so many kids.”

  “Not now, Maria,” I said. “I honestly don’t know what to do. I want to hurt him so badly, but I’m also so mad at the CWP. I’m so mad.”

  “You’re my sister,” Maria said as she hugged me, “so I’m honest with you in ways I would never be honest with anyone else. We have been through thick and thin together, Janet. So, what I’m going to say comes from a place of love. OK?”

  I nodded.

  “I think you’re actually angry at yourself,” Maria said. “Maybe there’s a little bit of anger at Mauru, but I think you’re hurting a lot because you can’t believe you didn’t know about Mauru, and you feel like a fool, and then there’s also the story of this Mike guy—”

  “I wish he were here—”

  Maria sighed. She rubbed her eyes.

  “He finds me disgusting, Maria. He even said so.”

  “That was seven years ago, Janet,” Maria said. “The video says it was shot seven years ago. We’ve all changed over the past seven years. Seven years ago, Alexander was here. Seven years ago, Alexander and I were really happy, and we were talking of having a child and adopting. Seven years in a life is forever, Janet.”

  “She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go. I try not to mind it, but it’s sometimes so difficult to get turned on by her. I need medication to get aroused.”

  I sobbed again, and Maria hugged and rocked me back and forth.

  “I’m going to ask you to do something very difficult,” Maria said.

  “What?” I wiped my nose with some tissue, and I also wiped my eyes.

  “This other child, Heath Marium, you must not blame him—”

  “Of course, I blame him! He’s illegitimate, a bastard!”

  “No, Janet. You must keep him out of your anger. He didn’t have any choice in this, and if you forget that, you will lose your humanity. You will become like the CWP.”

  I couldn’t stop sobbing. My throat hurt and my eyes burned. Maria kept plying me with tissue.

  “Anyway,” I said, changing topics, “we always talk about me. Let’s talk about you.”

  Maria knew that when I abruptly changed the topic, it was often best to let me have my way because I’d only return to the subject when I wanted to.

  “Abraham,” Maria said, referring to Helen’s son, whom Maria was now dating, “was really ashamed of what his mother did to your mom, Janet,” Maria said. “He asked Helen why, and she said that she did it for the greater glory of God, whatever that means.”

  “How are things going with Abraham?”

  “Slowly,” she said. “Sometimes we’re going so slow that if we went any slower, we’d be going in reverse.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “But Abraham’s a good man, Janet. I can feel it. He’ll be coming over for dinner in two weeks. And he did something really extraordinary, Janet: he asked if all three of us—me, him, and Sacha—if we could all go to Alexander’s grave to ask for his permission for Abraham to be in Sacha’s life. I need to go to Alexander’s grave on my own beforehand to prepare him to meet Abraham. Alexander would want to hear it from me first.”

  “She’s just let herself go.”

  “May I go with you?” I asked Maria. “I miss Alexander, too, and I haven’t been to his grave since shortly after the funeral, which was about four years ago now. You know, I was thinking the other day: the first time I met Alexander, he called me a goddess.”

  “He did,” Maria said. “He thought you were very pretty.”

  “I need medication to get aroused.”

  “How do you get over a man like Alexander, Maria, a really good man, whom you know loved you with all his heart? How do you survive without him?”

  “You don’t, Janet. You just build a life around the hole in the middle of your heart, and you hope that someday that hole will heal.”

  “Do you remember when I ate marijuana at your home?”

  “How can I forget?”

  “Whatever happened to his friends, Matt and David, and Zahid and Jonathan?”

  “Matt married David, and they have two kids. They live in Iceland, as happy as ever—”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, they’ve been together fifteen years now. It’s been over twelve years since ‘Find Me a Unicorn,’ Janet. So many changes. Zahid and Jonathan are still together, still fighting, and they live in Alaska. They adopted two girls a year ago. It’s brought them closer together. Jonathan asks about you whenever we’re in touch. He came down a year or two ago with Zahid to see Alexander’s family and to visit his grave. You never get over the loss of someone you loved, Janet. Never. You live to honor their memory.”

  I sniffled and blew my nose. “Do you still see Alexander’s family?” I asked.

  “Once a month. Sacha is their granddaughter, and she looks a lot like her father, and she has Alexander’s sensitivity and thoughtfulness, too. I miss him, Janet. And I love Alexander still. I will always love Alexander del Roble, and I hope that he has finally found peace where he is now. And, yes, I would marry him again, even with all that I experienced when I lost him. I had many wonderful years with Alexander, even when it was tough. And he gave me Sacha, angelito mío.”

  I gave Maria a hug.

  “Whatever you do,” Maria said, sobbing, too, as she remembered Alexander, “don’t react, Janet. You will damage yourself if you react to the contents of this envelope. Wait for it all to die down before you respond. Everything calms down in time.”

  The world that I had worked so hard to build had come undone. My marriage was in ruins, and the man I thought I knew was a philanderer and a liar. And he was cruel, too. He’d judged me and had taken my kids away from me when he had done this terrible thing. He’d also taken me to see his son.

  I attended Mothers for Mercy meetings, where all three of the Zanzivahl sisters sat next to me. They proceeded to tell me, unprompted, that what the CWP was doing to Coloradans in California (some of whom had been fired and others of whom had been beaten in restaurants when they announced with pride that they were Coloradans) was going to get people killed, which the Zanzivahl family would never accept.

  “Apart from our lawsuits,” Anthea Zanzivahl told me, “we are going to strike hard at Jerry Trehoviak and his minions. Just you wait and see.”

  “OK,” I said as I thought about Mauru with the other woman.

  “She’s just let herself go.”

  “Would you like to have coffee sometime?” Jessica Z
anzivahl, Bulba, asked. “You always sit alone at these meetings, and we could use a friend—”

  “So that you can make fun of me like you did the first time we met?” I asked.

  “We’re sorry about that,” Ariana Zanzivahl said. “We’ve seen you at the Church of the Moral Elixir. Zone twelve. We’re in zone fifteen. We could use a friend. You name the date, the place, and the time. You can even bring a friend along. On us.”

  “We’ll be on our best behavior. Promise,” Anthea said.

  “You don’t need to decide now,” Ariana said. “Here are our numbers. Call anyone of us. I’m Ariana, by the way.”

  “And I’m Jessica.”

  “I’m Anthea.”

  “Janet,” I said. “I’m Janet Whitaker Vir . . .” I couldn’t say the rest of Mauru’s family name. I shook their hands.

  Gregoria Handbloom took to the podium and announced that the lawsuits were filed, and we hoped to defeat the CWP and the Water Court, which had opened to much fanfare two months earlier, in August 2039.

  The state engineer, an officer of the Water Court, was now going house to house to verify that people weren’t in violation of Hannah’s Section 1(a)(1), and Mothers for Mercy was committed to having the law repealed.

  I should have applauded Gregoria Handbloom’s announcement, but I kept thinking of Mauru with Ginger.

  “Because my parents and my sister wanted me to marry her. I could never love her as much as I love you, Ginger. She’s fat, and she’s just let herself go.”

  I wanted to talk to Mike, to run away with him, to ask him to save me from my sham marriage to a deceitful man, who just happened to be the father of my kids.

  On November 21, 2039, Hannah called me to Sheila’s office, where Hannah, wearing her CWP uniform, told me that she knew about me and Mike. Greta had told her, and Mike had had to come clean.

  I was numb by then; the aftereffects of what I’d just gone through with Mauru had turned me silent.

  “You lied to me, Janet,” Hannah said. “My own friend. Behind my back, you seduced Mike, you slept with him when I was seeing him, and you covered it up for months. Were you ever going to tell me?”