by Kris Tualla
Her outburst pulled the attention of the three customers at the counter. They looked at her, Sveyn, the television, back to Sveyn, and back to the television.
“It is you—isn’t it?” one of the ladies asked.
Sveyn’s face was as red as his cream of tomato soup. “Yes.”
“We have a celebrity here!” The other woman beamed. “Can I have your autograph?”
*****
Sveyn was glad when they finished lunch and escaped the diner. He hoped that this kind of thing was not going to be a common occurrence—that was not anything he considered when he agreed to do the commercial.
He was especially grateful that Hollis hurried their exit along with the reminder that the high school office would close in a couple hours and none of the staff was likely to stay late on a Friday.
“And it’s a three-day weekend. President’s Day is Monday.
Hollis entered the office first and stepped up to the counter. “I need to speak with anyone in this school who was working here thirty years ago.”
The twenty-something secretary blinked. “Why?”
“Because I’m trying to find my father. And in order to do that, I’m hoping that someone remembers who my mother was dating before I was born.”
The woman’s brow furrowed rather deeply for someone so young, Sveyn thought. Maybe she was easily confused.
Hollis’s well-stated question seemed to have completely discomfited her.
“I don’t know…”
Hollis drew a breath. “Then could I speak with the person in this office who has been here the longest?”
“I’m not sure…”
“The oldest person here,” Hollis simplified.
A stout woman with gray hair, gray skirt, and bright bird-like eyes stepped out of an office to the side of the counter. “I’ve got this, Heather.”
Heather turned around and slunk back to a desk, where she immediately busied herself with organizing pens.
The older woman faced Hollis. “How can I help you?”
Brianne stepped forward. “Polly Carson?”
“Yes—oh my goodness! Brianne!” Her jaw dropped. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my—adopted—daughter, Hollis.” Brianne paused. Sveyn could see how hard this was for her. “She is trying to find her father, but to do that we need to know who her mother was dating thirty years ago.”
Polly nodded knowingly. “She didn’t name him on the birth certificate.”
“No.”
Polly turned to Hollis. “But you know who your mother is.”
Hollis nodded. “I was adopted privately. The girl who birthed me was the daughter of my mom’s best friend.”
“And what was her name?”
“Kathleen Mueller.”
“That name is familiar. Let’s pull out a yearbook and look her up.” Polly pushed a button and the counter-height gate popped open. “Come on back.”
The quartet walked single file behind Polly, past office doors, glass cases filled with dusty trophies, and posters proclaiming something called a Sweetheart Dance. Polly stopped and unlocked a door, which hid yet another room of shelves and books.
“We keep three yearbooks from every year in storage here, for whatever reason comes up.” Polly looked up at Sveyn. “You never know when a graduate might become famous.”
Sveyn recoiled and looked at Hollis. Did she recognize him already?
Hollis made an of course not face and spoke to Polly. “She would have been a freshman thirty-one years ago.”
Polly perched a pair of reading glasses on her nose and ran her finger along a shelf until she found the right year. “Here we go. You said Mueller?”
Sveyn watched over Hollis’s shoulder as the book’s pages flipped by. When she hit the first page with tiny rectangular black and white pictures, Polly stopped and laid the book flat.
“Let’s see…” She turned two pages. “Here she is.”
*****
Hollis stared at the young teen who was her mother. Her throat swelled and tears stung her eyes. “I look like her.”
Brianne put her arm around Hollis’s shoulders. “Yes, you do.”
Polly flipped to the index in the back of the book. “Let’s see if there are any more pictures of her.”
There were two. One of her painting banners for a pep rally, and one of her at the Sweetheart Dance. With a tall, light-haired boy.
Hollis pointed at the black-and-white picture. “Who’s that? Does it say?”
“No.”
Hollis looked at Sveyn and he nodded his encouragement. She turned back to Polly.
“Could you look up a name in the back?”
Polly looked at her over the rim of the pink glasses. “Of course. What name?”
“Aleksander Hansen. With a KS instead of an X.”
Polly skimmed the index. “Here he is. And he’s listed on that same page.” Polly flipped back to the dance photo page. “The boy in the top photo is tagged as Aleksander.”
“Not the one at the dance with Kathleen?” Hollis made a sad face; that was disappointing.
“Is there a picture of Aleksander in the front part?” Sveyn asked.
“Yes. He would have been a senior,” Hollis gambled.
Polly turned to the senior class photos, which were much larger and more focused. “This is Aleksander.”
It was the same light-haired boy in the dance picture with Kathleen.
“They tagged the wrong photo.” Hollis turned to her mom and dad. “On the other page! They tagged the wrong photo!”
Brianne’s hands visibly trembled. “This really could be your father.”
Hollis faced Polly again. “I have a huge favor to ask you.”
“You want to borrow the yearbooks.”
“Yes. Please? May I? I’ll give you a security deposit. A hundred dollars a book.” Hollis gave Polly her most sincere and pleading look. “I only want to go through them and scan all the photos. And I’ll have them back to you by the end of the weekend. I swear.”
