Trilemma
Authors: Jennifer Mortimer
Trilemma
A Novel
Jennifer Mortimer
Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Mortimer
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-60809-112-6
Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing, Longboat Key, Florida
www.oceanviewpub.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
T
O MY SISTERS
Anne, Gilda, and Claire
Rowena and Alex
Jane and Georgianne
Part III Knock the Bastard Off
trilemma: 1 :
a choice among three favorable options, only two of which are possible at the same time
2 :
a difficult choice from three options, each of which is unacceptable or unfavorable.
trilemma in computing:
fast, cheap, good: pick two
Trilemma
I wake in darkness, curled like a fetus on my left-hand side and take a breathâand a vile sweet stench explodes in my nostrils, in my throat, and I gag and retch and thrash out with all my panicked strength, but my arms, my legs, they are caught, trapped, buried, I can't get away from it, I can't move at allâ
oh God, trapped in a holeâmy worst nightmare
âMy mind explodes in blind irrational terror and all goes blank.
This Land of Hope
I am a loser when it comes to love and family. I have no husband and no children. My birth mother left when I was a baby and my father died when I was twelve. Now Mom, too, is leaving me, inexorably, one marble at a time.
When I discovered my father's papers in her desk, I thought they might hold some clue to his New Zealand family. And so it turned out. I found an address in Wellington, New Zealand, on the back of a photograph, and when I Googled the address, up popped an apartment to rent. How could I not take it?
My old professor taught that good decisions are made from good logic and good information;
a
and
b
therefore
c
. You can write it up in a formula. So long as you know what
a
and
b
are, and your formula is right, then
c
is an obvious answer.
Sometimes the factors are way more complicated, but they say the human brain can process a mass of information and instinctively come up with the best decision, even though you can't trace the logic. I'd like to think that's true, but how would you know it's the right decision if you don't know how you got there?
Fifty years ago, my father followed a pretty girl home to New Zealand and found love, family, and a career, although he lost them all when he met my mother.
Fifty days ago, I decided to follow in his footsteps.
Now I pause and look at the tall villa crouched amongst blossoming trees and wonder what the hell I'm doing. The wind
catches my hair, blowing it over my eyes, blinding me until I catch the errant strands and tuck them behind my ears.
Then I grasp the handle of my battered suitcase and step onto the path.
A small boy rushes past, tugging a fragment of cloth attached to a set of dog's teeth, followed by what at first impression seems to be a golden sheep but is a large woolly dog.
They stop when they see me. The dog drops the cloth and barks.
Rowf, rowf, rowf!
I stand my ground. “Hello Rowfer, good boy!” I hope.
“Her name is Polly, not Ralph,” says the child. “And she's a girl.”
The woolly beast wags her tail. I offer my hand. “How do you do, Polly?”
She gives me her hairy foot. I shake it solemnly.
“Rowf!” she says and wiggles her bottom.
“Indeed. And I am Lin.”
The boy looks at me. “Top floor?”
“That's me.”
He sticks out his own grubby paw. “I'm Michael.”
“Pleased to meet you, Michael.”
A statuesque woman with long, fair hair emerges from the ground floor apartment. She examines me with shrewd green eyes edged by laughter lines and dark brows that curve up at the outer edges.
“You must be our new neighbor,” she says. “I'm Sally Trumpet. I see you've met my son.”
“And his trusty companion,” I reply, and offer my hand. “Linnet Mere.”
Sally shakes my hand and asks, “Why don't you pop in tomorrow night for a drink?”
“Thank you. I'd like that.”
The penthouse smells of the lilies squatting in a vase on the table. The card says “Welcome! Alienne,” which strikes me as
a little impolite until I recognize the name of the company that rented me the apartment.
I touch the soft gray leather of the sofa then walk to the window. Puffs of white cloud break free from the eastern hills and scud across the azure sky, while in the harbor yachts dart across the sea.
Although I had traveled New Zealand several times before, I always flew direct to Queenstown and missed one of New Zealand's best-kept secrets. You can't beat Wellington on a good day, they say, and today is one of those days. Glistening in the sun, nestled in tall green hills, and cradled by the cobalt sea, Wellington is absolutely, positively gorgeous.
The hot sun streams in the window and warms my skin. Below in the pohutukawa tree birds twitter, and faint music meanders up through the streets as someone practices piano. A lawn mower drones in the distance. A feeling of gentle well-being washes over me.
I made the right decision.
Like my father I might find love, and like my father, I might find a family in this land of hope and plenty. The first country to give women the vote and where they say the glass ceiling is thinner. A Pacific island with a fair and open culture that looks both to the East and the West.
The land where I was born and the land where Ben lives.
So while you might say it was fate that led me to the house where my father once lived, I know it was logic.