Path to Convergence
Copyright© 2025 by Vonalt
Chapter 3: Reconciliation
I arrived in Fargo just in time to say goodbye. I doubt that the Jorgenson relatives were thrilled that Grandma had asked me to handle her estate. She still held on for two more days, just long enough for a final moment together.
Some, like Olive, felt that I had no business being there, especially after what they saw as my abandoning Karen. They didn’t hesitate to say so, as that was the story they chose to believe. I could have told them what I saw when I came back from the war, what really happened in that house, but I didn’t. I wasn’t there to stir things up. Some things are better left unsaid for now.
There’d be time to pick up the pieces later to see if anything in my marriage could be rebuilt. I chose to keep the peace for now.
Karen made an effort to keep me by her side during the wake and after the service. I didn’t argue, but I politely declined. I remained present, seated near the front during the service and at the end of the receiving line at the funeral home, keeping my distance at the opposite end from her.
It wasn’t out of anger or defiance, just a conscious choice to stay back.
The saddest part was how far I’d drifted from my daughters. We’d once been close, but they now barely knew me. They grew tense and pulled away when I approached. That kind of distance hurt more than I’d ever imagined.
I made a silent vow that I wouldn’t do anything to frighten them for the rest of my time in Fargo. I kept my distance, hoping that simply being nearby, even if unnoticed, was better than pushing them before they were ready.
Andi and Randy both urged me to reconcile with Karen. I appreciated their concern but gently told them that it wasn’t the right time, maybe later, but not yet. There were still things that I needed to work through and issues to resolve before I could even consider rebuilding a life with Karen, or starting one with Andi.
Randy, ever the peacemaker, quietly approached me after the traditional Lutheran funeral meal at the church hall.
“How are you holding up, Doc?” Randy asked, shifting uncomfortably. “And before you say it, no Olive didn’t send me. This is just me. Your friend, Randy. One friend to another.”
“I’ve been better,” I quietly said. “I’m grieving a woman who I was closer to than my own mother. My daughters barely recognize me, they’re afraid of me, and Karen ... I don’t even know how I feel about her anymore.
“What are you saying, Doc?” Randy asked, his brow furrowed. “You didn’t see her when you disappeared. We thought someone had finally gotten to you, revenge, maybe, but Karen never stopped hoping, not for a second.”
“You didn’t see the interviews she gave on TV, even after the news declared you dead and said that your head was on a pike somewhere. Karen never wavered. She kept saying that you were still out there, surviving just like always.”
‘To be honest, Doc, I kept thinking about how you were in Russia and Iraq. I believed that we’d make it back, both times, because you were leading us, but I wasn’t so sure this time. I thought your number was up. I truly thought you were gone.’
“Not Karen,” Randy said, “She always believed that you were out there, still breathing, still fighting. She said that you’d come back when the time was right.
Grandma Jorgenson’s passing, was that was the right moment? The old lady made her request, and you somehow answered.”
“Karen just knew, and I swear that three lights in that room burned a little brighter for one brief moment when you stepped into that hospice room, right before one quietly faded.”
“Those lights were Karen, Andi, and Grandma Jorgenson.”
“And you’ve now got four people who still carry your light, Karen, Andi, and those girls, Doc. Don’t let that light go to waste. They need you.”
“No one else can keep those lights alive, Doc. It’s up to you.”
“I want to believe that Randy, but I can’t,” I said, the anguish thick in my throat. “You saw what she said on TV, but you didn’t see what I walked in on when I came home. Not with your own eyes.”
The memory still clawed at my heart; our living room frozen in time, a scene that I wished I could forget but knew I never would.
“What are you trying to say, Doc?” Randy asked, his voice low. “I’m not following you.”
I didn’t want to go there, not with Randy, not with anyone, but he needed to know if he was ever going to understand why I kept my distance, so I told him everything.
I told him about the early release from my Army contract, about coming home unannounced, and about what I saw.
Randy’s expression shifted from confusion to shock as I described stepping into my own living room. I told him how I’d walked through the front door, expecting to be tackled by my monster of a dog, only to be met with silence. Beast was nowhere to be found.
Concerned, I reached for my Beretta, then I heard music drifting in from the living room. I slowly moved, listening, edging toward the doorway, and that’s when I saw them.
Karen, Andi, and two men I didn’t recognize, were laughing, relaxed, entertaining.
I told Randy how close I came to losing control in that moment, the rage, how everything I’d been holding together nearly snapped.
That’s when I realized that something had been off during those last months of my deployment. I told myself that my weekly calls with Karen, her voice sometimes strained, even weepy, like she was caught in a struggle, were just the stress of my being in a combat zone, my mind playing tricks on me. But I now knew the truth; something was wrong at home.
I unexpectedly came home, and there, right before my eyes, I saw the cause of the conflict that I’d heard about but never truly understood. The flaring rage that I nearly acted on stemmed from what I witnessed in that living room.
It drove me to leave before I acted on that rage and did something that I’d regret, or worse, something that could destroy lives forever.
“That’s why I walked out,” I told Randy. “To cool off, to think, to figure out how to handle what I’d seen.”
He wished me luck and said that it was time for me to come home, if not for Karen and Andi, then for my twin daughters and the eight friends who still counted on me to lead and help shape the company that we built together.
Randy also told me that a larger corporation was interested in buying the business and all its assets. One condition of the sale was that all principals would have to become employees of the new owners. We’d be required to sign a non-compete agreement barring us from working in a similar business for at least ten years if we refused.
I held fifty-one percent of the company’s privately held stock, while the other shareholders held back waiting to see how I would vote before revealing their positions. Randy told me that the company had been coasting, stable, but only mildly successful during my absence.
Randy gave credit where it was due; Andi and Johannes had done an outstanding job leading it, but it just wasn’t the same without me at the helm steering the vision and making the big calls, in his opinion.
I sought out my cousin, Paul, the unofficial head of the Jorgenson clan, after talking with Randy, and asked for the attorney handling Grandma’s estate. Paul just smiled. “I can do you one better,” and he nodded toward a young man deep in conversation with a cluster of relatives across the room.
I should have known, the attorney handling the estate was another family member, Patrick Jorgenson, Attorney at Law.
Paul left us to talk privately after the introductions.
Patrick handed me his business card. “I figured that you’d be hard to find,” he said. “Your business associates thankfully knew how to reach you. I tried going through a few government channels, but they all said that you were unreachable.”
Patrick grinned. “Mind if I ask what you actually do for a living? Some of the family swear that you’re a spy. I half expected you to roll in wearing a tux, packing a Walther, and disappear just as quickly as you showed up, with how secretive Karen’s been.”