“Well, I could remedy that.” He squeezed her hand. Don’t overthink it. Don’t analyze it. Just for today, just enjoy her. “Your dad, though? Kristian? No hunting? No fishing?”
“Kris is seven years older than me. And yeah, he hunted a bit in high school, but he didn’t much want to drag his little sister around the woods with him, and then he enlisted after two years in college. I was only thirteen when he was deployed. And my dad? Well, he wasn’t much for the parks.”
“Huh. Tell me about your dad.” The path kept going around the bend of Skeeko Bay, but Erik pulled Katrin off the trail to the east. Another path wound through the woods, up the hill in front of them. At the top, there would be a flat space to picnic and if the maps were right, a great view of the lake and the mountains beyond.
“My dad. He was sweet. Kind. Gentle. Soft spoken. He wore glasses. Went to church every Sunday morning and took the collection.
“He was a real bookworm. Read a different book every evening, it seemed like. By the fire in winter or on the porch in the summer. Every night. That’s what I like remembering about him the most.” She sighed. “Hated his job, but did it for us.”
“What did he do?” He was surprised to find that he actually cared. He wasn’t trying to flatter her with attention by acting like he cared about her life. He was actually curious to know about her life, her parents, her life before he met her. This was new for him.
“Worked as a supervisor at the power plant in Choteau until my mom sold her share of the Triple Peak Lodge, and then he retired, but he died the following year. He always wished he’d gone to college, but his father died when he was young, and he had to go to work.” She paused before a larger boulder, leaves and twigs crackling under her feet as he helped her navigate it. Once around, she dropped his hand and he made a face, wanting it back.
“I respect his choices,” said Erik. “He took care of you. What else?”
“Ummm. I don’t know.” He looked at her to see if she was sad, but she didn’t seem sad. She smiled softly, remembering. “He made my mom laugh. He’d read something aloud to her, something silly or some bit of interesting trivia, and she’d chuckle and touch his hand. He’d pull her down to sit on his lap and his book would fall on the floor beside them, forgotten for a minute. I loved seeing them happy together. I miss him.”
Erik’s mind flashed back to her description of the perfect someday, and she had included someone to read with. He understood why now and was touched by his better understanding. He liked that the roots of her future were grounded in her past, and imagined her parents holding hands, happy together. Impulsively, he put his hand out to her again as she navigated another boulder, and she took it.
“How about your mom and dad?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“C’mon…”
“Well, I don’t know. They were my…”
“Mamma and Pappa…” she encouraged.
He nodded. “Sounds childish.”
“No! No, I love it. Sounds like old-timey Scandinavian. I love it.”
He nodded, biting the inside of his cheek, stalling. They were on flatter ground now making a lower grade ascent.
“So…” she prompted.
He breathed in, feeling a little uncomfortable with her insistence. He didn’t talk very much about his family to people who weren’t in his family, and his parent’s story was especially painful to him when he got to the end, so he guessed he better start at the beginning instead.
“He met her at Midsommardagen. He used to say…” He adopted his father’s accent, a mix of American West and Scandinavian. “‘Had flowers in her plaits. Prettiest thing I ever seen.’ Jenny told me that once he saw her, he said he would have followed her anywhere. Would have followed her to China. Would have followed her to hell. Said it wouldn’t have mattered where she went, he would have followed. Said he might as well just have up and died if he couldn’t be with her.”
Katrin had stopped walking. It took him a moment to realize that he was pulling her hand and she wasn’t moving. He turned to face her, couldn’t miss the tears shining in her eyes. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
He tilted his head to the side, staring at her, their arms stretched between them with their hands still linked together. Such a long distance seemed to separate them. “Kat. Don’t cry.”
She brushed under her eyes with her free knuckle, and he tugged at her hand, pulling her through a column of sunshine between two tall pines, anxious to get to the top.
“Yeah, they started off good, I guess,” he muttered, wishing they could talk about something else.
“What do you mean?”
“Auspicious beginnings don’t ensure happy endings.”
His mother’s cries passed through his head, and he winced. So much for following her anywhere. He didn’t know when his father stopped loving his mother, but it broke Erik’s heart that he did. Broke his heart and shattered his faith in true love, in forever. She was so alone as she died, and his father offered her no comfort, no love—
“Seriously, Erik, what does that mean?”
Erik didn’t say anything, shaking his head to scatter his thoughts. He pulled Katrin up around one last bend and over one last boulder, and they found themselves at the top of a flat hill looking out over the rest of the island and Flathead Lake, the Rockies majestic in the distance.
She gasped beside him.
“Oh, Erik!”
“Not bad, huh?”
“Amazing! Stunning!” Her eyes were bright
