I blink a few times, hoping my eyes aren’t too red.
If Agnes asks, I’ll just blame it on the fire.
Come in here, lad,
Agnes says when I reach the door.
Someone is here to see you.
My stomach plunges.
He’s there, browsing the aisles.
I recognize the tan tweed overcoat and wrinkled trousers
that must’ve arrived in a time machine
from a dated sitcom.
He looks up at me through thick lenses
that make him look like
a scholar or a serial killer.
Oskar!
He pushes his wild gray hair off his forehead
and his face splits into a wide, Nordic grin.
Just the man I’m looking for.
Edvin Jonsson is just the man
I’ve avoided for two months,
ever since I refused the audition invitation
to the American conservatory
he went behind my back
and applied to on my behalf.
No way am I talking to him now.
I about-face and stalk toward the door.
Oskar.
Agnes’s voice throws a force field
over all the exits,
daring me to try and walk away.
Mr. Jonsson came all this way to have a word with you
for the third time this week.
Best if you settle down and have a listen.
She motions toward the tables at the front of the shop,
the ones normally reserved for lunch patrons.
Reykjavik is hardly all this way from the orchard.
An hour, tops.
I’ll only be a few minutes, I promise,
Mr. Jonsson pleads,
steepling his fingers in front of his chest.
The plea shimmers in his tired eyes.
It’s maddening
trying to stay mad at someone
I never wanted to be mad at in the first place.
But giving in isn’t an option.
Giving in means admitting defeat,
agreeing to leave
the land my father cultivated
with his bare hands,
the land my mother exhausted herself maintaining,
the land my little brother ran through—forever frozen in time as a child.
Leaving means leaving them.
And I won’t go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Evie
Evie’s social awkwardness knew no bounds, mouth flapping all night like a wind-up doll.
Hey hot guy, my mommy abandoned me. Thanks for sharing your weed. Let’s make out.
Ugh. Kill me now.
She pushed her key into the lock, but the door flew open before she could twist.
Her papá’s shadow fell across the open doorway. He looked older than he had just a couple of weeks ago. The excessive work aged him. She wouldn’t let it make her feel guilty, though. Promises were promises and all he did was break them.
“Where have you been?” The corner of his left eye twitched—something that happened when he was pissed or stressed. Or in this case, both.
Evie swallowed a nervous breath. “Out.” Was she wearing a neon sign that detailed everything she’d done today? It sure felt like it all of a sudden.
He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Have you been crying?”
“No. Why?” Evie breezed past him, avoiding eye contact. She tossed her keys on the counter and made a beeline for her room.
“Evie.”
She paused, waiting, without turning around. “Yeah?”
“Look at me.”
He knew. He had to. But he never paid this much attention. Why now? Because you smell like a Wiz Khalifa concert, Evie. Slowly, she turned, trying to will her eyes clear and bright. She could probably nail her eyelids to her hairline and that still wouldn’t make them open all the way.
“Why are your eyes so red?” He laced his hands together behind his back—stepping into Papá Mode. Great. All of the punishment and none of the benefits of having a father.
“Because the sun never sets here. Ever think of that?” Evie was going down anyway. She might as well let him know how disgusted she was with this entire situation.
The muscle in his jaw flickered several times before he spoke. “Where are your paintings?”
She shrugged, more surprised than anything that he’d noticed already. And that it was the most concerning thing to him at the moment.
“You don’t know?” His eyebrows stretched upward. More pissy attitude.
“I sold them.” She said it as matter-of-fact as she knew how.
“To whom?”
“The general store. The owner’s going to consign them for me.”
“I see,” he said, arms dropping by his sides. “I thought you agreed to use them for your portfolio for Magnet Arts?”
Evie released a nervous snicker. Could she not just get away? The one time she didn’t want to talk to him, he wanted to have a heart-to-heart. Nothing sounded better than crawling under a blanket and falling into a deep, give-no-shits sleep. But first, the Spanish Inquisition.
“I never agreed to that.”
Just punish me and get it over with, she wanted to say, as she invoked any saint who may still be willing to listen to her. Let him yell at her about anything but that school. She wanted him to question her about the smell in her hair or the state of her half-closed eyes instead. But he didn’t.
He walked to the counter and sorted through paperwork, maybe deciding how to punish her in a way that was worse than what he already had in store. But surely he’d come up short. There was nothing worse than pawning her off on Rhona.
Slowly, Evie tiptoed away, hoping he’d forgotten about her again.
