“Then…”
“I need to go talk to Niklas.”
Her aunt nodded. “And then you come eat. Schnitzel with lemon zest.”
Mattie kissed Cäcilia on her cheek and went down the hall to her son’s room. She knocked. He didn’t answer. She twisted the knob. Locked.
“Nicky? Can I come in?”
Several moments later she heard the lock freed. She went into the bedroom of her soccer-mad son. A big poster of Cassiano hung above his bed.
Niklas climbed back onto his bed and curled himself around Socrates, who purred. Mattie sat on the bed next to them and rubbed her son’s back.
“You have the right to be upset,” she said.
For several moments, Niklas showed no reaction, but then he asked, “Is Chris alive, Mom?”
“We have to believe so.”
“And if he’s not?”
Mattie did not answer.
“Why don’t you still love him, Mom?”
Mattie’s lower lip trembled. “I do love Chris. And I love you, and we’re going to get through this.”
“And get him back?”
“If it’s in my power. Now it’s time for pajamas and toothbrushes.”
“No book?”
“Aunt C will read to you,” she promised. “I’m starving.”
The cat meowed, squirmed from Niklas’s hold, and pranced to the door.
“Looks like he’s hungry too,” Mattie said.
“There’s still some dry food that Chris left.”
“I know where it is.”
She left her son’s room, returned to the kitchen, and saw that her aunt had already found the cat food. It was in a bowl next to another filled with water. Socrates went to the food and ate hungrily.
“And your supper is on the table,” Cäcilia said.
Mattie kissed the old woman’s cheek again. “Niklas’s almost ready for you to read a little Harry Potter to him.”
“I’ll need to find my glasses then,” Cäcilia said, pulling off her apron.
Mattie went to the table and had her aunt’s incomparable schnitzel with lemon zest and twice-baked potatoes, a salad, and a cold Berliner Weisse. After she’d finished, cleared the table, and washed the dishes, she went into the refrigerator in search of a second beer. She needed it.
She popped the top. Her cell rang. It was Katharina Doruk.
“Burkhart called in and told me what happened,” Katharina said.
“We’re all right,” Mattie replied.