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. “Hyvaa 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.”