Chapter 47
I get home to dinner with Dad. I take off my shoes and hang up my jacket, which drips water on the floor. I’m soaked through. ?sterman took his time on the way home, kept to a moderate speed because the waves were high even though we took the inshore route.
Tonight is Mom’s last evening shift before she has three days off. She won’t be back until tomorrow morning, thank goodness. That means she won’t have to travel home at night without the sun’s protection.
Dad slurps his tomato soup, and I make a face. He notices, blinks, and rests his spoon in his bowl.
“Excuse me.”
Then I feel bad. He did the cooking. He can slurp if he wants to.
“How was school today?”
“Fine.”
All I can think about is Ms. Granberg. Ms. Granberg and her tales of sea serpents. And the frustration and defeat in her eyes when I just got up and left.
Her disappointment weighs heavily on my shoulders.
Usually, I like being home alone with Dad, but now the silence is getting to me.
What has Mom told him? How much does he know?
“Dad?”
He’s wearing a blue-checkered flannel shirt. He has plenty more hanging in his closet, similar enough that I can’t tell them apart. Would I be able to tell them apart if I were his real daughter?
He isn’t my father, I remind myself bitterly. I’m not his child.
“Dad,” I say again, but my voice falters and tears well up.
“Oh, sweetheart.” His strong arms wrap around my shoulders, a different kind of weight from the one I’ve been carrying all day. The soft flannel of his sleeve brushes my neck and pale scars.
“What’s the matter, Tuva? Tell me.”
I erupt into a mixture of hysterical giggles and sobs.
Ms. Granberg’s words spin around and around in my head.
Where do I start?
“Is it the boat accident?” he says. “We’re okay, that’s all that matters. Don’t worry about anything else; the insurance will cover most of it. It wasn’t your fault.”
I manage to nod as he squeezes my shoulders tighter.
“Won’t you tell me why you’re upset?”
“I’m not upset,” I whisper. This isn’t a lie. I’m so far beyond upset.
“Then tell me what’s wrong.”
“Sorry,” I say, and try to swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry about the accident.”
“I just said it wasn’t your fault. It was that Jet Ski, a hit-and-run. You couldn’t have known it was there.”
Is he serious?
His face is impossible to read. He might actually believe what he’s saying.
The only sounds are my continued sniffs and sobs. Bellman thumps his tail on the floor anxiously and whines.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Dad says softly.
“No, it’s not.”
Nothing is okay.
Axel is dead. He only got to live for thirteen years, and now he is dead, and his mother cries every night and his brothers have forgotten how to play and be kids.
It’s not supposed to be this way. Axel isn’t supposed to be dead, and there aren’t supposed to be fairies in the forest or ancient monsters in the sea. Mom and Dad are supposed to be my real parents.
Most of all, it’s not supposed to be my responsibility to fix all this.
I’m just twelve. I don’t have the strength or courage to fight the serpents. Or even try.
I turn to Dad and hug him back.
The world is spinning out of control. I just want everything to slow down, to be normal again.
Dad strokes my back until I stop sobbing, and then he gets me some paper towels to dry my tears. My eyes are swollen and red, and my nose is dripping with snot. The rough paper grates on my nostrils.
Dad pulls out the chair next to me and sits down.
“You know what?” His Northern accent comes through. I notice it only when he’s upset or very serious. Almost thirty years in the archipelago have caused it to fade.
“I’ve told the story of the accident when you were little many, many times.
” He has a white bandage on his forehead covering the four stitches he had to get after our recent accident.
“In all my life, I’ve never been as scared as the day our boat capsized.
You were in your mother’s arms, but when something like that happens, you want to hold your child yourself and never let go. You’ll understand some day.”
I almost say, It wasn’t me she was holding.
A little sound tries to escape from my throat, but I manage to stifle it.
Dad continues, “In all my life, I’ve never been as happy as the moment I found you there on the beach.” He strokes my cheek. “There you were, babbling, even laughing. You were alive, despite the waves and terrible storm. And you know what, Tuva?”
My lips refuse to move. I can’t speak, but I’m no longer crying either.
“I never really worried about you again. Not since that day. After surviving something like that, I’ve always known you could handle anything. No matter what.”
Dad clasps his hands in front of him on the table. He has residue of white paint streaked along his cuticles. The tablecloth is stained with spilled soup.
“I know things haven’t been easy for you at school. Sometimes I think about moving to the city. Maybe it would be easier for you there, and you’d have more friends. But your mother always insisted that you’d never want to move. That you’re tougher than I give you credit for. She’s right.”
He strokes my hair.
“Whatever is going on right now, you can handle it. You don’t have to tell me what it’s about. I know you’ll figure it out.”
I nod.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
He doesn’t say this often, to Mom or me. Suddenly, he has said it twice in one week.
I’m not sure I’ve ever said it back to him.
“I love you, too, Dad.”
I lick my dry, chapped lips. My nose is blocked.
“Dad,” I begin in a frail and shaky voice. “When you found me on the beach after the accident. How did you know it was me?”
My chest feels like it’s about to explode.
All those things he just said. Were they meant for the other Tuva, the one who never came back? The person he thinks I am?
Or were they meant for me?
Dad looks at me with infinite tenderness. “Because I’m your dad,” he says in his soft, rounded accent. “And I always will be.”