Chapter 3
An evening with her nephew, Emil, was enough to remind Ida that she didn’t want to live on the island forever.
Living there for a few weeks had been an enjoyable break and useful to be on hand all the time when everyone was learning the ropes of running the hotel, but she’d missed Emil.
She’d even missed Fredrik. It had been fortunate that Fredrik hadn’t needed to be anywhere else for work in those few weeks, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Although it was a tie being Fredrik’s backup person, because it was Emil, she was happy to do it.
After school, even though Emil was keen to play his video game, Ida wasn’t about to let that happen. As a single father, Fredrik resorted to that to entertain his son a lot, because he had to, or he’d get nothing done. But Ida had time, and she wanted to spend it doing something with Emil.
‘We’re going to make bread for dinner,’ she said.
‘We’re just having bread?’
‘Of course not. What do you want with it?’ She already knew what he was going to say. She’d planned this so he’d think it was his idea. That way he’d be keener on the whole thing.
‘Can we make crusty bread and fill it with soup?’ His eyes lit up. ‘Like me and Pappa had in Voss?’
‘That’s a great idea. Okay. You can make the bread, I’ll make the soup.’
He thought that was hilarious. ‘I can’t make the bread by myself!’ He was laughing so hard it was infectious, and Ida found herself laughing along with him. It was the first time in a while.
‘We’ll do it all together then.’
He nodded. ‘Can I do the stirring? And can I pull the middle out of the bread?’
‘Yes, and yes.’
Ida made the dough and they took half each.
She showed Emil how to knead, and she suggested they swap dough every few minutes, telling him he was doing a better job than her.
While he was engrossed in kneading, she chatted to him, asking how school was and checking in with him that everything was okay.
Her brother was doing a great job of raising his son, but she knew he worried Emil was going to be damaged somehow because his mother wasn’t around.
Ida liked to think she could help fill that void.
‘Me and Pappa are going to see Mamma.’
‘That’s exciting.’ It was the first she’d heard of this but then, these trips had been planned before and then cancelled at the last minute by Kristi. Although Ida knew Fredrik wouldn’t have got Emil’s hopes up unless he was as sure as he could be it was going to happen.
‘We’re going on a plane and I’m going to take one of my drawings for her.’
‘She’ll love that. Lucky Mamma.’
If anything, Emil seemed to take it in his stride that his mother lived in a different country to him most of the time. Fredrik did what he could to keep them all in touch with FaceTime calls, and it seemed to work.
‘Let’s leave the bread to rise for a while, and we’ll make the soup.’
Once they’d made the soup, Emil lost interest and Ida let him go into the lounge to play his game. She punched the air out of the bread dough and shaped it into large boules before leaving it to rise again.
She sat at the kitchen table and opened her laptop.
All the hotel’s systems could be accessed remotely, so she logged in to see if anything had happened since she left.
Oddly, the occupancy rate for tomorrow night was a hundred per cent.
That was never the case because of the room Ida had been staying in.
Did that mean someone had booked it? Another quick search and she could see that a man called Erik Anderson was booked in for a week.
A week? What was he going to do on the island for an entire week?
Most people found it too inconvenient as a base for exploring, so they knew their customers were looking for a retreat from everything for a few days. No one had ever stayed for a week.
Ida looked into the booking correspondence and saw that Emilie had explained exactly how small the room was, and he’d responded to say he didn’t mind. So it was nice to see the occupancy at an all-time high, but it meant she’d be commuting to and from the island for at least the next week.
As she put the bread in the oven with a shallow tray of water in the bottom to create the steam she needed to make the bread crusty, Ida heard the front door open and her brother, Mats and his partner, Lotta came into the kitchen.
‘You’re baking bread?’ Lotta asked.
‘Me and Emil have been baking bread. We’re having it hollowed out with soup inside.’
‘That sounds messy.’
‘It probably will be.’
Mats went straight in to see Emil and was already sitting next to him with a controller in his hand.
‘Have you seen we’re at full occupancy tomorrow night?’ Ida said, leaning on the doorway between the kitchen and the lounge.
‘How did that happen?’ Mats said, not taking his eyes off the screen. ‘I thought you didn’t want to book out that single room?’
‘Emilie offered it to someone who doesn’t mind that it’s small, and I’d moved my stuff out just in case, so there we are.’
‘That’s a milestone we ought to celebrate,’ said Lotta. ‘Full occupancy within a few weeks is amazing for a new hotel.’
‘You’re going to be commuting then?’ Mats said.
‘You could stay in our cabin, if you like,’ said Lotta.
Ida couldn’t help harrumphing. ‘As if I’d stay there knowing what you two get up to.’
‘What do they get up to, Auntie Ida?’ Emil piped up.
‘You know, fishing and stuff,’ Mats said, winking at Lotta, who was grinning at him.
Ida rolled her eyes. Sometimes it was hard having to watch her brother mooning over Lotta. She loved Lotta, and she and Mats were great together, but in the absence of a love life of her own, it sometimes grated.
