Where the Heart Meets the Sea

Chapter 1

Ella Nilsen first saw her grandma’s cottage just before dusk, when the setting sun in Lyng?r, Norway, washed its old stone walls in a luminous salmon color.

The cottage, named Ring Point, or Ringpynten in Norwegian, looked like something out of a storybook; mossy granite blocks framed the mullioned windows, and fairy roses and ivy climbed the walls.

Her reserved Norwegian grandma, Hilda Nilsen, who had raised her since she was a baby and taught her the Norwegian word for grandmother, mormor, had never mentioned Ring Point to her.

In fact, Ella hadn’t learned about it until after Hilda’s death six months earlier, when her grandma’s lawyer informed her that Ring Point now belonged to Ella.

In this moment, as Ella stood on the ridge, gazing down over the cottage’s slate roof, everything she’d been led to believe about her history collided with what was in front of her. It was almost too much for her to take in.

Tears stung her eyes, and she swiped at them. Oh Mormor, you had to have known the news of the cottage would undo me. Why did you hide it from me all these years?

Ella usually welcomed surprises, but this was something else entirely.

She knew that she was five months old when Mormor brought her from Norway to Boulder, Colorado, but her closemouthed grandma never spoke of their life in Oslo.

Ella, of course, had no memories of Norway, and their lives had begun, as far as she knew, when they settled in Boulder, where Hilda taught Norwegian at a public school.

Although Ella had begged Hilda to tell her stories about their shared history, her grandma only offered glimpses and generalities.

She told Ella how much she missed seeing Norwegian bunader the traditional folk costumes, or that she craved lutefisk, cod fermented in lye.

Hilda liked to joke that trolls still stalked the land.

Hilda didn’t like speaking about her own daughter, Sara, who had died giving birth to Ella.

Ella craved details about her mom. More times than she could count over the years, she had begged her grandma for information.

Hilda had shared a few details, but they were vague, and she always shut the conversation down quickly, warning, “Let it go. Holding on to the past is too painful. It’s impossible to heal. ”

Ella spotted a well-tended garden on the property with rows of berry bushes, flowering herbs bursting from wine barrel planters, and a sandbox-size plot with green shoots and fresh dirt.

From what the lawyer had said, no one had lived in the house for almost thirty years, not since 1963, the year Ella was born.

But someone had put a lot of love into that garden.

Ring Point looked exactly like the unsigned oil painting Hilda’s lawyer had sent Ella, except that the canvas hadn’t done the place justice. Each time Ella looked at the painting, she’d felt a little tug, which had grown into an overwhelming pull.

The painting had come with a note written in Hilda’s loopy scrawl.

Ella,

Scatter my ashes in Lyng?r. But sell Ringpynten. It’s worth a lot of money. The lawyer can help you with that.

Hilda

Why hadn’t Mormor sold the cottage years ago when she struggled to make ends meet, living hand to mouth on a teacher’s salary?

She’d complained about having to raise Ella in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in downtown Boulder, where car stereos blared, skateboards clacked, and drunk college students bellowed over each other at Bears Taphouse below.

Or why hadn’t she sold Ring Point when she retired and was barely surviving on social security?

Ella found it bizarre.

The cool breeze blew in off the sound and whipped Ella’s hair around her face so that a wisp caught in her mouth.

It tasted like sea salt. Here in Lyng?r, it was impossible to avoid the water.

Good thing she’d bought a life vest for the trip.

She’d worn it on the eight-hour ferry ride from Oslo and kept it on as she disembarked and took the fifteen-minute walk along the waterside footpath to her cottage.

Only upon her arrival there did she wriggle out of the life preserver, stuffing it into the oversize backpack at her feet.

She’d never risk being near the deep blue without it.

She’d inherited her anxiety about the water from her grandma. That, along with her coppery curls and almond eyes. Strange that Hilda had wanted to own a waterside cottage for so many years, if she was afraid of the water.

So this was it. Ringpynten. Her family legacy.

A home she’d just discovered but hoped to soon be rid of.

She needed to sell the property, pronto.

The $22,000 she’d inherited from Hilda initially seemed like a fortune but was nothing more than a few drops in the bucket.

