Ruby
Even though it’s late December, and we are almost in the Arctic, it’s Hanna’s birthday, and she wants to start her day with a swim once the sun rises.
This Christmas Eve morning, the sky is miraculously calm and blue.
Thick clouds the color of dirty net curtains—which have muffled what little daylight there’s been over the past weeks—have grudgingly moved off to the west. The sea looks almost inviting, until you factor in the temperature.
It’s going to be bracing, to say the least.
Undaunted, Hanna and I walk down to the beach and fling off our thick coats, while Pip barks in excitement.
I gasp as we enter the water, every cell in my body protesting against this madness, but then I breathe out slowly as Hanna’s taught me to do and begin to swim toward the island.
It’s not too bad once you’re in, and in fact, the water is slightly warmer than the air.
I remember what she once told me, about why she swims…to forget the darkness for a short while and just concentrate on the blood flowing through my veins, breathing in and out, the fact of being alive.
I get it now. As I relax into it, my limbs move more expansively, and I feel the sense of exhilaration wash through me, the boundaries between my body, the water, and the sky dissolving until I become a part of the beautiful wildness.
We know we can’t hang around for long, though—the point at which you stop feeling the cold is when hypothermia threatens—and I follow Hanna as she swims strongly to the shore.
Wrapped in our coats, we walk briskly back to the farmhouse to shower the salt from our skin and change into warm, dry clothes.
At the breakfast table, coffee mugs cupped in our hands for warmth, Hanna grins at me. “Seems like you’ve come around to the idea of sea swimming after all. I remember the first time you watched me, standing on the beach, as if you thought I was crazy.”
I laugh. “Yes, you’ve converted me. Or perhaps it’s just that we’re both crazy now.” But I’ve come to love the sensation of surrendering to something far more powerful than anything mankind can create, to the ebb and flow of the tides, the push and pull of the waves.
I get up to fetch the toast, placing it before her in its silver rack, then pass her the little present wrapped in tissue paper. “Happy birthday, Hanna.”
She carefully wipes the crumbs from her fingers before opening it. Her eyes widen as she holds the gossamer-fine lace scarf I’ve knitted up to the light.
“Isobel taught me how to make it. The pattern is called Tree of Life. I thought it would be an appropriate gift for someone who lives in a place named Igdrasil.”
I don’t confess how many mistakes I made, how many times Isobel had to undo my work and put it right, her fingers deftly correcting my clumsy stitches. I don’t think I’m ever going to make it as a Shetland knitter, although Mara has agreed to sell some of my paintings in her shop.
For a moment, I see a tear glisten at the corner of her eye, but she blinks it away and says, with her customary gruffness, “Thank you, Ruby. It’s beautiful.”
She arranges it around her neck, then reaches for the envelope with the card I’ve made, a watercolor of the hay meadow in summer, dotted with hundreds of white daisies. I’d remembered what she’d said about them being her mother’s family flower, how she and Liv had embroidered them on their bunads.
This time, a tear really does trickle down her wrinkled cheek. I reach out my hand and cover hers.
I’ve come to know her too well to expect an outpouring of emotion or any effusive thanks.
She gets up from the table to set the card in pride of place among the collection of beachcombings on the windowsill, and I take that as the very highest of compliments.
I notice, too, how her hand creeps up to touch the soft drift of woolen lace at her neck more than once as we finish our breakfast.
When I get up to clear the table, she gently pushes me aside. “I’ll do that. Go and get ready for your parents’ arrival,” she says. “Their flight will be on its way. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Everything’s ready in the fridge, so it just needs to go into the oven about six. But I should be back before then…”
She shoos me from the kitchen, and as I walk out of the front door, I glance back and see her there at the window. She’s picked up the card and appears to be examining it intently.
I wonder whether she’s there again, thinking of Liv in some Norwegian summer long ago. And perhaps of her mamma, as well, and all those others who’ve gone before.