“We’re going to Mass first thing mañana,” he called. She paused in her bedroom doorway. “We’ve neglected it since we got here. Confession, too. Time to remedy that.”
Well, at least she had plenty to confess now.
“And leave me a note next time you plan to go somewhere.”
“Sure thing.” She punctuated her statement by stepping into her room and slamming the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Oskar’s Journal
I lounge across my bed,
dark sheets wrapped around my ankles.
A little gnat runs across the ceiling
in a zigzag pattern,
searching
between the flakes of white paint.
I focus on that
instead of Agnes’s nagging calls
from the bottom of the stairs.
If she thinks I am going to detail
my conversation with Edvin
she is sadly mistaken.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected it would be.
He apologized
but maintained his stance
that I should attend conservatory
in the US.
I maintained my stance just as well,
wishing him away
so I could get back outside to Evelyn.
But when I went back,
she was already
gone.
Oskar! Get down here now!
I give up
and stumble down the stairs in a sleepy haze,
hair in a nest on the side of my head.
Those locks are out of control, lad.
The annoyance drips from her words.
I’ve half a mind to shear it in your sleep.
Go ahead and try, I think
but don’t say.
And your clothes!
Draped over your body like it’s a coat rack!
I can’t fathom why a handsome lad
would present himself a slob on purpose.
You’re seventeen years old, lad.
You can’t pretend you don’t know better.
I shrug.
It’s all I’ve got
for her right now.
Here, she says, pushing a clipboard at my chest.
I need you to take inventory of the shop.
Start with the souvenirs.
She motions to the area at the back.
I take the clipboard
and less than two steps
before I freeze in my tracks.
I stare at an assembly of paintings
that weren’t there yesterday.
Come on now,
she grabs my shirtsleeve,
drags me to the back,
wake up and get to movin’.
Once we get to the back
I reach out and touch the paintings.
Wha-wha-what’s this?
My mother. My brother. The lighthouse.
The American girl painted them,
Agnes says, voice only a touch above silent.
I’ve only seen one of them before.
My mouth hangs open,
jaw and senses unhinged.
I trace the rosy-hued textures
in my mother’s cheek.
The paintings tell the stories I already know,
rendered from the point of view
of the Aisling tree.
Sadness sucker punches me in the face.
This is why I never eat the cherries myself.
The memories are too crisp.
That tree has seen so much
over the course of its life.
It watched my mother plant it in the ground.
It watched my brother sit in its shade.
It watched the abandoned Elska lighthouse
on the cliff in the distance
before other trees obstructed the view.
All of these paintings are fragments of the dream.
I thought I was the only one who could see it.
But this girl—
She painted the lighthouse
with the aurora borealis
promenading through the night sky
the exact way it looked the autumn I was ten.
I stand paralyzed
beneath the acupuncture
of vivid recollection.
At the lighthouse’s doorway,
my mother reached for my hand.
When she smiled,
her green eyes flashed
with more animation
than the ribbons of color swirling above our heads.
Together, we climbed
the spiral staircase
leading to the lookout tower.
My father and Ivan trailed behind.
Footsteps echoed around us,
dampened only by Ivan’s excited giggles.
Everything was new then.
The world was ours.
She wants me to try and sell her work.
Agnes’s voice breaks the spell.
I told her nobody would buy—
I cut her off.
I will, I tell her,
I’ll buh-buh-buy them.
Take it out of my p-p-pay.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Evie
On Sunday morning, a heavy weight in the pit of Evie’s stomach pinned her to the passenger seat of Papá’s rental car.
They weaved around the rural roads near the sea, distant waves tickling the edge of silence between them. The surreal landscape, a palette of grays and blues and blacks backlit by sun, could have been a painting instead of something real that existed outside the car windows. They drove almost an hour to the nearest Catholic parish with English and Spanish speaking services, in the opposite direction of Reykjavik.
St. John’s Chapel sat atop a hill overlooking a fjord, a plain white old-style building trimmed in blue. Blue roof. Blue trim. Blue doors. Simple. Basic. It was almost cartoonish in comparison to the grand architecture of St. Michael’s in Miami.
Evie squeezed her door handle.
“Have you examined your conscience, mija?” It was the first thing he’d said to her since Get dressed, we’re going to Mass.
She sniffled, pretending she wasn’t unnerved. “Yes, Papá.”
He glanced at her crucifix—she’d put it back on, purely out of guilt—then nodded, and climbed out of the car.
