Chapter 5
Ella carried Hilda’s urn carefully to the windowsill in the sitting room, where it caught the light and threw rainbows on the walls.
The urn was sparkly bright, with swirls of electric pink and lemon.
An acquaintance of Ella’s had crafted it with care.
Some years earlier, Ella had dragged her grandma to the glassblowers’ exhibition show.
Hilda had practically drooled over the handblown Chihuly-inspired vases and bowls but insisted that she could never pay such a steep price for a nonessential.
She’d joked, “Ella, you can put me in one of those containers when I die.”
When she was small, Ella tried to please Hilda.
She made her bed every day and ate the peas from the TV dinners that Hilda served most nights, even if they reminded Ella of boogers.
But no matter how hard Ella tried, it seemed she couldn’t win her grandma’s love.
Now, after discovering the portrait of her mother and herself that had been painted with such care, she imagined that Mormor might’ve loved her after all.
The sore spot in her chest ached again. She wondered what life would have been like if her mother had lived.
Would the three of them have been a happy family, spending their summers at Ringpynten, baking pastries and swimming in the sea together?
Did Hilda ever play in the water? Maybe Mormor had cautioned Sara against swimming, just like she had Ella.
Her grandma’s history was a box of riddles, and it niggled at Ella again, as it had always done.
Why hadn’t Mormor told her even a single detail about this place?
She stared out the window in search of something inspiring to improve her mood.
The islands across the narrow channel were lined with white, wooden Lyng?r-style cottages that were part of her heritage.
The red, white, and blue of the Norwegian flag flapped from a pole drilled into one of the docks.
A pair of blond teenagers cannonballed into the water.
Ella broke out in goosebumps. She hadn’t been in the water since she was eight, during her one and only attempt at learning to swim.
She’d marched down to the local community center, proud of her customary stylish and colorful ensemble—flowered galoshes and pink arm floaties.
When she arrived at the pool, the other kids called her a scaredy-cat for wearing floaties, so she stomped straight to the diving board and hurled herself into the blue water.
To her surprise, it filled her mouth and she gagged, panicking as the weight of her galoshes pulled her down.
Much to her embarrassment, the other kids pointed and laughed as the lifeguard dragged her out of the pool, scolding her. “What were you thinking?”
Ella had limped home in one boot. Mormor was furious, ranting about the dangers of water and how it swallowed people, even people with floaties on. Ella hadn’t been a fan of water since, never learning to swim and never wanting to.
To let in the fresh air, Ella propped open the front door with the shoe tray that lived nearby.
She supposed she should explore the cellar, which she suspected would be a creepy, spider-infested hole in the ground.
She’d rather skip it, but Mia had mentioned that it contained odds and ends, leftovers from decades earlier, and she’d offered to send over someone to haul away the garbage.
Ella’s pulse quickened at the possibility of finding something important there.
She unlatched the cellar door and flicked on the light.
What if she got lucky and found something that belonged to her mother?
As she rested her hand on the railing, her fingers snared a sticky web that made her skin crawl.
She brushed her hand on her sleeve and let out a long, deep breath.
At the bottom of the steps, she surveyed the concrete room with its rough plaster walls.
There was a taped-up garden hose and a wooden shelf holding canning jars full of applesauce.
Two small engines were tucked into a mildewy corner; they probably belonged to the boats on the lawn.
She’d sell those along with the boats. Mia’s friend could trash everything else.
A moth tapped its wings against the dim ceiling bulb, then flitted away, settling on a tarp-covered mound near the underbelly of the staircase.
Ella folded back the tarp until it crumpled to the floor, leaving a cloud of dust that she waved from her face. She blinked in surprise at an old treadle sewing machine on an oak cabinet with cast-iron legs. No way could that beauty have belonged to Hilda.
Ella remembered how, at age twelve, she’d bought a yard-sale sewing machine and a stack of leftover fabrics with her own money. She’d earned it from mowing lawns and pet-sitting the neighbor’s Saint Bernard.
Hilda had remarked, “You’re just like her,” but as always, she refused to say anything more, though she looked distant for the rest of the day. Hilda’s comment had enraged Ella.
