CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

Donna’s body ached. She realized she was lying on something cold and hard. She needed to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt like they were stuck together. A fluorescent lamp buzzed somewhere in the distance. The air smelled slightly of bad coffee.

Donna finally opened her eyes, and her heart sank even though she already knew the truth. She was back in New York. She sat upright on the marble floor of the empty courthouse hall. Muffled voices spoke from behind the wooden doors on the left side of the hall. The glass on the fireproof doors at the end of the hall gleamed from the gray daylight falling through the windows.

Sigurd…did he even exist? Had she bumped her head when she fell? Had it all been a dream?

She felt the hard edges of something pressing into the skin of her right palm and opened her hand. A Thor’s hammer pendant, warm from her skin, glinted despite the dim light. Sigurd… A giant wound opened in her chest like a black hole. No, he wasn’t a dream. Her body felt broken, as if a vital organ had been removed and she now had to live incomplete, half-alive.

Because Sigurd was not in this world.

Donna went home. She probably hailed a cab, although she did not remember. New York overwhelmed her with its honking and shouting.

Donna showered, and warm running water felt like a blessing after bathing in the river for a couple of weeks.

She needed to learn to live without Sigurd now.

Donna had just turned the faucets off when someone banged on her front door. Mother must have heard the water running—she lived in an apartment on the same floor. Donna felt the bite of guilt, put on a bathrobe, and rushed to open the door.

Mother, her eyes wide, hugged her tight, as the familiar scent of Chanel No.5 enveloped Donna.

“I thought I lost you,” Mom whispered into Donna’s wet hair. “Where the hell have you been?”

Donna closed her eyes, and tears ran down her face. “I traveled back in time.”

Her mother gave a laugh, pushed her out of the hug and studied her from the length of her straightened arms.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Donna let her mom in and they went to the living room.

“Did you go on a soul-searching trip or something because of Daniel?”

“Something like that.”

“This is so not like you. But I understand. After Joseph, I had to gather my life in pieces, too. But why didn’t you call me? How could you just abandon your case? I had to manage the firm on my own. The police finally started to search for you. You were gone nine days!”

Donna’s eyebrows rose. After all the crazy stuff she had been through, she should have not been surprised that time could run at different speeds. She’d spent two and a half weeks with Sigurd, and yet here only nine days had passed. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll call them and explain. How is the case?”

“I managed to pause things, but you know the clients need us to win.”

“We will.” Although Donna said that, she did not feel like a warrior-lawyer at all. All she wanted to do was find the Norn and go back to Sigurd. But she could not leave those four single mothers in poverty.

“When is the next hearing?”

“In a week.”

Donna rubbed her face with her palms. All she felt was exhaustion.

“Seriously, where have you been?” Mom regarded her closely now.

If Donna told her the truth, repeated what she’d said about time traveling in a serious manner, her mother would take her to a psycho ward. “It’s like you said. I needed some time off. I was in Vermont.”

“But you could have sent an email. A text… Something.”

“I met a man, and he turned my world upside down.” Oh, it felt good to tell this to someone. “And I needed to help him with something, but I lost the track of time.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s from far away, and I’ll never see him again.”

Tears sprung from her eyes as a wound the size of a basketball opened up and started to bleed inside her chest. Mom hugged her and soothed her the best she could.

“Oh, honey, we should stay away from men. I raised you to be independent. This is what they can do to you. Break your heart, destroy your spirit—”

Donna sat upright. Before Sigurd, she would have agreed. Now, she felt that her mother could not be more wrong.

“Stop.” She remembered what Sigurd had told her. “Some people plant rotten seeds in us, and we let them. I love him. He’s driven, and commanding, and stubborn. But he is also the kindest, strongest man in the world.”

And he is a Viking jarl, she wanted to add, but she kept her mouth shut.

“He changed me, Mom. I don’t think that all men are bad. Or all alpha-males. It’s just that they, too, have their own pain. Everyone does.”

Mother frowned. “Honey, you seem different.”

She raised her chin. “And I am not afraid of them anymore.”

She went back to work the very next day and plunged back into the case so that she’d forget him. She had hoped it would get easier with the time, but it only got harder. Her anguish over Sigurd intensified with each day. The only thing that kept her going was the need to help her clients.

A week passed, and the pain of losing Sigurd grew like an ulcer. After a month, Donna barely recognized herself. Whenever she found herself alone or having a quiet second, the feeling of loss drenched her like a downpour.