The inside of St. John’s was just as stark in contrast to St. Michael’s as the outside. Simple wooden pews and kneeling benches lined the sanctuary. Muted, colorful light filtered in through the stained-glass windows. Gentle hymns in what must have been Icelandic drifted softly from an adjacent room.
The sweet aroma of incense and candles burned at the altar beneath a massive, ornate crucifix. Evie fixed her eyes on the creaky floorboards and greedily inhaled—another scent that reminded her of Abuela. Papá placed a gentle hand at her elbow and led her toward one of the old-fashioned confessionals at the back of the church. This was the punishment he had in mind.
She stepped inside, watching over her shoulder as Papá headed to the altar to pray. When she pulled the velvet curtain closed, she turned and choked back a scream. The priest was there, just like in any other confessional. But there was no screen separating them. Just a lone bulb shining down from above, like an interrogation lamp in a phone booth.
Sinking to sit on the wooden bench, Evie swallowed hard.
“Hallo,” the priest said. Wrinkles circled his friendly blue eyes. A somber smile twisted his chapped lips. He hunched over in his booth, cloaked in a traditional black cassock, hands clasped in front of him as if he held some inherent goodness between his palms.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” The words thrashed around, hollow in her throat. Evie made the sign of the cross. “My last confession was two months, three weeks, and one day ago.”
At that Easter confession, she’d had the privacy of a screen, the comfort of the familiar priest she’d known all of her life, and nothing to confess but an unwillingness to forgive her mother.
Today was different.
Well, except for the forgiveness thing. She had even more resentment for Rhona now.
Though face-to-face with this priest, something dawned on Evie. She had more anonymity than she did in Miami. Could she tell Father Angelo back home that she’d stolen cherries, lusted for a boy she didn’t know, exposed her temple to drugs, snooped in other people’s belongings, and disrespected her father? Not to mention all the cursing, complaining and resenting she’d been doing.
Doutbful.
Once she left Iceland, she would never have to see this priest again.
Armed with that freeing knowledge, Evie didn’t hold back the way she might’ve with Father Angelo.
She treated him more like Oskar, and told him everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Oskar’s Journal
I stare at the paintings on my bedroom wall,
trying to will them back to life.
The bell on the shop door
clangs against the glass.
I snap out of it.
My nerves shove me around.
I bound down the stairs,
forcing myself to breathe normally,
thinking maybe she’ll be there.
But instead of Evelyn,
a short, square man
with dark hair and glasses
crowds the front of the shop.
He pleads with Agnes.
Can you contact the person who bought them?
I’ll give him double his money.
Evie only sold them because she’s angry with me.
It’s really important I get them back.
A rock ripples deep in my gut.
Her father.
He wants her paintings.
Agnes glances up at me.
I shake my head
before rounding the counter
to pretend I’m busy organizing supplies.
Don’t even think about it,
I tell her with my eyes.
Aye, I’m sorry, Dr. Perez.
Seems it was an independent buyer
on his way thr
ough town.
’Twas kismet.
But if I see him again, I’ll ask.
I’ll let him know how important your daughter’s paintings are to ye.
His heavy shoulders slump.
Guilt tries to creep in,
but I am certain those paintings
mean more to me
than they do to him.
And no matter her reasons,
Evelyn doesn’t want her father to have them.
So I don’t, either.
I have her money when she’s ready to pick it up,
Agnes tells him.
I look out the window over the sink.
My stomach plummets to my feet.
There she is,
in the parking lot
in the passenger seat of a little white car.
She stares down at something in her hands,
turning it over and over.
Look up, I think as loudly as I can.
But she keeps her eyes glued to her lap.
Can we order more canvases? he asks.
Same order as last time, but twice the quantity.
Agnes nods in my peripheral vision.
Aye, I can do that.
She takes notes on a yellow legal pad by the cash register.
Look up, I think one last time.
We can have them in a week.
Giving up, I turn away from the window
and find her father staring at me.
His dark eyes narrow
as if he’s just figured something out.
But that’s probably just my guilty conscience.
He can’t know I have the paintings.
He’s never even met me.
Thank you for your help,
he says, never taking his eyes off me
until he turns to go.
I’m dizzy from holding my breath
when I finally exhale.
You heard the man,
Agnes says when he’s gone.
They’re important to him. You should consider—
NO WAY IN HELL.
It’s the most fluent thing I’ve said
in I don’t remember
how long.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Evie
“They’ve sold them already.” Papá harrumphed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
“Already?” Little sprouts of hope bloomed in Evie’s chest. She couldn’t believe it.
The Language of Cherries Page 11