Johnny looked up as she paused and noticed she had tears in her eyes; her lower lip was trembling.
She rose and came to sit sideways on his lap, putting her arms around him, face pressed to the side of his neck.
“Johnny, I love you so much. I love who you are right now. I don’t want you to change.”
With her right arm still across his shoulders, she lifted the Gideons Bible with her left hand and set it in front of him. Clumsy with his wife in his lap, Johnny reached around her and picked up the little book.
“A guy came to our school when we were in grade five and gave us each one of these Testaments.” He corrected himself. “New Testaments. There was a big stink about it later. The school wasn’t supposed to hand them out to the kids. Of course, that made us all want them even more. I brought mine home, and Uncle Lars told me I could keep it, and it might be useful some day.”
He opened to the first marker, careful with the crisp pages.
“Uncle Lars told me to take care of it, so I never opened it all the way. It seemed like the binding might break.”
He pulled out the photo, and Mary felt his body go still. She realized he was holding his breath. She watched the recognition in his eyes, his fingers holding the photo carefully. He exhaled.
“Every Easter we would look through the photo album Uncle Nelsson kept. This was one of their favorites of their mother, my grandmother. I never met her. I think she died when I was pretty young.”
The next photo was also familiar. “Yep, here is my grandfather and uncles. They always liked this photo, too. I can’t remember which harbor that is, but I think it was on a trip to the old country.”
Johnny chuckled when he pulled out the photo of himself. “This picture I hated, I threw it out. Uncle Lars must have pulled it out of the garbage. I got that shirt from a neighbor boy. I didn’t mind wearing hand-me-downs, but I didn’t like that kid, even though his mom was nice.”
Johnny looked at the front of the small book, reading the words. “New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs. Uncle Nelsson always said I should read these Proverbs, said any man could learn a lot from them, no matter what he believed.”
Opening the back of the book, he cringed as the binding crackled. There was a slight bulge between several pages. Johnny pried the pages apart and grunted when a bill dropped out. The bill was folded over twice, an unfamiliar purplish color. Johnny moved stiffly and Mary stood, giving him room. He opened the flattened banknote, creases appearing to have been ironed. They looked at each other, surprised. On either side of the portrait of Queen Elizabeth were the numbers 1000.
“Is it real?” Mary took the bill and slowly turned it, revealing a pair of birds on the back.
Johnny chuckled. “This had to be the work of Uncle Nelsson. I remember how proud he was when he paid for a new tractor with a handful of thousand-dollar bills. ‘Cash is king, Yonny!’ he always said.”
They looked for a message, but finding none, Johnny continued looking through the box, setting the contents in a row on the table. He leaned back, taking a long drink of his coffee, eyes on Mary who had pulled a chair around to sit beside him.
“Is there something in the bottom?” he held her eyes.
She nodded.
“I was never supposed to look in the bottom, although they didn’t mind if I read the letters in the top compartment. I figured they had private papers kept in there.” He took a deep breath and pulled out the carved pegs, using a wood button Mary hadn’t noticed to slide the flat piece of wood out.
“They said their grandfather made this box. Supposedly he built it from a shipwreck, wood washed up on the shore.”
He read the letter, then stood up and walked to the window. He watched the birds in Mary’s feeder, chickadees sharing the oily seeds with the finches whose normal food supply had been decimated by summer forest fires.
He walked to the refrigerator, then back to the table.
Mary put her hand on his shoulder. It was hard, the tension in his body a presence, filling the small room.
“Mary, do you still like the sign?”
She was alarmed. He hadn’t called it “our sign” as he usually did. She wondered how he felt, wondered if this was all new information, hoped she had the strength and wisdom to help her husband stay on the plateau to which he had risen. She waited.
Johnny shrugged, rolling his shoulders back several times, and stood abruptly. He turned to face Mary. “Come with me.”
He walked out onto the covered porch in his sock feet, mindless of the blown snow underfoot, and waited for Mary to join him before turning toward the sign that had become an important icon to them both. Mary shivered, and he picked her up, holding her as if she was a new bride ready to be carried across the threshold.
“Welcome to the Johnny and Mary Amund home.” He said the words simply, as they should be said, then carried his wife into their home, set her down, and went to the refrigerator for some leftovers.
Chapter 39
Mary was surprised by Johnny’s reaction, and waited, drinking her coffee while he warmed a plate of food in the microwave. He noticed his socks were wet and headed down the hall for dry ones, returning as the microwave chimed.
“I had never seen that letter before today, and I guess it will take a little time to get used to it. It seems so unnecessary, sad.” He ate some chicken, looking out the window as he chewed.
“Now it makes some sort of sense why there was no contact. I always thought he must have been bad, a criminal, and the uncles had sort of disowned him. You think they were just honoring his wishes?”
He took another bite, looking at Mary as he chewed.
“Probably. They always gave you a lot of space, right?”
He nodded and took another bite. “This is really good, want some?” He held up an overloaded fork in Mary’s direction. She shook her head.
