by Peter Geye
Satisfied, he tried to sleep on the couch. All night he listened to the wind dying. The calm settled in, the house creaked. Sometime in the middle of the night an enormous ray of white light came into the house. He startled, fearing what he could not imagine. A hum and a clattering, the light rising and falling. He sat up. He went to the window. There was Laksonenn and his plow as ordained.
Sometime toward dawn he slept for an hour. When he woke he washed his face with the last cold water. He dressed according to the temperature. It was eight degrees. He walked up to the road and dug out the rental car just as he had his father’s truck the day before. He drove the Suburban down to the house and parked it for the winter.
He walked down to the lake for a last look. Though cold, the morning had risen splendidly. Overnight the skim ice had returned. It covered all of the lake. There, two hundred yards off, the rowboat sat locked in the silence, the platform still spanning the gunwales.
He waited at the Landing for his wife and sister. He was greeted as a regular, and condolences were many. People spoke to him with such solemnity in their voices, such compassion in their expressions. The proprietor bought him his coffee and cinnamon roll. That morning and the looks on those faces were as close as Olaf would ever get to a visitation, to a wake. Two days later Noah and Nat were on their way back to Boston with his mother’s urn in his carry-on.
His father’s obituary had appeared on the front page of the Herald that morning.
NOW THEY ALL stood on the dock. At the Landing that afternoon they’d been told that most of the inland lakes were still frozen, still safe to walk on. This was true of Lake Forsone. Tom stepped first off the dock. He jumped up and down three times to demonstrate its capacity. Noah stepped down next, holding both hands up to his wife and sister. Each took one and followed their husbands onto the ice. Together they walked to the rowboat. The ice had crushed it. It lay splintered, half cast in ice.
“Where is he?” Solveig asked.
Noah pointed toward the cliff, toward the deep water. “Over there,” he said.
“Should we cross? Spread Mom’s ashes with him?”
“I think so.”
And they left the wreck of the rowboat and crossed the rest of the lake. In the shadow of the cliff, Solveig took the bag from Noah’s shoulder. She removed her mother’s ashes and stood facing Noah.
“Well,” Noah said, “I guess we could each say something.”
There was an awkward momentary pause before Tom said, “I never knew your mother, but if my wife is any testament she was a terrific woman.”
“She was,” Noah said.
Solveig nodded.
“And your father was kind to my children.”
Solveig took Tom’s arm. “He was very good to the kids. He had a lonely life, but I’ll remember him every day for the rest of mine.” She closed her eyes. Not to quell tears, Noah thought, but to try to remember something. “They belong together here.”
“You’re right,” Noah said. “They do belong together.” He looked at Natalie. “Do you want to say anything?”
“I love your parents even though I never really knew either of them.” She smiled at Solveig, she held more tightly to Noah. “Because of them I have this family now.”
Solveig stepped over to Natalie. She hugged her, then looked at Noah.
“On the day Dad died he told me to love my children better than he loved me. I said I would. I didn’t realize that any capacity I had to love I owed to him. Him and Mom. That’s really all that matters.” He stared down at the urn. He looked out at the wilderness surrounding the lake. “They’ll rest easy here.”
He uncapped his mother’s urn and handed it to Solveig. She spread the ashes on the ice. They were the same spectral gray.
WHEN THEY GOT back to shore Solveig and Tom walked up to the cabin under the pretense of making dinner. Noah led Natalie along the lake’s edge. At the base of the ski jump’s landing hill they stopped. Noah pointed up at it. He’d told her all about it.
“It’s so big,” she said.
Noah only smiled. They stood silently for a few minutes.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Noah removed his father’s old watch from his pocket. Before he left Boston he’d had it repaired, had the escapement and jewel replaced, had a new crystal put on it. He opened it. “It’s almost four.”
“I can’t believe I’m already hungry again,” she said.
“I can,” Noah said. He closed the watch but then opened it again. He read the words his mother had had engraved on the case back all those years ago, read them for the thousandth time since his father had bequeathed it to him. YOU WILL COME SAFE FROM THE SEA, it read.
He turned to face Natalie. He put his hand on her stomach, which had only recently begun to show. She held his hand where it lay.
THANKS:
To my father, for answering so many questions and offering so much advice. And to my mother, for her unfailing support.
To Laura Langlie, for her patience and counsel and fortitude.
To Greg Michalson, for his tireless work on this manuscript, it shows on every page. And for giving me a chance.
To Goran Stockenstrom, Patricia Hampl, Bill Lavender, Stuart Dybek, Richard Katrovas, Peter Blickle, Jon Robert Adams, and Jaimy Gordon, my teachers. And to Joseph Boyden especially, who has been much more than a teacher.
To Kim Barzso, my confidant in the beginning. And to Laura Jean Baker, for reading and rereading and not sparing a single thought.
To my brother, Tony, for building a beautiful website.
To Dale and Sandy Hofmann, for their support and for the use of their cabin on so many weekends. Without the quiet weekends there I might never have finished.
To Finn and Mac and Liese, my story beggars.
And to Dana, for positively everything. You inspire me in ways I’m sure I’ll never understand. No broad breaker will fall, nor waves of blue, and we will . . .
A Note on the Type
The text of this book is set in the typeface Bembo.
The display type is called Koch Antiqua and is based on forms of old Roman writings, chiseled in marble.