fiction

“Good can imagine Evil, but Evil cannot imagine good.”
W. H. Auden, “A Certain World,” 1971

On October 19th, 2015, when Nicole Merryweather returned home from her job at Sardini and Pininen Law Firm, she found a letter tucked amidst the junk mail; it was post marked, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It had an ominous look: plain, hand written, with no return address. Signed by a resident of the beach hotel where Baker lived, Frank Rossi, it informed Nicole that one Jay Baker had hung himself from a Banyan tree in Mismaloya. Baker had promised that in the event of Rossi’s death he would put the envelope in the hotel safe.

Dear Miss Merryweather-Pelto:

My name is Frank Rossi. You don't know me. I was in a mental institution in Newberry, Michigan. My roommate was a guy named Claude Guerre. He told me to track down his sister and dad, but I never did it. Now I'm real sick. They say I got AIDS. Anyway, he always told me God would judge me good if I got hold of you. I went to Detroit on the way here. I couldn’t find a Don, and of all the girls I looked up in the phone book, you’re the only one it could be. He said he's got the rosary. Pray for me. I’m sorry.

Frank Rossi

Nicole dropped the letter. She felt a tightening knot in her stomach, a weakness in her legs; then a sense of abject guilt and cold unreality; of fear; then, a desire that this moment had never come. But only momentarily, because she suddenly realized the absurdity of this, for her father's murder was the singular event of her life, and it would unfold endlessly, forever in her dreams.

She gathered up the letter and clippings and intuitively concealed them. She hid the papers in her drawer, as though she had always known their contents, as though they verified a prophecy already encoded in her genes, her blood.

Through the twilight, and into the night, Nicole wept over the loss of her father, whose image, a distant memory, took on mythic proportions; the dimensions of a Christ-like figure. She vaguely recalled lakeside picnics on Sleeping Bear Dunes. She remembered, or imagined she remembered, her long deceased mother, the little brick house in Redford, now a vacant lot, the pies on windowsills and porches with flowerpots, the visit from the police chaplain, the pain, the Free Press byline about the murder of a Detroit Symphony Orchestra member, first concertmaster, Karen Merryweather; recalled (and this was indelibly burned into her memory) that on the night before they moved north, her father had vowed to shield her from harm, and that one day she would know the truth of who murdered her mother; each memory a bead on the sorrowful rosary of her life.

The dream returned that night, and by dawn she had decided what she must do. She tried to make the following day as ordinary as any other. At work, there was a buzz about a class action suit. There were rumors of a new partner; Nicole avowed, as she always did, that any new partner should be a person of color or a woman. At 5, she went to a health club with a pool, running track, and workout room. She listened to Scriabin and Q Tip on her Ipod, while reading the on-line New York Times on an eliptical fitness machine monitor. She considered going to see, "Psychedelic Daze," a documentary of life in the hippie sixties, starring Ron Storti Jr..

In March she would be 25, but in terms of her having an intimate relationship with someone of the opposite sex, men still inspired an almost pathological fear in her. Back from the gym, she made Ramen noodles with guacamole and radicchio salad, ate late, went to bed, and prayed she wouldn't dream.

The next day, she awoke impatiently. She felt a sense of urgency, not trepidation or hesitation--and the unswerving conviction that she knew what she should do. There was nothing left to ponder. Today she would learn the truth, or a truth, about herself, her life. Third Coast Airlines, a Windsor outfit, had daily flights to Queen City. She e-mailed Sardini, telling him that an emergency had come up, and she would need three weeks off. After quickly preparing for the trip, she headed for the Tunnel to Canada.

It had been thirty years since her father's death. She still couldn't shake the image the recurrent nightmare. What really happened? Who was responsible? Why did she have to know? She was beautiful, intelligent and financially comfortable; and had managed to live all these years in a daytime world free from her subconscious torment.

She was one of two children, brought up in a loving household and college educated. Her father was murdered so long ago that she could make only vague, indistinct associations with his affections. The Pelto's had provided a family structure beyond reproach, certainly equal to that of the most caring biological kin. For thirty years Nicole Merryweather had been like a sister to Maureen Pelto, less an adopted child than a blood sister. The closeness of their shared intimacies went beyond a sibling bond. The rosary was one such secret: a small detail of the bittersweet day that brought them together. The day Mody lost her grandmother's rosary. Only Nicole knew this.

Once in the air, she reflected that the final step in her plan would be less horrible than the initial decision, and would give her, no doubt, a sense of closure, and of justice.