 

#

While Donna worked hard on the case, Marta’s baby, Juan, arrived, and Helena’s girl, Eloisa, followed. And despite the hardships, the babies were bathed in love and did not need a thing thanks to a small community in one part of Bronx that reminded Donna of the spirit of Vörnen.

With two new little people to protect, Donna tripled her efforts. She could not allow herself to lose. She had too much on the line. She had sacrificed too much to be here.

The final hearing came three months after Donna returned to New York. Daniel met her in the courthouse waiting room with his usual smug smile. He looked her up and down. Before, it would have set her cheeks on fire. Now, it seemed funny.

In the courtroom, he did everything to intimidate her, to push her emotional buttons. But Donna did not care. Something had changed in her. It was as if Sigurd were with her, giving her inner strength, igniting the Viking spirit in her. Her clients watched her with wide, hope-filled eyes.

The manager of the Cinederellas Inc., Pedro Ferreira—the one who had fired the ladies—was called to the witness stand, and after some questioning, Donna knew she was close.

“Why were my clients fired, Mr. Ferreira?”

“Because they did not do their job well.”

“And why was that?”

“They became slow and lazy.”

Triumph spread through Donna. “They became slow and lazy?”

Mr. Ferreira paled. Daniel jumped up but only opened and closed his mouth.

“All four of them?”

He kept silent.

Donna brought a few papers to Daniel and to the judge. “Your Honor, these are the records from my clients’ doctors. During their pregnancies, Ms. Hernández had high blood pressure. Ms. Garcia had a case of hyperemesis gravidarum—which means excessive vomiting. And Ms. Gonzalez and Ms. Ramos luckily had healthy pregnancies but still were more tired than before, which is a normal pregnancy symptom. So, I can see how their condition would make them slower when they cleaned houses. The dates of the medical records are all within weeks of the date they were fired.”

“Permission to approach the bench, Your Honor?” Daniel said.

The judge nodded, and Donna and Daniel both came to him.

Daniel’s eyes were angry behind the facade of calmness. He’d lost, and all three knew that. “I’d like to invite the opposing council to discuss settlement.”

A good settlement was exactly what Donna and her clients wanted. In the negotiation room, Daniel started with one hundred thousand dollars, but Donna got him up to half a million. She eyed him in triumph, her hand playing with the Sigurd’s Thor hammer pendant as if she could somehow touch Sigurd through it.

She said, “Five hundred thousand, and let your client publicly apologize to them and implement a non-discrimination policy in the workplace. I want Mr. Ferreira to attend and then teach non-discrimination workshops at Cinderellas Inc.”

Daniel rolled his eyes but stretched his hand out for a shake. “I’ll talk to my client.”

When the deal was signed an hour later, triumph exploded in Donna like fireworks. She’d won! The ladies could now start new lives without worrying if they would be able to feed their children tomorrow. She touched Sigurd’s pendant again, and anguish filled her.

What she wanted now, more than anything in the whole world, was to share this victory with the one person she could not. The man she loved more than anything in this world.

Sigurd.

Donna felt as if she was sinking. Would this be her life from now on? Every time she succeeded, or failed, or anything significant happened in her life, she’d want to share it with Sigurd. She’d fulfilled her obligation to her clients. Was there anything else holding her here?

Mother.

Donna loved her mom, but she could not sacrifice her happiness for her mother. She needed to live her life, and although she’d miss her mom, surely she’d understand.

But Mom needed help with the firm. How could Donna just leave her to manage things alone?

Donna glanced up as Daniel passed by her on his way to the door. Sigurd had changed. Perhaps she owed Daniel that opportunity, as well.

“Daniel, I am leaving New York,” she called out, “and I want to offer you my partnership.”

He turned and stared at her, his eyes wide. “What?”

When they used to be close, Daniel had told her he’d love to build his own firm from the ground up. She needed to make him see that was what she was offering.

After a long conversation, Donna got him thinking.

Daniel said, “You are just a two-woman show, right? You and your mother?”

“Right. But we have more cases than we can handle. New York will never run out of discrimination suits, and we are building a name for ourselves. But if a lawyer with hunger and ambition joined, combined with my mother’s experience, the firm would become legendary.” She tapped a finger on her lip. “If only there was such a person…”

Daniel laughed. “I know what you are doing.”

“Yeah. You do. But how do you think your father would feel if your firm beat the giants he had expected you to work for? Would he respect you even more?”

Daniel lowered his gaze and said his next words in a pained whisper. “I never intended to offend you or any other woman. When you accused me of taking Marta’s seat, it was like a kick in my face. I never wanted to become this. This attitude towards women, it’s like— It’s as if it’s part of the job description.”

Donna smiled. “So quit the job.”