The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(54)

Stop it, she told herself. Though it felt like an eternity, she hadn’t even been in town for a week, and they’d had plenty to do after her father’s death. Of course they had.

She drove under the viaduct, above which the wide freeway ran north. She thought of something else: Her half sisters must resemble her, surely? Did they share some of the same features? She hoped for their sake they hadn’t inherited her father’s height like she had. It had been hard to see the evening she’d caught a glimpse of Leslie on the porch. From a distance, she’d looked very feminine. Not a skyscraper, like the boys in Ilka’s class at school had called her, when they weren’t asking if her parents had forgotten the B when they named her—Bilka, the name of the Danish hypermarket chain. All through the lower classes at school, she was called Bilka. But that stopped one day when she lost her temper and grabbed a chair and smashed it over Jakob’s head—he had been her worst tormentor. The chair leg broke his nose, but otherwise nothing happened. After that, no one had felt any need to comment on her name. Or her height, for that matter.

Leslie and Amber were two common names; no one would have teased the two girls. Her father must have turned into a lightweight after coming over here. Or else he hadn’t seen the same strength in them that he’d claimed to have seen in her as a newborn baby. That was his explanation when she asked him about her ridiculous name. “You’re a winner, Ilka, and they’ll find that out sooner or later. A person has the advantage when the odds are against them, when they’re the big surprise. When they’re someone no one had seen coming, when they strike when it’s least expected.”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Ilka muttered to herself. It annoyed her that her nerves were getting the upper hand. And what the hell for? She didn’t need her father’s new family. “I’ll leave if I don’t like them,” she told her windshield.



Massive treetops drooped over the street where Ilka turned off a bit later. She was close now. A large American flag hanging from the gable end of a corner house nearly touched the ground, and there was a round plastic swimming pool under a square parasol on the front lawn. Kids’ bikes were parked near the gate, and plastic toys were scattered around, as if some game had suddenly been interrupted. She drove past slowly, her eyes glued to her father’s house. Even at a distance she could see the porch was deserted, but the front door was open, though barely.

She took a deep breath as she parked at the curb and shut the engine off. She sat and stared at nothing, then grabbed the bundle of drawings and letters. The small clay figure was in her pocket.

Before she shut the car door, she saw Mary Ann in the doorway, coming through in her wheelchair. Ilka hesitated before walking up the flagstone sidewalk to the house. She smiled as her father’s wife, a frail, light-haired woman, wheeled across the porch to meet her.

“Hello,” Ilka said when she reached the steps. “I’m Paul’s daughter from Denmark.” She started up the steps.

“Yes, I figured that, when you drove by the other day,” Mary Ann said. She backed her wheelchair away from the steps so Ilka could pass.

Ilka shook her hand and smiled, and immediately the two sisters appeared in the doorway behind their mother. “I’m Ilka. Ilka Jensen.”

She walked over to say hello to the sisters, one of whom had stepped behind the door. There was something familiar about the dark-haired woman. After stepping closer, to Ilka’s surprise she saw it was the woman from the bench by the funeral home parking lot.

How about that, she thought. Then the blond older sister, the one she’d seen on the porch the other day, asked if she could help her with something.

For a second, Ilka wasn’t sure why she had come, but then she remembered the things she’d brought along. She smiled when she realized the older sister must not know who she was.

“I’m your half sister.” She added that she had been looking forward to meeting them, that she hadn’t even known she had sisters. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

The blond sister—Leslie, according to Sister Eileen—stood behind her mother’s wheelchair, and when no one spoke, the moment became so awkward that Ilka began to regret she’d come.

“I brought this along,” she said. She showed them the bundle of drawings and letters. “I found them up in our father’s room.”

The dark-haired sister—Amber, she must be—seemed uncomfortable; obviously, she hadn’t wanted to reveal who she was. Apparently the two other women weren’t supposed to know she and Ilka had met. Leslie reached for the drawings.

“Thank you very much. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Ilka gave them to her; then she fished the small clay figure out of her pocket. “And I found this.” She held it so it sat in the palm of her hand. Leslie took it, too.

“We don’t have any of your things here,” she said. Then she walked back toward the front door.

Ilka was about to follow her, when Mary Ann quickly stuck out her hand and thanked her for stopping by.

Ilka stood for a moment and looked the three of them over. Her half sisters didn’t resemble her, apart from being tall, though not as lanky as Ilka. In fact, Amber’s figure had more than average female curves, which made her height less obvious. Ilka took a final glance at the younger sister; she looked a bit like a clumsy ox, she thought, rather ungenerously. Then, taking the hint, she started down the steps, but quickly turned around. “Would you like to get together for a cup of coffee one of these days?”