She put her hand on his arm, shake-shake. “You know what’s crazy? Your father probably doesn’t even know you exist! Do you think he ever contacted your uncles?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that you and I have made a new start, and we are going to build a good family starting right where we are. We can’t do anything about the past, but we can work on the future, right? Let’s just keep living. We don’t need to worry about this, Mary. What he did, and took responsibility for, doesn’t change who I am, right?”
Mary showed him the scripture references on the back of the photos and read them to him from the little red book. He nodded as he finished his food, showing that he remembered them, but made no comment.
“Do you know about your grandparents? Why they came to North America?”
He shook his head. “No, not much. I know my uncles sent money four times a year. I guess they must have done that until their parents were both gone. They did well out here. I always wondered why their mom, never thought of her as my grandmother, didn’t come to live here. They lived in Minnesota maybe, or Michigan? Somewhere in the US, northern part somewhere. I guess she wanted to stay there. I don’t know anything about the family, except what I read in the old letters. The letters were mostly about day to day stuff though, not about people. At least, that’s how I remember it.”
“Maybe she had friends there. Maybe she didn’t want to leave her home, you think?” Mary looked at Johnny, remembering the photo of his grandfather and uncles, the similarity between him and them.
“Do you think you could find where she lived somehow? Do you have the old letters?”
Johnny stood and rinsed his plate at the sink, ignoring her question.
“That food was good. Look, Mary, I have a lot to think about. My family, which I have never really considered, well,” He cleared his throat, “it seems real now, that I had more family than Uncle Nelsson and Uncle Lars.”
He stretched, hands flat on the kitchen ceiling.
“The part about my father. I’m thinking this will probably bother me later, especially if I’m discouraged. Like, who knows where he would be now? I
s he still in prison? How long would he serve time for what he did? Did he change his name? Which prison was he in?”
He cleared his throat. “And what about my mother?”
He paused, facing her. “There are just so many questions. I’m not going to rush them. Let’s just see how it plays out. We’ve made a good start in the last six months, and this situation doesn’t need to affect us, our home.”
Mary was relieved and nodded.
“I was really worried. The letter is shocking to me, I mean, did he really have to kill that guy? Isn’t that a little extreme? Did he have mental issues? I was so worried you would be different when you read it, or would want to distance yourself from everything…”
Johnny put his arms around her, lifting her off her feet. He held her that way until she relaxed, smiling at her. After a moment she sighed, returning his smile.
“Mary, I love how we are now. I don’t want it to change. Our sign is our sign. Even if other people have used that message wrong, we can use it right.” “Bare is the back of the brother-less man. He said the words. “but remember, that is just an old Norse proverb. The important part of the sign is the first line, The Amund Home. That’s the part I care about, though I like the saying a lot.”
He grinned. “And here we are, in our home, you and me. And with a sweet gift from my uncles! You ever seen a thousand-dollar bill?”
As he headed out the door, he stopped, turned back inside, closing the door behind him.
“We do have a problem to figure out.”
Mary was alarmed. “Who? You and I?”
“No, Terry’s issue hasn’t been resolved. I think she cries a lot. I know she says she still has nightmares. I talked to her a few days ago, the day before she went to Prince George for ‘an appointment with her shrink’ is how she put it. She told me she could hardly sleep because the dreams were getting so bad again.”
Mary nodded. “Yes, she has talked to me too. I can hardly imagine how it would be to live with those memories, especially because the guys have not been found. Northern Alberta doesn’t have that many towns. You’d think they would have found the guys, or at least who they worked for.”
“I don’t think they were from Alberta. I think they came in from somewhere else, maybe not even Canada.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. What else are you thinking?”
“I would bet the guys that grabbed Terry were not from northern Canada, for sure. Look at all the mistakes they made, how unfamiliar they were with this area.” He paused, big fingers carefully typing a message on his phone, and when the phone pinged, he sat down again at the table, reaching over to the drawer where they kept pens and a few notepads. He clicked the button on a ballpoint pen, motioning for her to sit.
“Tell me all the things they did wrong. I’ll write them down.”
“Okay, they planned to drown her in a lake that was partially frozen. I guess they didn’t think to carry her out to the open water.”
He nodded, not writing.
She frowned. “Why aren’t you writing?”
He smiled. “Already have that one. I want to see if you can think of things I haven’t.”
In the next few minutes, Mary found her husband had already thought of everything she suggested, and she was impressed with his thought process.
“Here is the one that really gets me.”
She put her hand over the pen he was clicking incessantly as he talked.
“Think of it like this: these guys were in a hurry, so they rented a car, planning to only use it several days, then fly away, probably to Alberta because that’s where she met the one guy, but it could be anywhere. And why did they panic when the drowning plan didn’t work? Why not just bash her over the head and toss her off a bridge? They had crossed the Fraser when they left the airport. Or, drag her into the bush; there was a whole lot of that on their drive.”
