Lucifer's Tears

28

Our bedroom is dark, but I know the sound of Kate’s breathing when she’s sleeping, and I can tell she’s not. I don’t bother to take my clothes off, crawl in bed beside her and put an arm around her.

“I thought you were working?” she says.

“I was.”

“Then why do you smell like booze?”

“I went to Milo’s place to talk about the Filippov murder. He had something to tell me in private. We had a hard day. A couple drinks was good for us. I didn’t want to leave you alone any longer than necessary and made it home as fast as I could.”

She turns toward me, wraps her arms around me, buries her head in my shoulder. “You could have died today.” She sobs, then bursts into tears.

I wish I could deny it. “But I didn’t.”

“The news said a man tried to make you commit suicide, but Milo killed him.”

“That’s what happened, but the man was emotionally disturbed. It was the guy I made drink a bottle of vodka outside the school a couple days ago. He didn’t shoot anyone and he just wanted to scare me, to punish me for hurting him. I’m pretty sure he just went to the school to die. He got what he wanted.”

“Kari, I saw the news and it reminded me of Kittila and the Sufia Elmi case and you getting shot. I started to shake and my heart started to pound. I’m scared, and I’m afraid I’ll lose this baby, too. I can’t fail as a mother again.”

I hold her tighter, confused. “What are you talking about? You didn’t fail as a mother. Miscarriages happen all the time.”

She sobs, pauses, collects herself. “I went skiing when I shouldn’t have and I fell. The doctors said it didn’t, but I think that fall caused us to lose our babies.”

I had no idea she felt this way. She bursts into big sobs and blurts out, “I failed you and them and I feel so guilty all the time.”

I pull her tight while she sobs, and wait until she quiets down before speaking. “Kate, that’s not true. If anything, the stress I caused you by pursuing the Sufia Elmi case to the ends of sanity caused you to miscarry.”

She tries to keep her voice down and whisper-shouts. “No. No no no no no. It was my fault. My failure. That’s why I wanted to start trying to get pregnant again as soon as I could, so I could give you a baby to replace the ones I took away from you with my selfishness and stupidity.”

She cries so hard that she shakes. I feel awful because I didn’t recognize that she was carrying all this around inside her. “No, Kate. It was my selfishness and stupidity. And I’m terrified I’ll do something selfish and stupid again. I worry myself sick. I thought you were upset with me tonight because I got myself into another dangerous situation that could make you stress and miscarry.”

She wipes her eyes. “Kari, these notions of yours are just silly. I’m upset because I saw you on TV and I realized I’ve been lying to myself. We came here and I’ve been happy in Helsinki, but I’ve ignored the fact that you haven’t been. I’ve made English-speaking friends in the international community, and I thought we had built a safe and cozy life. I believed we had left madness, depression and senseless violence behind us in the Arctic Circle. I realized tonight that Helsinki is the same, and it scares the hell out of me. Your job is dangerous and I’m frightened of losing you. I’m afraid for our little girl growing up surrounded by crazy people. You’ve been different since the Sufia Elmi case, and I’m worried about you, too. Right now, everything scares me.”

I brought Kate to Helsinki to quell her fears about life in Finland for nothing. Once again, I’ve failed her. I have no consoling words, her fears are justified. “Kate, there are no safe places in the world. It’s something all of us have to live with. But your belief that you caused the loss of the twins is unfounded. It’s just silly and you have to let it go.”

“You never let anything go,” she says.

She’s right. “I won’t lie and say the Elmi case didn’t hurt me, but I’ll get past it. I just need time, and I need time to adjust to Helsinki.”

“Will you ever?” she asks.

“For you,” I say, “there are no limits to what I can do.”

“And my brother and sister,” she says. “There’s something wrong with both of them. I raised them and I failed them.”

I don’t like to talk about my childhood, but I want to prove to her that she’s wrong, that she didn’t fail them. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” I ask.

She props herself up on her elbow and looks into my eyes. “I think you have a mild case of posttraumatic shock from what happened last year, but given the circumstances, no, I think you must be solid as a rock to have survived all you’ve been through as well as you have.”

“Did I ever tell you why I wear my hair cut short?”

“No.”

“When I was a little kid, back in the seventies when it was in style, I had longer hair. When my dad flew into drunken rages, he used to snatch me up by the hair, pick me up off the ground, swing me in a circle or jerk me around like a rag doll. Once, I tried to get away, and Dad chased me in a circle around the kitchen table. We stopped for a moment. He gave me a tiny smile and made me feel safe. I thought he was proud of me for sticking up for myself and all was forgiven. Instead, he used that smile to make me let my guard down, then caught me and swung me around by the hair like usual, then beat me for running. I never felt safe around him again. That’s why I wear my hair short to this day.”

Kate’s eyes water up again. “Kari, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s just one example of how I was sometimes treated. You don’t need to feel sorry for me. The point is, you treated your brother and sister well, but they came out a little weird. Dad treated me like garbage, and I came out solid. People survive their childhoods, but even the best childhood doesn’t guarantee a stable adult.”

My head hurts. I take a sleeping pill.

“Did you see Jari?” Kate asks.

“Yeah. I need some tests. He and his family are coming over for dinner on Thursday evening.”

“That’s nice.”

She’s lost in thought for a moment. “I still feel like a guilty failure,” she says.

“Me too,” I say.

Me and Kate. Two of a perfect pair.