“That’s Tuesday, you know.”
“We are going back to Milwaukee on Sunday,” her dad said softly.
“Then I’ll drop them at your house. Tomorrow. Please,” Hollis begged.
Polly turned back to the shelf. Her smile was impishly conspiratorial. “Which years do you want?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Saturday
February 13
Last night in the drawing room of the Victorian house where they were staying, Sveyn watched Hollis turn every page in the four yearbooks that she brought back from the high school and bookmark each page that she wanted to scan.
“Tomorrow we’ll go to that big office supply store down the road,” she told him as she settled on the floor next to the coffee table. “They do printing so I’m sure we can scan there, too.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” he replied. “Then we can return the books afterwards.”
The pleasant older woman who ran the guest house came in and turned on the television. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Hollis looked up from the first yearbook and smiled. “Not at all.”
She leaned over Hollis. “What are you working on?”
Hollis’s tone was much more casual than Sveyn knew her emotions were. “Finding my father.”
The woman looked at Sveyn. “Did I hear her correctly?”
Sveyn nodded. “My fiancée—” He loved that he could finally call her that. “Was adopted. While she knows who her mother was, she is trying to discern who might be her father.”
“So the older couple with you?”
“Adopted her.”
The woman smiled. “They seem like lovely people.”
“This is weird,” Hollis said from the floor. She looked up at Sveyn. “Kathleen isn’t in her sophomore yearbook.”
Sveyn had no answer for that. “Perhaps your mother will know why?”
“What will I know?” Brianna and Ian
came into the room.
Hollis turned around to look at her mother. “Why Kathleen isn’t in her sophomore yearbook.”
Brianne sat on the settee across the coffee table from Hollis. “She was pregnant, remember. And attitudes were different thirty years ago, especially in a small town.”
Hollis’s face twisted. “So Karen and Howard hid her away?”
“Sent her away, actually.” Ian sat beside his wife. “To stay with a cousin in Minneapolis.”
Hollis spread her hands in question. “But what about school?”
“Correspondence school. Via snail mail.” Brianne laughed a little. “That’s what they did before the internet.”
Hollis tapped the table top. “But I was born here.”
“After the Muellers agreed we could adopt you, I transferred to Milwaukee to work, but your mom stayed here,” Ian explained.
“We told everyone it was a promotion, so we didn’t have to answer a lot of questions,” Brianne added. “Your dad got us an apartment and I waited for you to be born.”
Brianne squeezed her husband’s knee. “Kathleen came back here a couple weeks before you were due, and as soon as you were born I bundled you up and drove to our new life.”
“As first time parents in a new home in a new city.” Ian blew a heavy sigh. “Let’s just say, we survived.”
“You did all of that for me.” Hollis looked up at Sveyn, her eyes glistening. “I had no idea.”
“You said they were good parents,” he reminded her. “You were a very blessed baby.”
“Oh my!” Their hostess pointed at the television. “Is that you?”
Sveyn whirled around and stared at himself on the screen once again. This commercial was slightly different than the first one they saw. And it was still very odd to watch himself.
“I like this version,” Hollis said. “I really love your smile at the end.”
As it turned out, that commercial played every thirty minutes all evening as the older woman watched program after program about people with problems. Hollis said this was the same station that had programs about hoarders, and it focused on something she called ‘lifestyles.’
Whatever that was, it obviously attracted lonely women.
Now the two of them were in the office supply store, and Sveyn assisted Hollis with the scanning of the yearbooks. It took a few minutes for each photo; after the machine ran its light over the page, Hollis checked the image on a monitor and then saved to a device she called a flash drive.
Sveyn waited for her to admit what he knew she wanted to do next, but didn’t have the courage for.
While she was reading the yearbooks last night, Ian asked their hostess if she had a phone book. When she produced one, Ian flipped through it, paused, and motioned Sveyn to his side.
Sveyn looked at the spot Ian indicated.
Aleksander Hansen.
“He still lives here,” Ian murmured.
Sveyn looked into his future father-in-law’s eyes. “She should go see him.”
“I think so, too.”
Hollis grinned. “What are you two cooking up over there?”
“Aleksander Hansen still lives in Sparta,” Sveyn said.
Hollis’s smile faded, replaced by expressions shifting from surprise to joy to fear to confusion. “What should I do?”
Sveyn squatted beside her. “Go see him and ask him if he is your father.”
“I can’t do that… can I?” She clearly wanted him to say no. And yes.
Sveyn nodded. “We can go tomorrow after you copy the pages.”
“Just, what? Knock on the door and say, ‘Hi, Dad’?” Hollis was clearly panicking.
Sveyn tucked a strand of unruly red hair behind her ear. “Ask him if he dated Kathleen. If he says no, then you’ll know.”
“And if he says yes…”
“Then tell him he might be your father.”
Hollis did not agree to that plan last night. But the constant crease between her brows this morning told Sveyn she was still thinking about it.
She handed him the last yearbook. “Okay. Done. Let’s go pay.”
