Requiem [COMPLETED]

Answers and Questions

Coach put a hand on Seamus' bouncing knee. "You're vibrating the damn bench, son." Seamus crossed his legs, throwing up a foot onto his other knee with a grunt of effort and fiddling with his thumbs. "You always were shit at stretching, but damn, I've got thirty years on you and you're grunting like my father."

"You're a bastion of confidence building, as usual," Seamus side-eyed him. 

Coach Velo scoffed. "None of us feel confident here," he said, casually looking around. "There's nothing like being left waiting in a police station to make you start sweating, even if you've done nothing wrong."

"Then why am I anxious?" John asked.

"Because, we only see cops when something's horribly wrong. It's Pavlovian. I mean, for Gallagher here it's probably more he's just a little shit and generally has actually fucked up, but, you know," he gestured vaguely. 

Seamus gave a wry sideways smile at John and him. "I know I'm your favorite, regardless."

"If asked explicitly I'd never admit it, you rascal," Coach replied. He placed a hand on Seamus' shoulder and briefly patted it. "You'll do fine. Just resist being a little shit for once in your life so they take you seriously."

That sobered them all up. Seamus nodded, thinking and looking at the floor. A pair of uniformed legs was suddenly in front of them and they looked up to see Officer Toso, in all his pink, hairless glory wearing a uniform not intended for someone with bowed shoulders and that much of a potbelly.

"Alright, we're ready for you. Come on back."

*****

"No, someone told me she was here," I insisted. I was at the Good Samaritan Retirement Village in Fargo, arguing with a nurse over my semi-existent grandmother. "Someone from my church told me she changed her name, but that she definitely lives here. The woman writes letters with her still, and this is the return address."

"We have no one by the name Vivian Trosvig, but we do have several Trosviks," she replied tersely. Of course you do, I thought. Trosvik and Jensen are the Smith and Joneses up here; you can't throw a rock without hitting a Norwegian or Swede. Sundby, Halvorson, Ohe, Larson, Nelson, Almqvist, Hjelm, the list went on... and that was just the mailboxes along the road I grew up on. There were four Trosviks in the same grades as Sven and I. And I knew I wasn't looking for any of them. It irritates me when people think they know what you mean better than you do.

"Just let me look around, I'll recognize her. I haven't seen her in awhile, but she was old then; she can't look that different now," I said with exasperation and instantly regretted it. Absolutely the wrong answer; her mouth pursed up and her glower took on Scandinavian proportions. Normal people, when pissed off, will be mad for a few minutes and then forget your name and face by the end of the day. Mess with a Scandinavian and their children's children will be reminding your children's children about what a jerk you were, retelling the same story seventy years later. I tried the honesty route; secrecy wasn't helping my case.

"Please," I said, "My grandpa and her don't get along. They aren't together--they may have gotten divorced--I think that's why she changed her name. She couldn't come see us because we've been living with him all these years. I really just want to see her, to talk to her again."

After a few sizing-me-up looks with her piercing blue eagle eyes, she relented but didn't soften. "You can walk around and see if you recognize her, but don't harry anybody or I'll have you thrown out, kid." Looking at her meaty hands on the keyboard, I had no doubt she would. And enjoy it, too.

"Yes, thank you." I made a mental note to avoid giving her my name or any way to trace me, lest later generations be forced to relive my moment of flippant insouciance. Nobody around here seems to forget details; an unfortunate trait that so many of the populace have stellar memories. When asked, I gave the name Birgit Johnson and the address for my high school instead of the farm.