After dinner, which as Lotta had predicted was quite a messy affair, Mats took Emil upstairs to bed and read him a story while Ida and Lotta cleared up, then they headed out onto the terrace with a bottle of wine and four glasses, anticipating Fredrik would join them at some point.
‘We went to look at a house today,’ Lotta said, her gaze staying fixed over the fjord.
Ida knew they’d been looking at houses, and for Lotta to be telling her this, it meant they’d found one they liked. That Lotta was telling her and not Mats also spoke volumes.
‘And you liked it?’
‘It was perfect. Close to the city, close to the water, and close to here. It ticked all the boxes.’
‘That’s great news.’
It was great. For them. For Ida, it meant she’d be living in the house alone again, and after losing her sanctuary on the island, because now it had happened once, that room felt lost to her, it felt like a blow.
‘You know we could think about selling this place,’ she said to Lotta. ‘I know it’ll be a stretch for you and Mats to get a place of your own. His share of the money from selling this would help.’
‘He doesn’t want you to do that unless you’re ready. You shouldn’t do it for us if it’s not the right time for you.’
When would be the right time? Since their parents died, none of her brothers and sisters had talked about selling the house.
It was as if even discussing it would mean the end of something that had already ended.
Nothing was going to be the same again and keeping the house wouldn’t change that.
They all had their own lives now; she was the only one stuck here, and it wasn’t fair for her to be the one keeping them all from moving on.
At least having her new job on the island meant that she’d finally started to move on and had some distance between her and the house.
More than she’d had for years, and she knew she didn’t need that to be her home anymore.
But also, it was her home in a way that it wasn’t for any of the others.
Perhaps she’d have to start house hunting like Mats and Lotta.
Ida sipped her wine, looking out over the fjord. It was impossible to sit here and not be mesmerised by the water.
‘I think it’s the right time,’ she said.
‘Being on the island for a while… I didn’t miss this place.
’ She didn’t tell Lotta that being back here today felt like she was being dragged back down to the place she’d been after her father died when, after years of caring for her parents, she suddenly had nothing to do. Thank goodness for Emil.
Mats came to join them before Ida could say anything else.
‘I told Ida about the house,’ Lotta said, bringing Mats up to speed.
‘It’s early days. We might not get it.’
She knew Mats said that for her benefit, to lessen the blow.
‘I was saying to Lotta, we ought to sell this place.’
She could see the surprise in her brother’s eyes. And she could see that he wanted to say something to her, but didn’t know how.
‘We should talk to the others before we decide anything,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Come on then, pour yourself a glass of wine. We’re celebrating.’
By the time Fredrik arrived just before nine o’clock, the bottle of wine had gone.
‘You didn’t save me a glass,’ he said, making a sad face as he came to join them on the terrace, having nipped upstairs to check on Emil.
‘It’s not our only bottle of wine,’ Mats said. ‘Fetch another.’
Fredrik did as he was told, opening it before he came back outside. ‘Are we celebrating or something?’
‘We’ve got full occupancy tomorrow night,’ said Ida. ‘And Mats and Lotta have found a house.’
‘Double celebration! Just as well I’m staying here tonight,’ Fredrik said, sloshing a decent amount of wine into a glass for himself.
‘If we sell the house, I’ll have to make sure I have space at my new place for you and Emil,’ Ida said.
‘We’re selling the house?’ Fredrik frowned and looked at Mats. ‘I thought we agreed we’d wait.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ Ida said, knowing that the answer was that they were waiting for her.
And she loved them for that. ‘I know you’re keeping hold of it for me.
And until I stayed on the island for these past few weeks, I didn’t think I wanted to move out, but now I feel differently about it. ’
‘It’s a big decision, though,’ Lotta said. ‘There’s no rush.’
Ida was grateful to all of them for not pushing her to decide. But perhaps if they had, if they’d all discussed this a couple of years ago, she might have moved on by now.
‘I know,’ she said, smiling at Lotta. ‘But there’s nothing to be gained by staying. I can see that now.’
‘There’s always a place for you at Lysg?rden,’ said Mats.
‘If you’re offering me the Spruce suite, I accept.’ The suite was the best room in the house, with views of the fjord and the woods and mountains beyond, and it was the most spacious and luxurious.
He laughed. ‘We can do a cabin up for you.’
‘Lovely. Thank you,’ she said drily.
‘Emil and I will take a cabin too, if you’re handing them out,’ Fredrik said.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Really? I was only joking.’
Mats shrugged. ‘If we’re not going to have this place to get together, we should have somewhere. I don’t mind if everyone has a cabin on the island.’
‘We’ll take the one next door to Ida’s,’ said Fredrik. ‘I don’t want to lose my free babysitter.’
Ida reached over and pinched his arm.
‘Ow!’ he said, laughing.
She laughed too. This is what she didn’t want to lose by selling the house. Her idiot brothers.