later, after only four hours of deliberation, the jury retuned a verdict of manslaughter. Ghegan was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. It wasn’t what Michael had hoped for, what the city deserved, but Ghegan was off the street. The young ADA came to see Michael the day after sentencing. In his eyes Michael saw so much. Mostly himself, a few years ago.
In mid-august Michael returned, alone, to the Eden Falls house. He was still using a cane now and then, but for the most part he was independent. As he approached the house he saw something attached to the column next to the front door. His heart fluttered. Closer inspection revealed it was a decal, a stencil in the shape of a bright yellow daisy. Michael glanced around. There were no other decals, just this solitary, cheerful plastic flower on the column. Next to it was taped a small envelope. Michael opened it. Inside was a note card and a photograph. Michael looked at the picture first, an image of a young couple sitting on the stoop of a brownstone. By the look of the cars on the street it was probably the mid-Nineties. The man, who wore a Cleary green florist’s smock, was lean and handsome. He had a twinkle in his eye. The woman had fine features, light-brown hair pinned up with plastic barrettes. The baby – a toddler, really – sat on the man’s knee. There was no mistaking those sad eyes.
Michael looked at the note. On the back was a slip of paper. He turned it over. It was a receipt for the daisy decals. He had to laugh. She was informing him that she hadn’t shoplifted these. He read the note.
I just wanted to tell you that I think I know what it means, now. Zhivy budem, ne pomryom. (I looked up the spelling.)
It means that everything is going to be all right.
Be well all of your days.
Falynn xo
Michael folded the note, put it into his pocket.
After a few long moments he turned, and walked away from the house. He never went inside again.
FIFTY-NINE
A year after the horrible incidents in Eden Falls and Astoria, New York, a young woman stood across the street from the Pikk Street Cafe. Even there, on the corner, the air was rich with the aromas of cinnamon and marzipan and dark chocolate.
Inside, the owner of the cafe, a man of just thirty-six years, but one whose sandy hair was already shocked with gray, stacked boxes in the back room. There was never enough space.
At just after nine AM, after the morning rush had subsided, he stepped behind the counter. There were three customers at the tables, each lost in their coffee, their pastries, their copies of that morning’s Eesti Ekspress.
When they decided to move to Estonia, they knew that Michael would never again practice law. The day he was to return to the Queens County District Attorney’s office, he stood in Dennis McCaffrey’s office, surrounded by his colleagues and friends. Because there had been no hard evidence that Michael had broken the law, no charges were filed regarding the adoption of the girls.
But there would always be a wariness surrounding Assistant District Attorney Michael Roman. And the DA’s office – any DA’s office – could not afford a cloud of suspicion. He tendered his resignation that day.
And although they had both taken a blitz Berlitz course in Estonian, it was Abby who excelled. She applied to the Estonian government, and within six months would take the first of two boards she would need to work as a nurse in this country.
As for the art of baking, Michael found that he took to it like a natural. He recalled watching his father in front of the ovens, the choreography of an artisan, a master of his craft. Michael was far from perfecting his pirukad, but was beginning to get repeat customers.
When he finished filling the lunch orders for the nearby hotels, he poured himself a cup of coffee. The girls were sitting at a table in the front window, giggling, as always, with some private, mysterious knowledge. When Michael looked out the window he saw a woman standing on the corner, watching the girls. His senses alerted, as they would forever be when it came to Charlotte and Emily, he moved closer. When he saw the young woman’s face his heart stuttered, as if he had suddenly found the second half of a long-forgotten locket.
The woman noticed him, raised a delicate hand to wave.
Michael ran out the front door of the bakery, but by the time he reached the corner, the woman was gone, lost in the crowd of commuters and tourists on Pikk Street.
When he stepped back inside, Abby was waiting for him by the door.
“Did you see that woman?” he asked. “The blond woman in the red coat?”
“She was just in,” Abby said. “She was sitting in the corner.” She pointed to the table by the radiator.
Michael crossed the room. On the table sat a white napkin, and on it was drawn a beautifully detailed pencil rendering of a hillside cemetery. In the center was a small cross. There was no headstone, no name, but Michael knew whose resting place it was, and what it meant.
They say he consorted with a girl in Ida-Viru County. An ennustaja. She bore him three children, but one was stillborn.
“Something wrong?” Abby asked, stepping beside him.
Michael considered telling his wife. Instead, he put the napkin in his pocket, and said:
“It’s a beautiful day. Let’s close a little early.”
A few hours later they sat on the shore at Pirita Beach, not far from the Olympic Yachting Centre, the host site of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The wind was strong, and the air a little chilly – the beaches of Tallinn did not get crowded until late June – but the water glistened and the breeze carried the pledge of another summer.
After lunch the girls walked down to the water. Back to back, with little tree branches in hand, they made drawings in the wet sand. Charlotte etched something that looked like a mountain. Emily drew a horse. Or maybe it was a camel.
Michael gazed out over the Gulf of Finland. In the six months before they left the states, the girls had gone through intense counseling. According to the therapists, there did not appear to be any lasting trauma from the events of spring, 2009, but there existed the possibility that one day the terror they had experienced would return. Only time would tell.
Later, as they packed their things and headed to the car, Michael turned to look one last time at the sand drawings, but found that the tide had already come in and washed them away.
That evening, in the small flat over the cafe, with the girls fast asleep, and his wife engrossed in a book beside him, Michael held the napkin the woman had left on the table, and considered his beliefs, his faith in this life, and the knowledge that there was no eternity, no forever.
For the Roman family – Michael, Abby, Charlotte, and Emily – there was only now.
EPILOGUE
December. Snow fell gently over eastern Estonia, coating the hills, dusting the tall, imperial pines. The young man with a finger missing from his right hand stood looking out the window of a house set atop a hill in Kolossova. He had read about what happened on the Internet. The newspapers said that Aleksander Savisaar was some kind of monster, that he had terrorized a family in New York City.
Villem Aavik knew the truth.
When Savisaar left more than a year ago, he told Villem many things, had entrusted him with a great many responsibilities, not the least of which was the care of the house, the grounds, the animals. With both parents dead, Villem saw Savisaar as much more than just a father figure. He was the thing of myth. He was vennaskond.
Villem looked at the wall of knives in the study, each one a work of art. He took one from the rack, opened it, fingered the blade.
He had read all the books in the small library, knew all the names: Baba Yaga, Koschei Besmertney, Bas Celik, Ivan, Marya, Anna, Olga. He had listened many times to Stravinsky’s The Firebird, his confidence growing with