“You’re an evil witch!” she yelled at her. “How can you keep this from me about my own mother! Does this mean my mom sewed?”
There was no answer, but that didn’t stop Ella, who fired off question after question.
“What was her favorite food? What music did she like? Did she have a boyfriend?”
Something about the last question sent Hilda into a rage that almost equaled Ella’s.
“Boys!” she sputtered, with spittle flying. “If it weren’t for Sara getting pregnant, she would’ve lived. If it weren’t for you, Ella, your mom would’ve lived!”
She paled and put her head in her hands and then, as if snapping back to reality, hugged Ella and sobbed. “Please be careful!”
Ella was shocked. It seemed she was to blame for Sara’s death, and this was too awful for Ella to talk about, so she dropped the subject. Over the years, she stopped trying to extract any more information about Sara from Hilda.
In the cellar she studied the gold inlay near the spool pin on the sewing machine and two small identical birds that framed a name, Sara Nilsen.
It belonged to her mother. For a moment Ella froze and stared in disbelief.
Why would Hilda save this? From what she told Ella, Hilda had only saved a few of her own favorite belongings: her bunad and a rosemaled breadboard that matched the china hutch at Ringpynten.
“Everything else was pointless,” Hilda had said with conviction. It was clear her grandma wanted to forget her past when she moved to Boulder.
In the drawer Ella found a hand-size sketchbook. The leather was embroidered with Sara’s initials and a rosy starling with black and rouge feathers. Ella drew her fingers over the feathers and swallowed the lump in her throat. The needlework looked exactly like her own.
She paused in awe for a moment before opening it.
On the first page, she found a sketch of a dress with a meadowy wildflower print, accompanied by her mother’s signature.
Such a gift! She quickly flipped through the book and saw that it was filled with sketches.
She’d savor every page, but first she’d grab the scotch and find a sunny spot on the lawn.
She inched the sketchbook into her pocket.
The sewing machine was too heavy to lug upstairs. She’d have to remove it from the cabinet to carry it. Maybe Mia could lend her some tools. Climbing out of the cellar and into the foyer, Ella jumped in surprise. A man filled the door frame.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Sorry, the door was open. I’m Leif Arnesen. Mia sent me,” he said with a deep voice and a barely detectable Norwegian accent. In fact, he sounded like he’d lived in England for some years.
“Ella Nilsen. You’re the boat guy,” she said, smoothing her hair self-consciously. It was probably full of cobwebs.
Leif was tall and attractive, with shaggy blond hair, cheekbones you could cut yourself on, and a light dusting of stubble on his strong jaw. He wasn’t her type though. Mostly she dated the bad boys—dark, complicated, loner types who lived and starved for their art and drank way too much.
Her longest relationship had lasted a whopping four months. Petal had teased her about it: “You either never give a guy a chance and you ditch him, or you’re so desperate for him to love you back that he gets scared and runs away.”
And then there was her last fling, a psychology grad student who had actually said, “You know, it’s clear that all your relationship issues come from trying and failing to win your grandma’s love.” This was after she’d dumped him.
But none of that mattered. Right now she had no time for distractions and too much on the line. She was leaving Lyng?r anyway, just as soon as the cottage sold.
Leif reached out to shake her hand. She hesitated, then gave her fingers a quick wipe on her hip before accepting. She barely had a moment to register how tan and solid his hand was before he pulled it away.
His gaze settled on her sparrow boots. Did he just smirk?
She flushed, conscious of the chocolate smudges and dust on her wrinkled dress.
But why should she care? And who was he to smirk—what kind of guy wore an Oxford shirt to fix boats?
He looked fit, though, carrying his broad shoulders like a jock, and so wholesome she bet he drank milk three times a day.
“Where should I put your supplies?” He pointed his thumb at the canvas bags piled on the floor behind him.
“I’ll do it, thanks,” she said in Norwegian before switching back to English, “I hope to learn more Norwegian while I’m here. I’m surprised at how well you all speak English. You have a slight British accent—did you ever live there?”
“No. I’ve only lived in Lyng?r. But my English teacher, who taught me for eleven years, moved here from London. That would be where I got the British accent,” he said with a laugh. “The skiff engines are in the cellar. Mind if I fetch them?”