Enid Esther Koslowski had been respected as a good wife and mother, but she hadn’t had a lot of friends. Of course, Bernie hadn’t made it easy for her, as she was always wondering which of them he’d been sleeping with lately. Bernie wasn’t a rounder, per se, but there had been some serious inroads in infidelity on his side of the bed and while the Park was large in area, it was very small in population. It was impossible to hide those kinds of indiscretions for long. Especially in winter, when there was little to do except gossip about one’s neighbors, and a familiar truck parked outside an unaccustomed cabin was fodder for intense speculation. Kate had always been glad her folks had had the good sense to homestead twenty-five miles out of town and another quarter of a mile down an access road.
Kate had filed Bernie’s extracurricular activities under “none of my business,” but she had often wondered what it was that made grown men act the fool in the spectacular way they all too often did. Laurel Meganack, the most recent light-o’-love, was seventeen years younger than Bernie. What was that about? Did Laurel even know who Jimmy Buffet was?
Men were definitely from Mars, and in spite of all the science fiction Kate had read she just wasn’t big with aliens. It was still a source of astonishment that Jim had hung on for as long as he had. She still wondered every time he went out the door if that was the last time she’d see him in anything other than a professional capacity. Jim’s relationships tended to last six months to a year. Apart from the fact that she didn’t know when to start counting from (the time they had first slept together in Bering, sort of by accident? that day she’d assaulted him in Ruth Bauman’s cabin and he’d assaulted her right back?), she did not delude herself into imagining that even the infinite mystery of Kate Shugak could lure Jim Chopin into digging in for the long run.
She halted in the act of dealing out paper plates and plastic cutlery on the folding tables set up at the side of the gym, dismayed to feel her heart sink at the prospect. Her heart had no business doing anything of the kind.
“Aycheewah, what you do there, Katya, fall asleep?” Auntie Vi bustled up, dealing out casseroles like so many cards.
It was the first civil word Auntie Vi had spoken to her since the scene in the Ahtna courthouse, and Kate was absurdly grateful. “Sorry, Auntie,” she said, and went to work.
Half an hour later, the Kanuyaq River Band was blaring off the stage, or they were when they managed to wrest the sound system from the stream of Park rats who spoke in memoriam of Enid and Fitz Koslowski. More kids spoke of Fitz than adults spoke of Enid, and the kids who spoke of Fitz had more to say than the adults did who spoke of Enid. Kate recalled one of the few times she had seen Enid in a group of other women, the witches’ coven in the woods following the death of Lisa Gette. An exorcism of the spirit of yet another of Bernie’s lovers, however passing and passim. Poor Enid.
Bernie was there, with his remaining two children, Teddy and Kathleen.
A corn-fed Iowan from a traditional family, Bernie had followed a pretty girl to the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968, where a beating by Chicago’s finest got his attention. He attended Kent State, where he was further radicalized by the shootings in 1970. Later that same year he had burned his draft card on the steps of the Pentagon and spent the rest of the Vietnam War in Canada, where he remained until Carter pardoned everyone and he could come home. His father, who saw service in the Pacific in World War II, had never forgiven him. He and Bobby Clark had a lot in common, and he was first on the guest list to Bobby’s vets-only annual uncelebration of the Tet Offensive.
He had migrated gradually westward, eventually to Alaska and finally the Park, where nobody cared what your personal history was before you crossed the border at Salmon Creek, and even if they did, they knew better than to ask what it was. Inquiries into the personal history of strangers were frowned on in Alaska, and could be fighting words in the Park.
Within a year, Bernie had married Enid, the daughter of a local entrepreneurial family with roots that went back to the gold rush, and proceeded to reincarnate the one president he believed could and would have kept the U.S. out of Vietnam in his children. John Fitzgerald Koslowski, Robert Edward Koslowski, and Kathleen Rose Koslowski, the Kennedy clan was all present and accounted for at Bernie’s house.
He built the existing Roadhouse first, then half a dozen cabins that he rented out by the week or day, and got the roof on the house out back just in time for Kathleen’s arrival, Enid having made it known she would bear but not birth a third child in a tent, no matter how well insulated it was.
