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The 6 p.m. strategy meeting Jack Morgan called in order to better manage the various threads of the investigation had eventually devolved into an impromptu wake for Chris.
Drinks were poured. Toasts were given. Stories were told. Tears were shed. They’d even laughed a few times at old memories.
Now standing outside her apartment door, digging for her keys, she realized that memories were all she had of Chris.
It was all he would ever be.
But Niklas was alive. Niklas had a future. She had to make him see that.
Mattie opened the door to see her aunt Cäcilia coming out of the kitchen.
“Where is he?” Mattie asked, unable to hide the sadness.
“He just went to his room,” Aunt Cäcilia replied, her face twisting with concern. “Chris?”
Mattie bit her lip and shook her head. “He’s dead, Aunt C.”
“No!” Aunt Cäcilia cried as she hurried over. “No! What happened?”
Mattie fell into her arms, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’ll explain it to you later after I explain it to Niklas. But how am I supposed to do that when I can’t explain it to myself?”
Her aunt hugged her tightly and the dam burst. Mattie sobbed in her arms.
“Life can be so cruel sometimes, child,” Cäcilia said, rubbing her back.
“Why is that?” Mattie cried. “Why is that?”
“That’s a question beyond my qualifications, dear, one better addressed to God.”
“Mommy?”
Mattie raised her head and saw Niklas watching her from the hallway. He was already in his pajamas and looked so frightened that she almost collapsed with grief. But she got hold of herself, left her aunt, and went toward him, saying, “I’m sorry, Nicky.”
Her son’s chin trembled and for a moment she thought he was going to blame her and run away. But, dissolving into tears, he ran into her arms and cried in a hiccupping voice, “But I thought…I prayed…Aunt C said…”
Mattie picked him up and carried him to the rocking chair in the television room. “I know. I know.”
Niklas curled up in his mother’s lap. Socrates appeared and jumped into Niklas’s lap.
Mattie held on to them and watched her aunt sit down crying on the couch, realizing that these three beings were among the very few anchors left in her life.
CHAPTER 38
THE NEXT MORNING, after a near-sleepless night, Mattie resisted the urge to go to work early. She stayed with Niklas, cooked him his breakfast, and walked him through the streets to the John Lennon Gymnasium, where he attended elementary school.
When they neared the school, Niklas stopped and looked up at her, asking, “Are you going to be all right, Mommy?”
She had been about to ask him the same thing. She hugged him. “As long as I’ve got you, little man, I’ll always be all right.”
“Me too,” Niklas said.
She kissed him and said, “Go on, or you’ll be late. Aunt C will be here to pick you up.”
“I know the way home.”
“I know you do,” Mattie said. “But she’ll be waiting just the same.”
She waited until he’d disappeared up the steps inside the school. Her cell phone rang. It was Katharina Doruk. “Meet me at Tacheles.”