She was starting to think that she shouldn’t have bought the little retail store back in Boulder so impulsively—what did she know about running a business?

But the shop was the perfect venue to sell the clothes she’d designed.

It was a lavender one-story storefront on a lively street just a couple of blocks from Pearl Street Mall in the heart of downtown Boulder, and she’d named the boutique Little Bird.

Hilda had always called her dreams unrealistic and “artsy-fartsy.” Perhaps using her inheritance to buy the shop was a way of thumbing her nose at the bossy old woman.

Whatever it was, Ella had dug herself into a deep financial hole.

She hoped selling the cottage wouldn’t take long. Not only was she up to her ears in bills, but she had no idea how she’d spend her time in Lyng?r until the place sold.

Back home was another story; her life there was crazy busy.

She was simultaneously tending bar at a chophouse and preparing for the soft launch of Little Bird in two months.

Before leaving for Norway, she’d rushed around town hunting for the perfect paint, fixtures, and fabrics for the boutique.

She was also checking in on the renovation crew because she needed everything to be just right—there was no time for do-overs.

Truth was, she had no choice but to work around the clock to make ends meet and to make sure her new business succeeded.

Her bestie, Petal, and her coworkers at the chophouse all agreed that she needed a vacation, or a Xanax prescription—or both.

It occurred to her that maybe staying extra busy was her way of coping with her fear and grief.

Hilda’s death gnawed at her. Even though they weren’t close, her grandma had always been her anchor.

They argued constantly over what Hilda called Ella’s “impractical and impossible” life choices and her far-fetched notions of someday making a living off her art.

Hilda’s gift of Ring Point had now paved the way for Ella to pursue her dreams. But first she had to sell it.

And that meant staying on a tiny island in the middle of the Norwegian archipelago, surrounded by water, until she found a buyer.

Ella scanned her surroundings. Nautical, white wooden houses lined the shores of the small, leafy islands and disappeared around their tips. There were no cars, streets, sidewalks, or stores, just lots and lots of water. She felt as if she’d arrived in Neverland.

She hoisted her pack, grabbed her guitar, and carefully cradled the box that contained the urn with Hilda’s ashes.

Descending the craggy hill that edged Ringpynten, she stepped around rock and root, her boots skidding on the polished granite.

She stubbed her big toe, gritted her teeth as the pain shot up her foot, and then resettled the cardboard box.

“OK, you’re finally home, Mormor. Are you happy now? Don’t worry. You won’t be in there for long.” Ella swallowed the grief searing her throat. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. She’d always thought there would be time to work that out.

She’d had her last conversation with Mormor six months earlier, in Boulder. Her grandma had called on New Year’s Day with advice on how to make good in 1992, and Ella hadn’t wanted to hear any of it.

Quit that slutty bar job. Stop dressing like a hippie cowgirl. Forget that artsy-fartsy nonsense. Twenty-nine is old enough to grow up and find a husband.

Neither one had uttered the words I love you, and now it was too late for both of them.

Ella took one measured step down the hill, then another, and another, until she reached level ground.

Past the garden, two wooden boats lay belly-up on the lawn.

She shuddered. The last thing she wanted to do was board another boat.

She tried to comfort herself with the thought that perhaps she could find out more about her mom while she worked on selling the cottage.

Turning the key in the door, she stepped into the foyer and, still cradling Mormor’s ashes, let the rest of her belongings tumble into a pile on the frayed carpet.

She flipped the light switch and a yellow glow from a wall sconce lit the narrow, pine-paneled room.

The interior of the cottage looked much better than she’d imagined.

Where were all the dust and spiderwebs? The scent of damp wool and stale woodsmoke filled the air, like mittens hung by a hearth.

It was strange how a place so foreign could feel instantly familiar, comfortable, like the soft Levi’s she’d bought at a vintage clothing store.

She traced her hand over a walnut bench in the entryway.

Maybe her mother, Sara, along with all the other earlier generations of Nilsens, had sat there to put on their shoes.

A shiver raced up her spine. This home held her history, which had always felt so far away, so unknown, yet was something she’d always wanted to understand.

She felt an even stronger need to know it now.