The day was cloudier than yesterday and the intermittent breeze smelled like snow. Once Hollis started the car, she waited for it to warm up before she made any move toward engaging the gears.
“I have his address,” Sveyn said softly.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.” Sveyn laid his hand over hers. “Tell me what you are scared of.”
Hollis hesitated. “I’m scared he’s my father.” She turned wide eyes to his. “And I’m scared that he’s not.”
Sveyn understood both answers. “What is the worst that can happen?”
Hollis huffed a laugh. “That he’s not home.”
Sveyn smiled. “Let’s go find out.”
Hollis shifted the car into drive.
*****
Sveyn wondered if he would still be able to recognize his father’s descendants, now that he was back in a normal body in the real world. Before, when he manifested, he could see the connection. Something intangible always confirmed that he shared a bloodline with his latest victim.
So when Aleksander Hansen opened his front door, what would happen?
Hollis parked in front of the house that the cheerful voice in her phone told her was her destination. “There’s a car in the driveway,” she said quietly. “So that’s good. Somebody’s there.”
Sveyn pulled the handle on his door. “Are you ready?”
“No.” Hollis grabbed her door’s handle. “But let’s get this over with.”
Sveyn followed Hollis up the brick path to the front door. She pressed the doorbell with a gloved finger. They waited, the chime inside sounding softly through the door.
The inner door opened and a tall man with gray temples looked at them through the glass-and-screen outer door. He pushed it open about a foot and asked, “Can I help you?”
Sveyn sucked a breath. His chest tightened. He did know.
This is him.
“Are you Aleksander?” Hollis’s voice sounded strained.
“Yes. And you are?”
Hollis was obviously thrown. “Are you in good health?”
He scowled. “Whatever you’re selling I’m not interested.”
Hollis grabbed the door to keep him from closing it. “We’re not selling anything, I just don’t want to give you a heart attack.”
Aleksander snorted. “Why would I have a heart attack?”
“Because…” Hollis pulled a deep breath. “I think I’m your daughter.”
*****
Aleksander squinted at the sky. “Honey, I don’t think that’s possible.”
Hollis felt her chance slipping away, so she threw her very best pitch. “Did you date Kathleen Mueller when you were a senior in high school?”
Aleksander paled. “You better come in.”
Hollis stepped inside the cozy and typically middle-class home. “My name is Hollis McKenna, and this is my fiancé, Sveyn Hansen.”
“Another Hansen, huh?”
When the men shook hands Hollis felt the air tingle. She stared at Sveyn to see if he noticed, but he didn’t look at her.
Instead, he smiled at Aleksander. “It is quite a common name, as you know.”
“Especially in these parts.” Aleksander waved them to the couch. “Please explain yourself.”
Hollis pushed her coat off her shoulders and it rested around her hips like a nest. Sveyn planted himself silently beside her, still not looking at her.
“There is a photo of you and Kathleen Mueller in her freshman yearbook. I just want to know if you two were close.”
Aleksander’s eyes narrowed. “Very. We dated for several months.”
Hollis’s heart stumbled and she put a hand against her chest. The idea that her heart might stop sometime still nibbled at the edges of her thoughts, even though the doctors assured her it was unlikely to happen again.
“Then you broke up wi
th her when you went to college?”
“No. She broke up with me.”
That was a surprise. “Really?”
He nodded. “In October, right before Sparta’s homecoming weekend. She said she didn’t like having a boyfriend who wasn’t there for all the high school events.”
October.
Three months after she conceived.
“Were you upset?”
“Sure, you how it is. Young love.” Aleksander’s expression turned wistful. “I had hopes it might last.”
Somehow, that helped. “Did you see her when you came home?”
“No. She avoided me.” He sighed. “After a while, I stopped trying.”
Time to drop the bomb.
“That’s because she was pregnant. With me.”
Aleksander stared at her, obviously looking for hints she was right. “If that’s true, why didn’t she tell me?”
“Her parents locked her down. Sent her to Minneapolis to live with a cousin and take correspondence classes.”
His skepticism was clear. “How do you know this?”
“Because I was adopted by Howard and Karen’s best friends.”
“The McKennas?” Aleksander’s expression brightened. “Of course. I remember that name. They did hang out with the Muellers. Whatever happened to them?”
Hollis felt a lump grow in her throat as she recalled the lengths her parents went to so they could raise her as theirs. “The Muellers insisted they move away with me so Kathleen could pick up her life like I never happened.”
Aleksander nodded. “That sounds like them.” He considered her again. “When were you born?”
“Yesterday was my thirty-first birthday.”
Aleksander slumped in his chair. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah.” Hollis pressed her lips together and waited for the man—who had to be pushing fifty—to catch up with what just happened.
“You’re my daughter.”
“Yep.”
His eyes narrowed again. “What do you want from me?”
Hollis gaped. “Nothing! I just found out I was adopted a couple weeks ago, so I wanted to find my birth parents. I promise you—that’s the extent of it.”
“And to know who she is descended from.”