“So, what you are saying is, when they couldn’t just drown her, they had no other good ideas, sort of a one-trick pony kind of thing.” She shivered, “Which was a good thing for Terry, but seems pretty stupid. It was night, their car wasn’t easy to identify, except it was clean. Maybe they rented it in their real names?”
Johnny nodded in agreement. “I think they were brought in to quickly get rid of her, but were not experienced, maybe had never worked together before. I would guess that this ‘Joseph’ guy was probably involved, but Terry didn’t see him. He wasn’t in the car, anyway. The thing is, he was recognizable in Alberta, the northern part for sure. Didn’t she say he worked in a warehouse there? Where has he been since? Did he skip the country? Why haven’t they found him yet – or did they? We need to keep thinking about this, and you know, I’m going to call that cop, Barton. He seemed like a good guy. I wonder if they will tell me what is going on?”
“And I will keep spending time with Terry. She needs a friend.”
Johnny was headed out the door again. “Let’s invite her and,” he paused dramatically, “the Clockmaker for dinner on Friday, maybe fire up the grill, watch a movie, what do you think?”
She liked the idea and said she would make the arrangements.
Chapter 40
It was mid-January and Joseph hadn’t heard from his Alberta employer, hadn’t been contacted by the RCMP; in short, there had been no repercussions from the issue in November. He hadn’t heard a thing from any associates of the two men who had gone to deal with the woman, and of course, had heard nothing from them and never would.
He was sick of holing up in the apartment in Toronto and tired of the questions from his older brother’s widow and children, though living with them meant his name was not associated with any address or location. They believed he was working online, his hours spent alone in his room with his laptop confirming this in their minds – as well his own mind at times. He never left the apartment during the day and only rarely after dark. “Why don’t you go out with your friends? Why don’t you come shopping with us? Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
A man could only do so much work without being face-to-face with your contacts, and Joseph had been severing one relationship after another, taking care that his mistakes were blamed on others, building a smokescreen between him and the botched abduction and failed elimination of the woman. The new associates he was cultivating had no connection to others he had worked with in the past. He spent hours making sure of this.
He guessed that the woman wasn’t going to do anything about the issue, and if he laid low long enough, and changed his name and methods, the RCMP would give up too.
He cursed, mixing languages, the hours spent alone with his problems seeming to unravel him mentally. But Joseph, who was already disassociating himself from this name and the name his family called him, was nothing if not careful. Patience was an important code to live by, and when you started breaking rules, as he had when he botched his delivery method, bad things happened.
He cursed again, remembering his ill-advised idea to move more product which involved the woman, what had he been thinking?
He knew what it was. It was greed; also an important way to live, but live was the key word. Greed must be used as wisely as patience. Use it wrongly and you could die or worse, at least in his business. He had foolishly allowed greed to unbalance patience.
He pulled up a website and began another French lesson, the insistent rhythms and vocals of the music playing on the other side of his bolted door effectively covering his voice as Francois, yes, he thought, Francois worked diligently on the nuances and accents of Parisian French.
Joseph, now thinking of his name as Francois, wanted money, lots of money, and had tried with diligence and intention to get all he could. He had formed some careful opinions along the way. Purpose was a foundational value on which Wealth could be built. Greed, Patience and Skill were the three fundamentals needed to achieve wealth, and he worked daily to become better at these qualities. Wealth was important: a man could not accomplish important goals and tasks withou
t it. He paused the tutorial and scrolled back. He had been distracted by his thoughts, missing important information and practice at his new language. Getting rich wasn’t easy, but maybe someday he could even market his methods, become an international celebrity, change how business was conducted… he paused and tried again to find his place.
While Joseph was transforming himself into Francois, Terry was driving truck. She was on her second and final trip of the day, putting on the kilometers. The conditions were excellent, as she kept hearing on the radio, but she didn’t really notice or care that the road was good, temperature right, equipment running well.
She had embarrassed herself earlier that day, chaining up her drive axles for a small hill that was well sanded, and chains hadn’t been necessary. Her face had burned at the snide comments over the radio from passing drivers, taking the chains off at the top of the hill as quickly as possible before more truckers passed her parked rig.
She found herself double-checking everything, not quite sure if she had properly checked the first time, flustered when she reached for her log book and found she had already filled in the required information. She knew Isaac should be at the shop when she finished her day, and looked forward to seeing him, and talking for a few minutes, although she had learned he got impatient when she voiced the same concerns multiple times.
Her therapist had offered the opinion that this was because Isaac felt powerless to help her, and Terry agreed with this assessment. Her sessions had been helpful for coping, but had not yet helped her conquer the fear, and as Melissa Banks had offered in her practical way, “You should feel some fear, Terry, the bad guys are still out there. Don’t feel bad for being afraid or having bad dreams, it’s not your fault.”
And this advice had probably been the best of all, even though it did nothing to help her sleep at night. Another piece of advice that offered comfort had come from Isaac, when he said in his emphatic way, “Whenever you’re scared of these guys, just imagine what The Big Guy and I would do if we ever got our hands on them. You won’t be scared no more if that ever happens.”
Always a Brother Page 20