He had coached the high school basketball teams to, so far, three Class C state championships, and as a rule didn’t repeat the stories he heard in inebriated spurts across his bar. He never served alcohol to minors, and he knew the birthdays of every kid born in Niniltna and, some believed, in the entire Park. Kate had watched him turn pregnant women away, too.
All in all, an exemplar of Park ratness, their Bernie. Except for that minor inability to keep his fly zipped. Although some and perhaps many would say it put the icing on the rat cake.
So to speak.
Billy and Annie Mike paused for a few words, Suzie in tow. Kate duly admired the baby girl they had recently adopted from Korea. She was a darling and it wasn’t a stretch. Kate ladled punch into countless plastic cups, spooned endless portions of macaroni and cheese onto paper plates, and spread peanut butter and strawberry jam on hundreds of rounds of pilot bread. She helped Auntie Vi hand out the gifts, twenty-five sets of Tupperware bowls, another twenty-five sets of bath towels, both to the community’s recognized elders, but everyone got at minimum a keychain or a shot glass with the Roadhouse logo on it. Billy and Annie Mike got round-trip tickets to Anchorage on George Perry’s Chugach Air Taxi Service. The four aunties and Kate got beer boxes full of strips of smoked salmon, the real stuff, when your jaw hurt for a week and your house smelled for a month after eating it.
As the gifts were being handed out, Kate noticed a preponderance of Smiths about the gymnasium. Father and Mother along with all seventeen children stood in the gift line, and Kate further noticed that while no one was so impolite as to chase them off, the parents got shot glasses and the kids got key chains. No towels or Tupperware or squaw candy for Mother or Father Smith, elder status or no.
Abigail kept her head up but refused to look anyone directly in the eye. Chloe and Hannah stood joined at the fist as usual. Neither looked in good spirits. Chloe in particular seemed thin of face, and in some indefinable sense thin of spirit as well.
A while later Kate looked around for Auntie Vi and saw her leading Chloe out the back door. She wasn’t surprised. Unhappy children had a way of seeking out Auntie Vi, the way a lodestone seeks out magnetic north.
Well, Auntie Vi had her own way of dealing with unhappy children, as Kate had cause to know. Chloe was in good hands.
Chloe’s parents were busy offering condolences to Bernie on the death of his wife and child, and, from what Kate could hear, coming up fast from behind, extending the solace that Enid and Fitz now resided with their Maker. Bernie, who looked like hell, received these assurances with the anesthetized acceptance of someone who had tuned out presumption like this days ago.
Kate smiled sweetly at Smith and said, “I hear someone on the other side of the room calling your name.” Her smile broadened to include Mrs. Smith and the progeny. “All your names.”
Even Father Smith in all his oblivious arrogance was not proof against such steamroller tactics. The family moved on. “You okay?” Kate said to Bernie.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Dumb thing to say,” Kate said. “No way you can be.”
A nascent gleam of awareness appeared in Bernie’s eye. “There is one way. If someone stomps on that son of a bitch Louis Deem.”
“Don’t worry about Louis Deem,” Kate said.
Something in her voice reached through Bernie’s fog. He gave Kate the first aware look she’d seen on his face since the m
urders. “What? What’s wrong? Kate?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Bernie.”
He was unconvinced. “There is no way he can get away with this, is there? Not this?”
“Chill, Bernie. Louis’s going down.” She touched his arm in reassurance. “Johnny’s been over to your house a lot this week, I hear.”
Momentarily diverted, Bernie nodded. “Yeah. Him and Vanessa both, hanging out with Teddy and Kathleen. They’re good kids.”
They both looked across the room at where Johnny and Vanessa stood in a circle of friends, cans of pop held in their hands, not saying much. Bernie didn’t have to tell Kate that they reminded him of what he had lost. It was written all over his face.
