Snow Angels (29 page)

He doesn’t take it. “It’s worth eight hundred thousand euros.”

I grab his hand and press the envelope into it. “I still don’t want it. Go away.”

He looks like a sad little kid. “Sorry I bothered you.”

Then I realize. “Wait,” I say. “Give it to me.”

He hands it back. “Why the change of heart?”

“Valtteri left a widow and a bunch of kids, and Sufia’s mother is alone now. I’m not sure if she’s capable of providing for herself. Selling your winter dacha can take care of them all for a long time.”

“Good,” he says, “I’m glad.”

I shut the door, and for the first time I realize how much better off we all were when Heli left me for him. She got what she wanted-a stupid rich man she could manipulate. He had a woman who stayed with him despite the fact that he’s a philandering drunk, and besides, I think he really loved her. Heli wasn’t who I thought she was when I married her. Maybe, like Sufia, no one really knew her. I was allowed to go on with my life and find someone I could make happy, someone who makes me happy.

Dad asks me who was at the door. I tell him it was nobody.

Mom takes Kate to the kitchen to teach her the fine art of making rosolli. The way they manage to communicate despite not having a common language, mostly with hand gestures, amuses me. People always seem to find a way.

Dad and I sit in front of the television, pass the bottle back and forth. The combination of drugs and alcohol allows me to screw up my nerve and ask the unspoken question. “Dad, do you ever think about Suvi?”

He leans over, arms on his knees, and stares at the floor. It takes him a long time to answer, but when he does, he looks me in the eye. “Every day of my life.”

“Should we talk about it?”

“Some things you can never make right. There’s nothing to say.”

A few silent minutes tick by. “The sauna almost ready?” he asks.

“Almost.”

More time passes. “It was a good-looking ham you bought,” he says.

“Yep,” I say, “a good-looking ham.”

Kate comes in from the kitchen. “How are you two doing?”

Dad holds up the vodka bottle. “Couldn’t be better. You know Kate, the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Just for a few minutes, but
kaamos
is almost over.”

Kate comes up behind me, reaches over the couch and puts her arms around me. “Hyvää Joulua,” Merry Christmas, she says.

Merry for whom? Sufia Elmi, a refugee who defied the odds and succeeded in a xenophobic country, felt so hopeless inside that she let herself be abused by men who cared nothing for her. My first instinct was right. Her charm and beauty inspired hatred, and because of them, she was butchered like an animal. I don’t know what her father was guilty of, but he had put his past behind him, come to our country and built a new life for himself. I dredged up his past and he died, because of me, for nothing.

My ex-wife, a woman I once loved and believed I would spend the rest of my life with, turned out to be a sociopath and a killer. She manipulated a boy who had led such a sheltered life that he was nearly defenseless. She drove him to murder and suicide, destroyed him, so I believe, with no more thought than she would have given to squashing a bug. Maybe Heli, burned to death on the ice, got what she deserved. I don’t know.

Valtteri was a good man who believed his faith would protect him and his family. What God failed to do, he tried to do himself, and he covered up a murder to protect his son. His shattered faith and his own failure drove him to murder Heli, an atrocity that, a week earlier, would have been beyond his comprehension. His widow and seven remaining children are spending Christmas mourning his loss and Heikki’s, doubtless mystified, drowning in sorrow, shock and disbelief. Abdi’s wife, Hudow, must be doing the same.

I neglected my wife, risked my marriage, nearly left my children fatherless for what I believed was the pursuit of justice. Instead of justice, I got the truth, and it was a poor substitute. Now I don’t know what I was looking for. I feel like I failed them all, like I failed myself. I saved no one. And yet, I’m going to be decorated for bravery, labeled a hero, given a promotion if I want it. Maybe there is no justice.

But there are other things. I look around and see all I have to be grateful for. I’m surrounded by family. My wife loves me, has her arms around me. Our babies are growing inside her.

I look up at her. It hurts, but I force a smile. “Merry Christmas Kate.”

Through their support, comments and criticisms, many people have contributed to my writing, and they all have my heartfelt gratitude. Four people, however, have devoted hundreds of hours of their time, energy and skills to my development as a writer over the years: two literary critics from the University of Helsinki, Dr. Nely Keinänen and Dr. Phillips Brooks; the gifted writer Joel Kuntonen; and the brilliant reader Juha Tupasela.

Thank you. Your generosity touches and humbles me, and this novel is dedicated to you.