But Morten was wrong.
He took Marcus to the hospital, where they confirmed he had broken his radius and needed a cast. It was an over-the-elbow type that mercifully left his thumb and fingers exposed. “Six weeks, come back,” the doctor told them, and sent them home.
Astrid had to stay behind in the house with her sleeping daughter. She curled into bed with her and placed her open palm on the girl’s chest. The window was cracked open because the room smelled like acrylic paint. She had seen a picture in a magazine of a red tree with butterflies and decided to enliven the children’s room with color and whimsy. Astrid could hear the wind in the trees outside and Sigrid’s slow and peaceful breathing. A glorious, living heat radiated from her body, and her arms swept comically across the bed. Lying there, Astrid absorbed Sigrid’s youth and her health and tried not to think. The boys would be back soon. Marcus would be exhausted. She knew he’d fall asleep in the car on the ride home. Morten would carry him in and put him to bed on the sofa downstairs to avoid the stairs. There was a blanket on the sofa, and a pillow. He would sleep well.
Soon after, a soothing summer rain started and Astrid listened to the drops on the roof and windows; the heavier drops falling from the gutters to puddles collecting below. She took comfort in knowing that the children would listen to that sound too. Her job—her duty—was now to cast their ship as far forward as possible into the sea without holding on to it for too long, thereby delaying their journey.
After putting the photos into the box last night, Morten found a bottle of very good whiskey and drank as much as he wanted. In the morning he ate eggs, sausage, and toast with two cups of coffee, which he rarely does. Afterward he drove to the church.
It is a small and white building in a pool of grass. It is austere, as they all are in the Lutheran north, but it is not unwelcoming. The doors are closed this morning; there is no one else there.
He has not been to visit Astrid’s grave in . . . it must be some four months or so now. The last time was in April after the snow had retreated, leaving only small pools like cream collecting in the brown hollows on the dark sides of hills. The days, then, were already appreciably longer, and what had been hard ice on the path through the gravestones had melted. Left behind were millions of pebbles the community council had used to keep mourners from slipping. Now, the snow long gone, each stone digs into the soft soles of his leather shoes. There is truly no point in dressing properly in this country. The expectations don’t require it and the physical conditions don’t allow it. That too is something to lament. And yet he trudges on, stubbornly, defiantly, dressing properly and wearing good shoes.
When he reaches her, Morten bends low but does not place his knee to the ground. He arranges the small bouquet of flowers in the holder at the base of the grave.
Astrid had wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered in the hills, but Morten had begged her not to. It was too much, he’d said. “I can’t take the thought of fire. Just . . . spare me that. A place—somewhere to go. Do that for me.”
“You know I won’t be there,” she’d said to him.
“No, but I will.”
True to analysis and now true to fact, here he is. The August winds are picking up and the first smoky scent of the coming autumn is already in the air. “It’s warmer where the kids are,” he says to her. Morten doesn’t feel closer to her here, nor does he feel more at peace, but her grave gives him something to tend to. Something to do with his hands: something to husband.
Morten removes a small white cloth from his pocket, wraps his finger inside it, and traces the letters of her name, returning them to a sharp white.
“I had thought they could help each other,” Morten says to Astrid. “I didn’t know Lydia died. He hadn’t said. I sent Sigrid there because I thought he could help her. They were so close, those kids. I remember that morning over breakfast—you remember the one—when you were watching them paint with watercolors and you realized they loved each other more than they loved us. I was a bit jealous, I admit,” he says, “but you said it’s better that way because they’ll have each other the longest. That was the first time I understood that you and I had created something together. We created the children, obviously, but here we had created things that loved each other completely and independently of us. It was like watching balloons dance together as they rise up to the clouds.”
Morten stops talking and looks around to make sure he is still alone.
“Balloons,” he says, appalled at himself. “I’m talking to ducks now too. Ferdinand. We haven’t had a pet since the cat. I figured I was done. To be honest with you, I’m a little lonely.
“Astrid, the reason I’m here is that something is wrong with our son. When you died, Marcus fell apart. It was worse than we could have imagined. He became a shadow of the boy he had been before. I feel as though you already know this, but I need to say it anyway. Since then, one way or another, I believe he has been looking to return to the magic of those early days with the watercolors. When he was safe in our presence and joined in every way with his sister. Undistracted. Now . . . he roams the world looking for something, which is always elusive or denied to him.
“As much as I lost Marcus,” he continues,
