They carried him to the tree while he choked on his blood. They strung the rope around his ankles. They pulled him up. How much longer was he going to have to watch this from one good eye? Swung back and forth. Chanting. Angry men in scarves wielding machetes.
And then, well, look at that. A girl in her Sunday best. A toddler. Her mother behind her, hair like silk falling over her shoulders, urging the girl forward. Go to Daddy. Walk to him. You can do it.
He held his arms out to her. Pudgy little girl. Yellow and white dress, stained purple from her juicebox. Inching forward. Giggling, burbling. Come on, baby. Walk to Daddy.
Wasn't she the cutest thing you'd ever seen?
EPILOGUE
The Buick hauled the ice shack out onto the lake. Hard ice this year. January not as cold as the old days, everyone said, but not as crazy as the year before with the blizzards, one after the other. Just good clear air, colder than death.
Dad parked the car, got out. He unhooked the shack while Adem climbed out of the passenger's seat and walked around to take the wheel. He was finally free of courts, debriefings, jail, threats of being taken to secret prisons overseas.
They held him for three months. He made a deal with the Feds, and it helped that Dad spent most of his cash on the best lawyer he could afford. Pretty much everything he'd stashed away from his gang days went into Adem's defense team. And it worked. Adem was free, the records about this whole ordeal sealed for a handful of years, and he was able to pick up where he left off at school.
Dad unhitched the rig and retracted the wheels on the trailer, easing the shack onto the ice. Adem pulled the Buick away, circled back and parked by the shack, left to Dad in a handwritten will Bleeker must have made right before they left for Africa. It wasn't official, and it didn't supercede the one he'd put together with Trish years before, back when they weren't exactly happy in the marriage but still had the good sense to know it needed to be done.
Trish didn't want the ice house or the car. So she called Dad, told him what the new will said, and "If you want to do it, it's all yours. I'm done."
Adem got out, looked around. "Not exactly Lake Superior."
"Better than nothing."
Adem let out a stream of breath that floated in front of him like cigar smoke. He'd missed this. His first time to really enjoy the cold again after being indoors most of the past year. Definitely more to his blood's liking than Somalia. If he never saw a desert again, he'd be plenty happy.
Dad called out, "Didn't want to help, did you?"
A shrug. "You were doing fine."
"Just…come on. Let's do it."
Adem reached into the backseat, grabbed a plastic box, and closed the door. He walked over to the ice house, stepped inside.
They hadn't bothered to clean out the empty rum and pop bottles yet, leaving sticky spots on the floor and a sweet-and-sour smell all over. Adem opened the window to air it out. Dad picked up the folding chairs, set them around the hole in the floor. He knelt down, uncovered it, and started to work with a hand drill. Adem had told him to buy an electric one, but Dad said, "If we like it this once, we'll buy one for next time."
The will had also stated that Ray Bleeker had decided to have his ashes spread into his favorite ice fishing spot like Forrest's had been. He hadn't said that Dad should be the one to do it. In fact, he wanted Trish to be the one. God knew why, because she sure didn't. When Dad picked up the Roadmaster and ice house, she showed him the letter. Then handed him the box. "I had already moved on a long time ago. He's confusing me with the woman who loved him."
Dad said he would be honored to follow through. Trish hmphed and brushed him off. "Suit yourself."
Some UN workers had found the body several months after Dad and Adem returned home. It had been castrated, burned in places, probably while he was still alive, gutted like Warfaa, then beheaded. Left in a shallow grave with a few other victims, the desert had managed to cover them with enough sand to keep them in somewhat decent shape, enough to ID Bleeker's head from a photo. They shipped him back home, handed the remains over to Trish, since there was no one else remotely like family, and let her cremate them. Not even a ceremony, a memorial, not even witnesses. Trish signed some papers, wrote a check, and picked up the plastic box the next day, which she'd left in her garage until Dad came by.
Adem took his turn on the drill, churning up ice, his hands tiring a lot faster than he had expected, but he didn't give up. He was determined to start working out, build up his body and his strength. He never wanted to feel helpless like he had at the hands of that mob who nearly took his head clean off. He had been the one pushing for this more than his father. He had heard Bleeker's last words before they drove away. Turning himself into bait. Hard to shake that sort of thing, hearing a man's last words.
When they finally got the drill through to the water-ice looked like five or six inches thick this year-they stood side-by-side above the hole, Adem holding the plastic box Trish had handed over, full of Bleeker's ashes, a few bits of bone.
Dad said, "Do you want to, like, say anything? A prayer, something like that?"
Adem thought about it. His experience, instead of turning him off to religion, made him explore Islam more. Were the crazies right? Or were they way off? He was learning a lot. He began adhering to the tenets of the faith, just to see how it felt. Daily prayers, a new diet, a beard. Could be it brought him some peace. Could be it helped clear his mind of the hate and fear he'd carried home, nightmares every night for months, loud noises making him flinch and sweat. He hadn't decided yet if he really believed it, but it felt good to try.
Adem shook his head. "I don't think he would've wanted us to."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
Adem knelt on one knee. Popped the top off the box, and aimed a corner towards the hole in the ice. He carefully shook the ashes into the water, nice and slow, until there was nothing left but the residue clinging to the plastic. He sat the box aside, stood again.
Dad was standing, head bowed and eyes closed. Adem knew he wasn't praying. Dad had come back from Somalia and abandoned his faith. It didn't mean anything to him anymore after seeing what it did to those soldiers, to Jibriil, and to his own son. He talked to his wife about his choice, and it turned out she'd been leaning in the same direction, just afraid to disappoint him. So whatever Dad was doing now, it had nothing to do with Allah. He was drinking again, quite a lot most nights, but he hadn't turned back to crime. He fought even harder at Target. Even got a couple of pay raises. Not the best life, not the worst either. He was making do.
The water under the hole was clear again as the ashes swirled away. Still nothing from Dad. Adem wondered if he was asleep.
"Okay."
Dad blinked open his eyes, sniffed. "Okay."
Another long quiet moment.
Dad said, "Do you want to try it? See if we can catch something?"
Sitting around a hole in the ice in sub-zero temps, hoping to catch a fish. A year ago, it would not have been Adem's idea of a good time. But if it meant another couple of hours with his dad, who hadn't spoken to him as much as Adem had hoped he would after coming back home, then fine. He hoped over time things would get back to normal. In the meantime, take a seat, fish in the winter.
They drilled another hole, the first one now kind of sacred. They set up a line. They sat, waited.
His dad said, "Do you still think about her?"
Sufia. The kind nurse who helped him back to his feet. The fiercely intelligent woman who fought him every step of the way as he negotiated for pirates. The wretched, pitiable thing on the stairs of the hospital, wailing and bleeding through acid-scarred skin.