Chapter 15: The Christmas Trip
Samantha Liggett stood in line at the local post office. She insisted that all the people waiting behind her go first. Most people were there to retrieve oversized Christmas presents. When it was Samantha's turn she picked up a different sort of package. The plain brown cardboard box weighed just about ten pounds and it had a Rika Chorna postmark on the lid.
She placed the box in the backseat of her car and drove directly home. She looked for an old Ford Bronco in the apartment's parking lot; Arthur wasn't home yet. Samantha carried the box inside and placed it on the couch.
She used a key to rip the tape. The shipping label had the name of her friend Katya on it- former friend now. Samantha had worked with Katya at the hospital for two years and even lived as a guest in her family home for a couple months after her release from custody. Katya, as Samantha's closest friend, had been looking forward to taking part in the wedding; the wedding that never happened.
Samantha opened the box. There were several personal items that she had left behind at Katya's home. Samantha had taken what she expected to be a short trip back to America. Then suddenly, inexplicably, she had answered the door at her parents' house and Arthur was there, just casually standing on the porch in a blue tee shirt and jeans. It didn't make any sense. Who was this person: a twin brother, a hallucination?
With a straight face, Arthur had said: "I'm looking to take advantage of an innocent young lady; have you seen one around?" Samantha had nearly passed out.
A little later she figured out what he had done and slapped him; then she kissed him again, then she screamed at him for taking such a risk and slapped him again. It went on like that for a while. Arthur thought it was awfully funny. That day Arthur thought everything was hilarious.
The days that followed were especially hard. Spokesman Ralkliv had called to report the disappearance of Criminal # 88588. Ralkliv described the circumstances.
According to Mr. Jakt and several other acquaintances, Arthur had complained that his new job was getting him out of shape, so for much of the summer he had been getting up before dawn to exercise. Every morning Arthur ran kilometers of city trails.
Several witnesses reported that at the end of his run, Criminal # 88588 always took a swim across the small river that runs through Rika Chorna. Afterwards, he would go back home, clean up, eat breakfast and then head off to work. On the morning of September twenty-fourth, Arthur Liggett didn't return.
Ralkliv described how authorities searched the park with dogs and searched the river using boats and divers but they were unable to find any sign of him. Then Ralkliv had to give Samantha the sad news: Arthur Liggett had likely drowned and was presumed dead.
Samantha had to suffer through all the condolences for her loss even as she spent her days with Arthur. There were messages from her friends, and Arthur's priestess, and the staff at the hospital in Rika Chorna. It hurt worst when Mr. Jakt called. Out of all the Danubians, he had been closest to Arthur. Samantha had little choice but to keep Arthur's real situation secret for a while; Arthur had so many tricky legal matters to work out first.
Samantha looked through the box that Katya had sent her. Katya could no longer be a friend but she had had the decency to pack up and return some of Samantha's personal items.
There were pictures in the box, photographs of her, Laura and Arthur, some photos of her friends from work, a couple pictures of her posing with the two kids of her first host family.
Criminal collar # 88634 was there too; she picked it up. With the latch pin removed it hung open in her hands. Looking at it made her shiver; she set it on the couch. At the bottom of the box was something wrapped in newspaper. She unfolded it carefully. Holding it in her hand, Samantha couldn't help but cry. The gray stone was roughly shaped like Idaho, with a shiny black trilobite fossil on one side.
She wasn't sad though, Samantha was grateful for her new life. Arthur had risked all to get himself free; and although he would never admit it, Samantha knew that he had waited because of her.
When her sentence was over and she was safely out of the country, he made his move. Arthur gambled and he won. All that deception and guile was considered dishonorable in a Danubian view, but it was still, she thought, a remarkable thing.
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Samantha still had a couple more Christmas gifts to wrap and one more suitcase to pack. She packed Arthur's bag for him; otherwise he would probably take off without packing any clothes at all, he rarely thought about practical things. She had just finished when the phone rang.
Samantha slung her hair to the side and picked up the receiver: "Hello... Oh, Hi... Yes ma'am, I'm doing fine... oh, I'm sorry ma'am," Samantha laughed nervously. "Um... Clara, it's just a habit, I guess... yeah, I'm packing right now ma'am... we should be ready to leave soon... oh, no ma'am, Arthur went to get the car serviced... Oh, I'll be sure to tell him... it will be good to see her again... okay ma'am; sorry... I keep doing that." Samantha forced another laugh. "Okay Clara, we'll see you then. Bye-bye."
Samantha breathed a sigh of relief to be off the phone with her mother-in-law. It had been a rough adjustment period transitioning from Danubian Criminal to free American. People didn't know what to think of her now. She was almost insanely polite and respectful; Samantha felt compelled to call everyone wearing clothes either sir or ma'am, and if people were standing in line, Samantha let everyone else go first before she walked through the door or spoke to the teller at the bank.
Samantha sat on the couch and went through her checklist again: their bags were packed, the presents were wrapped, the windows were locked and so on... there was nothing to do but wait. Ten minutes later she heard Arthur climbing the metal stairs, it was pouring down rain, a typical soggy Louisiana December. She met him at the door with a roll of paper towels in her hand; between Arthur and his nervous dog she used a lot of paper towels.
Arthur stepped inside but stayed on the rug, his hair was flat against his head; his shirt clung to his wiry frame.
Samantha put her hands out. "Don't move! You're soaking wet... just take off your clothes right there!"
"Are you propositioning me?" Arthur chuckled as he stripped off the tee shirt.
