Chapter 8
Early the next morning, Leif walked across the stone quay and into Lyng?r Boatyard and Marina and entered one of its three white clapboard buildings.
Each adjoining building featured blue trim and barn doors.
At lunch, he’d drop by Ringpynten to deliver the paint and tools for the service job on Ella’s two boats.
Perhaps he should’ve offered to take her to G?sholmen, but everything about her had tipped him a fraction off-balance.
Ever since meeting her, he’d thought about her more than he cared to admit.
Inside the main building, Leif moved past the salt-smeared windows, oil-stained tarps, and tool bins.
As he traced his hand along his current project, a wooden lapstrake boat, his shoulders relaxed a notch.
This place had been his second home ever since Erik had taken him in after his father’s death.
Erik was barely able to take care of himself, but he’d raised Leif out of loyalty to his best friend, Bjorn.
Leif patted his pocket, relieved he’d remembered the paperwork for the boats he retrieved in Oslo yesterday.
He was excited to tell Erik about what the marina owner had said about his carving skills and how he’d promised to put his designs on sailboat railings if Leif accepted the senior boatbuilder position.
If Erik knew about the owner’s enthusiasm, he might finally come to have faith in Leif too.
In the marina office, he found Erik with his feet propped up on his desk.
An unlit cigar was clenched between his teeth as he soldered the wires on a transistor radio.
He was barrel-chested and only fifty-four but his stooped posture made him seem a decade older.
Erik fell apart every June on the anniversary of the boat accident that killed Leif’s father and the two visitors Leif knew nothing about.
Physically, Erik had recovered from his injuries, but mentally he remained broken, as the only survivor.
Every year around this time, before the tourists arrived and the boatyard got too busy, he visited his best friend, Ragnar, at his cabin, to get away and recharge.
Leif thought Erik looked worse this June than any previously, and twice as burned out as he had before he’d gone away.
“How was your trip to Ragnar’s cabin?” he asked.
“Ragnar was in fine form. Drunk by noon. Nonstop stories about our shenanigans in Lyng?r, all those years ago. He always exaggerates about the old days. The stories get more ridiculous every year.” Erik pulled his cap to his brow. “Thanks for fetching the boats. You look like crap. You all right?”
“Fine, yeah. I rolled in late. It was a great trip though. You know, the owner loves my carvings and wants to pay me to put my designs on his boats. He said he already has clients lined up, that some of them had seen my work on boats at the Ris?r boat festival and want the same designs on their railings.”
Erik seemed unimpressed. Whenever Leif had suggested that Erik offer carving services at his boatyard, Erik chuckled as if it were a little joke.
Mia always said that Erik intentionally undermined Leif’s confidence to ensure that Leif stayed at the boatyard.
Although Leif didn’t enjoy feeling that he wasn’t being taken seriously, the routine of working with Erik was comfortable, and there was security in that.
Erik shuffled papers on his desk. “Carving is a great hobby. But you are one of the best boatbuilders in the whole country, and that’s why I need you here.
” He lit his cigar. “How about taking the morning off? Sleep, make some food, whatever. Just make sure to come back this afternoon—work orders are piling up.”
“I’m good, just need some more coffee.” Leif preferred to work, since it would take his mind off Sunna.
The workbench was cluttered with a cracked rudder, a carburetor, and a piece of old bread smeared with liver paté. Leif reached for the coffee pot and found a clean-enough mug.
“Mia changed her mind on the dinghy, so I loaned it to Mrs. Nilsen’s granddaughter, Ella,” Leif said.
“Hilda Nilsen’s granddaughter?”
“Hilda died. Her granddaughter is here to sell the cottage.” Leif tossed Ringpynten’s paperwork onto Erik’s desk.
“Makes no sense,” Erik muttered. He’d gone gray as a flounder belly.
“What?” Leif said.
“Forget it.” Erik withdrew a fifth of whiskey from the desk drawer, took two large gulps, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Erik seldom drank except in June, but when he did, he could fall in and out of lucidity.
Occasionally he’d sob about the passengers on Bjorn’s boat, muttering how the sea had taken them all.
Frequently he let slip the same words, “It should’ve been me. ”
“Either she buys the dinghy,” he said, “or you bring it back here immediately.”
Leif frowned. “There’s no harm in letting Ella borrow it. She’s only here for a short time.”
“No, she can’t borrow the dinghy.” Erik coughed through his clenched teeth. “She either buys it or returns it. I’m not a bloody rental agency.”
“Did you ever meet Ella’s mum, Sara Nilsen? She’s hoping to find out more about her while she’s visiting.” Seeing the deep lines cut into Erik’s face, he added, “What?”
Erik glowered at the whiskey gripped in his hand.
“You know I don’t associate with that lot, so why ask?
” He stormed past Leif and left. Erik often complained about vacationers with their flashy boats and fat wallets wanting quick repairs and discounts every summer, but Leif wondered why he seemed especially angry today.
What did he have against Hilda Nilsen and her granddaughter?