Across the gym, Kate saw Chloe returned to the bosom of her family. Her face had a little more color, and she was able to summon a small smile for Hannah when her sister reached for her hand again. Fully assembled, the Smiths departed. Auntie Vi returned to the serving line, where Aunties Balasha, Edna, and Joy were scraping out what remained in the foil, tin, and Pyrex casserole dishes. Kate joined them in the cleanup.
Auntie Joy was looking at Bernie, her face sad. “Ay, that Bernie, he hurting bad.”
“They’re all hurting, Auntie.”
“Yes,” Auntie Balasha said, “but it hurt worse when you know you have wronged the dead. No way for Bernie to take it back now.”
Kate looked at her, startled. It was so seldom Auntie Balasha said anything bad about anyone.
The other aunties gave sage nods. “Guilty,” Auntie Edna said, not without a certain grim relish. “That boy be feeling guilty long time yet.”
There was no way Bernie could have heard them all the way across the gymnasium over the sound of the band and the basketballs beginning to bounce off the rims at both ends of the court, but Kate looked around to see him watching them.
Auntie Vi had said nothing, but she slammed down a Pyrex casserole dish hard enough to make everything on the table jump and clatter. “Ay, Viola, you don’t be breaking my favorite dish!” Auntie Edna said, snatching it up again. “I wash it myself, thank you.”
Auntie Vi muttered something, gathered up a pile of dirty dishes, and steamed off for the kitchen. Kate looked after her, frowning. “What’s wrong with her?”
“What isn’t?” Auntie Joy said shortly. “I say not enough fry bread. She bite my head off.”
Kate’s brow cleared. The aunties had a decades-old running battle about fry bread, whose was best and who hadn’t made their share for the last potlatch. She busied herself with the dirty dishes, and the next time she looked up Bernie was ushering his kids out the door.
“I’m out of here,” a voice said, and she looked around to see Jim pulling on his cap. “See you later?”
Kate, wary of the previous odd behavior of her heart, shrugged, elaborately casual. “Sure. If you want.”
“Your house?”
“Sure. If you feel like coming out.”
He looked puzzled. “Are you okay, Kate?”
“Sure. Fine.”
“Okay. Later, then.”
“Later.”
And she did not allow herself to watch him leave.
She raised her head to see the four aunties peering at her with owlish looks. “What?”
“Pathetic,” Auntie Vi, attempting to make up for her previous bad humor, said to Auntie Edna.
“Trying to outsmart love,” Auntie Edna said to Auntie Balasha.
“Trying to fix it so she don’t get hurt,” Auntie Balasha told Auntie Joy.
“Don’t tell us how that don’t work out,” Auntie Joy said to Kate.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kate said. She gathered up an armful of casserole dishes and made a dignified exit, spoiled somewhat when the top two dishes slid off the teetering pile and smashed down on the hardwood floor of the basketball court.
“Pitiful,” the four aunties said in chorus.
Kate went for the broom.
The bulk of the work done, Auntie Vi and Kate remained behind to put away the dustpan and carry out the garbage. The cool air of evening was sweet after the overheated smells of deep-fried everything, and they both paused to enjoy it.
“Katya.”
Kate steeled herself for more advice to the lovelorn. “Yes, Auntie.”
“Louis Deem.”
Kate’s swing faltered, and the last bag of garbage hit the side of the Dumpster and broke. Kate said a bad word beneath her breath and stooped to pick up the detritus and pitch it over the side. “What about him, Auntie?”
“He going to jail this time?”
“Yes, Auntie.” Without looking up, Kate started pitching things into the Dumpster. “Johnny saw him there, at Bernie’s house. He’s going to jail.”
“You sure?”
What was this? Kate stood up and looked at Auntie Vi, and was surprised and alarmed to see the other woman’s face drawn with strain, leeched of its usual life and color. “Yes, Auntie.” She put any personal doubts she might or might not have had firmly to one side and infused her voice with confidence. “Louis Deem is going to jail. I’m sure.”
“Good.”
There was more than approval in her auntie’s voice; there was something that sounded very much like relief. It was almost as if Auntie Vi had feared a different answer to her question.
Kate tried to remember the last time Auntie Vi had been afraid of anything.
