Beyond the Shadow of Night(8)

“Can Mykhail come visit us?”

She wiped her hands and pulled a chair out from the table. “Why don’t you write and ask him?”

“Write?”

“We can buy paper and envelopes. You can tell him what this place is like, and ask him to write back and tell you what’s happening on the farm.”

Asher thought for a moment, his mouth twitching into a nervous smile. “I’d like that.”

“Good boy.” She hugged him, and held him close for longer than he really expected.



Asher wrote many letters in the months that followed, but also kept asking his parents when they would be returning to the farm.

He never got the answer he wanted, and eventually stopped asking.

He also gave up asking his mama whether there were any letters for him. Perhaps Mykhail didn’t miss him. Yes, that was it. He’d probably made new friends in Dyovsta.

So Asher stopped writing, and, in time, strangers became friends, the apartment became a home of sorts, and the noise, bustle, and traffic of Warsaw belonged to Asher as much as anyone else. His papa got a job hauling flour around on a cart for the local bakery, Keren and Rina got jobs in factories, and Asher got on with his schooling.

Also, there was money. Paying for anything—but especially food—felt strange to young Asher, but his parents kept saying that even after paying for food, there was still money left over. And with that came visits to the theater, books, occasionally a toy—even a soccer ball for Asher and his new friends to play with.

Perhaps he had found a new home after all.





Chapter 3

Interview room 2, Zone One Police Station, Pittsburgh, August 2001

Diane Peterson tried to summon up a little fury to inject into her voice. It wasn’t something she was accustomed to doing, but this wasn’t a normal situation. She’d asked Detective Durwood twice already, and although he hadn’t reacted negatively to her request, he hadn’t really reacted positively either. She was used to these obfuscating, delaying, and damned irritating tactics from her father—by God she was used to that. But that would no longer happen, which was the point. So she leaned forward across the table, took a wavering breath, and put the words out there with a deliberate emphasis on every syllable.

“I need to see him,” she said.

Detective Durwood looked up from his folder of notes and flicked his eyes across to the clock on the wall, an action that made Diane say, “Well?”

He sighed. “We’re going around in circles. Like I told you before, I can understand your reaction, I really can. It’s pretty common.”

“You’re right, we are going around in circles. So let’s stop right now. Just arrange it, okay? Just let me know when I can see him.”

“What exactly do you expect to get out of it?”

“Only the truth.”

“Well, Diane, we—”

“Less of the Diane. To you, it’s ma’am—or better still, Ms. Peterson.”

“All right. I’m sorry. But we already know the truth.”

“Do you really? Do you know the complete truth? I knew them both, remember, and from where I stand I’d say no, you only think you do.”

The detective glanced down at his notes again. “With respect, we got a whole bunch of evidence and we got a confession, and—”

“You know the what. That’s not all the truth. I need to know the why. Look, I didn’t want to spring this on you, but I know it’s part of my rights. I think it’s called the Restorative Justice program. Isn’t that correct?”

He whipped off his glasses and peered at her. “Well, of course there is that, but you have to remember that the primary aim of Restorative Justice in this state isn’t so much to satisfy families of victims. It’s to facilitate the rehabilitation of offenders by showing them the consequences of their actions.”

“And so?”

A smirk—perhaps unconscious, Diane thought—appeared on his face. “The guy’s seventy-eight. At that age, there will be no rehabilitation.” The last five words were spoken with an air of finality.

“Detective, you don’t know me, and you didn’t know my father. So let me explain something. I’m forty-eight. I’ve lived with him since forever, apart from a few months when I lived with my mother. Sure, there were times when I wanted to leave him to his own devices—to go off and marry and have a family of my own. But I didn’t. He was just going to be a lonely old man without me, and I enjoyed the precious time I had with him. I loved my father.”

“Like I said, it’s understandable for you to feel bad about what happened to him. It’s normal.”

“I don’t give a damn about normal, and that’s not the point I’m making here. And if you think I’m normal, you couldn’t be more wrong. Oh, I enjoyed the time I had with him, but I didn’t exactly grow up into an average, well-adjusted adult. My father took care of everything he could so that I didn’t have to trouble myself with the mundane things in life. But there was a price, and that price is that I’ve spent most of my adult life like a . . . almost like a mouse, not arguing my case and standing up for myself.”

He nodded, clearly trying to be solemn in the face of her anger. He’d probably been trained for it.