She couldn’t even remember the first time.
Enid Koslowski and Auntie Vi must have been better friends than Kate had thought. “Even better,
Auntie, Jim Chopin is sure, and Judge Singh is expediting the trial.”
“When?”
“Four weeks.”
Auntie Vi grunted. “Good,” she said again, “that good, Katya. Louis don’t need to be out here with the people.”
Kate couldn’t agree more.
Auntie Vi poked her. “You think about what I said?”
Inches from a clean getaway, Kate thought. “I think, Auntie.”
“We need you, Katya.”
“I help where I can, Auntie.”
“You could help more.”
Kate wouldn’t have agreed with that at gunpoint, so she didn’t say anything. To her immense relief, Auntie Vi stretched and gave a yawn so huge, Kate could hear her jaw crack. “Long day. Tired now. Good night, Katya.”
“Good night, Auntie.”
Halfway across the parking lot, Auntie Vi turned and yelled, “And you give that boy a chance, Katya, you hear? Be safe when you dead.”
Kate didn’t think Auntie Vi was referring to Johnny, waiting for her in the pickup with his nose buried in F. M. Busby, his head pillowed on Mutt’s side. She wasn’t so foolhardy as to ask Auntie Vi to clarify whom she meant, though.
The sun had set and stars were creeping up the eastern horizon as they rolled through the village. The recent snowfall had been packed down enough by snow machine traffic that the winter ice on the gravel road was wearing thin, and the road’s surface rattled every one of the pickup’s million parts one against each other all at the same time. It took Johnny two tries to be heard above the racket. “Kate?”
“What?” The wheel vibrated beneath Kate’s hands.
“What happens when you die?”
“What?”
“What happens when you die?”
She heard him the second time. She pulled off to the side of the road and killed the engine. Johnny said, “It’s just—Fitz is dead. Where’d he go?”
Kate cleared her throat and was grateful for the warm presence of Mutt between them. She knotted a hand in the thick gray hair. “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it myself, Johnny. It’s just that—I’m not religious.”
“I know.” Johnny sounded infuriatingly patient. “You’ve said that before. I just don’t know what that means, exactly.”
“I’m not big with organized religion, for starters. You know. Believe as we do or burn in hell. I don’t think muc
h of fear as a motivator to faith.”
“Okay. So do you believe in God? Is there a heaven where we all go when we die?”
Her turn to hesitate, but she wouldn’t lie to the kid. “No. I think this is it, Johnny. We’re born, we live, we die.”
Johnny sounded forlorn. “That’s it?”
She looked over at the outline of his head against the window. “That’s a lot, Johnny. That life exists, that we are here to show up and pay attention to it. We can laugh, we can cry. We can love. There is chocolate.”
“Yeah, but what about Fitz?”
Kate let her head fall back against the headrest. “No easy questions today, huh?”
He was insistent. “What about Fitz, Kate?”
“I believe that the people we love live for as long as we remember them, Johnny,” Kate said soberly. “Everything we learned from them we pass on to others. That way, they never die.”
He sighed. “No big white light at the end of a tunnel?”
“Nope. One thing, though.”
“What?”
“Live every moment of your life. Even if you’re sitting around doing nothing, know you’re doing it and why. Every time someone asks you a question beginning ‘Do you want to go—?’ say yes. Try everything once.” She smiled into the darkness. “Once I chased a killer up a mountain. There was an earthquake and I lost her. So I climbed to the top of the mountain anyway, because it was there, and so was I, and I’d never been to the top before. The lights were out, and a full moon, and I swear you could see right out to the edge of the universe.” She looked at him again. “You never know, Johnny.”
“Never know what?”
She shrugged, and then remembered he couldn’t see her. “You never know anything, really. I think a lot of people decide to believe in God because they want to feel like they’re not alone, and that there are certainties, rules by which they can live their lives. It gives them a sense of, I don’t know. Order, I guess. Reason. Purpose.”
“So you’re a disorderly kind of person?”
She laughed. “I guess I am. I chose a disorderly profession, that’s for sure.”
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