Chapter 42
Ella woke to the smell of antiseptic soap. She yawned, then grimaced at the pull she felt within her ribs.
She folded back the starched sheets and stared at the plaster cast that was sticking out from beneath her hospital gown.
The cast covered her leg from calf to foot.
Her chipped tangerine nail polish was quite the complement to her purple-and-chartreuse toes.
She flexed her sore fingers—scraped and rope burned as they were—and knew it would be a while until she could play the guitar or embroider, but it could have been worse . . . so much worse.
On the bedside table, blue hydrangeas and delphinium hugged each other in a pewter vase. Against the vase was a postcard of Lyng?r and a pack of breath mints. Ella flipped the card over and read the handwritten note:
Flowers and fun stickers from Mia. Breath mints, in case you want to kiss Leif (and not kill him) from Inger. Get well soon, Hippie Chick. Store klemmer (big hugs).
Her eyes teared up. No, she wouldn’t cry. They were alive and nothing else mattered. But she needed to see Leif, the man of her heart. She reached for the call button, but before she could press it, Erik walked into the room.
Ella studied his face. This was her father, a fact she still found too difficult to grasp.
From the moment they met, he had been horrible to her.
And yet now she had a different image of Erik—he was also the man who had clung to her as his own boat was threatened and had never let go.
He had yanked her over the railing and onto the deck and tucked a blanket around her cold body.
She recalled the red flashing lights of the ambulance, and Erik’s frantic voice, saying, “Hurry! Do something—she’s hurting!” He sounded just like a father might sound. Did he know?
“You don’t look so bad for a half-drowned codfish!” Erik greeted her with a shaky grin and moved to the foot of her bed.
“How’s Leif? I need to see him.” She eased her bruised legs and broken foot over the side of the mattress.
“You’ll have to wait. He’s still unconscious.”
She gasped. “Oh no!”
“They gave him a CT scan. The doctor says he has a concussion, and they need to keep him quiet for a while, but he’ll make a full recovery.”
“I was so afraid I lost him!”
“Yeah, me too.”
They smiled awkwardly at each other. She tugged at her hospital gown while Erik gnawed on his unlit cigar. They heard a deep hacking cough from somewhere in the corridor, and wheels squeaked on a steel cart. She smelled cauliflower soup and scrunched up her nose.
“Everyone’s been asking about you,” Erik said. He pointed at the flowers and mints on her table. “I see Mia and Inger have been here. Inger brought you a change of clothes. Yours were wrecked, but I put them in a bag for you anyway.”
“Thank you,” Ella said. “I don’t know how to say this, but I need to . . . I know we have our differences, and I know you don’t want Leif to spend time with me. Even so, thank you for saving my life. And his life.”
“I have something to say too. I really, truly apologize for the way I treated you. When I heard you were in Lyng?r I considered leaving town for a time . . . my guilt over what I’d done was overwhelming and .
. . well, your arrival was hard for me. I told myself I was too busy at the boatyard to go away, but to be honest, I was curious to see if you took after your mum.
And it is incredible how much you resemble her.
I’m ashamed of what I did years ago, and of what I did to Ringpynten the other day. I have no excuses, I’m just sorry.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Yes I do. There’s more. The nurse found this when they cut off your clothes.” He pulled a small object from his pocket but kept it concealed in his big fist. He paused as his face crumbled with grief, and she softened.
“What is it?” she asked.
He extended his arm to her and uncurled his fingers. The small wooden bear stood on his flattened palm. “Where did you find it?” Erik asked, his eyes tormented.
“At the cottage. It was in a drawer inside the grandfather clock.”
He nodded, as if her answer made perfect sense.
As he stared at the bear, anguish folded into deep lines around his mouth.
His breath caught as he spoke. “I made it for your mother. The Norse gods Thor and Odin often took the shape of a bear when they visited the human world. Sara was like a goddess to me—bears are sun animals, you know—Sara was my sun.” He handed the bear to Ella.
“You should keep this. I sent it to Sara as a token of a promise.”
“A promise?”
He gave Ella a furtive glance. “Over that last winter, I’d heard rumors that she was pregnant .
. . that she’d met some guy from Oslo. But he didn’t stick around, and .
. . well, she deserved better and that shredded me, but it also meant the door was still .
. . well, open for me. I sent some letters, and the bear, to her apartment in Oslo.
I asked her to move to Lyng?r and marry me.
I told her that I loved her with all my heart, and that if the rumor was true, we could raise the baby together.
That we could marry and be a family.” He swiped his nose.
“It was what I always wanted since the day I met her.” A tear ran down Erik’s cheek, and he sniffled.
“What happened?” Ella asked.
“She never answered. I loved Sara, very much.”
He blew out a shaky breath and sat tentatively on the edge of the bed.
“You look like Sara, with your red curls and kind almond eyes. Plus you’ve got a smile that lights up a room, just like she did.
These memories of her that you’ve brought back .
. . well, it’s shattered me. Sara died because of me, and because of my lies I had to keep it buried all these years.
” He hid his face in his hands. “Sara died because of me.”
Ella put her hand on his knee. “I think she loved you too.”
It was clear that they’d all lost so much the night of the crash, and Ella started to cry. Erik looked at her with kind, caring eyes. He had no idea of the secret that Sara had kept from him.
Ella wiped the tears from her face. “The bear wasn’t the only thing I found in the grandfather clock. There was a birth certificate too.”
“Yours?” he asked. She nodded, and he gritted his teeth. “Who was the snake?”
Ella smiled at him and said, quietly but clearly, “It was you. You’re my father.”
“Me? I . . . I . . . that’s incredible,” he stammered. He pulled the rim of his cap down and lowered his head as his shoulders started to quake. They cried together. She reached for the tissue box on the table and moved it onto Erik’s lap. He shoved it back at her.
“No, you need them,” he said as he sniffled and ran his hand over his face.
“I didn’t know that her baby—you—were mine, or if there even was a child.
I swear it. I would have driven straight to Oslo, bent down on one knee with a ring, and told Sara how much I adored her!
And I would have marched right past your mormor if I had to. ”
“I believe you.” Ella smiled through her tears.
“You’re my daughter.” Erik reached out as if to hug her with his big, clumsy hands, but instead he ended up patting her awkwardly. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“No more apologies. You’re here now.” She put her arms around Erik, and he relaxed and hugged her back, gingerly. Then they grinned at each other as they dabbed their eyes.
“Wait till Leif hears this one,” he said. “I wish you would stay in Lyng?r. Not for me—but you must know that Leif loves you dearly.”
“I love him dearly too. I realized it on the water when I thought I might lose him. And now that you and I have met properly—I don’t want to lose you either. You’re the only family I have.”
He looked at the postcard and breath mints on the side table. “Now that I’m thinking about it . . .” His voice trailed off, but he was grinning.
“What?”
“Well, your family is a little bigger than that. Inger’s my niece, you know.” Ella shot him a puzzled look.
“That makes her your cousin,” he said. She was startled.
“Oh now, you should’ve seen that coming,” he said teasingly. “Both of you are incredibly headstrong. This should be interesting.” For a moment he kept a straight face, then he let loose with a hoarse guffaw.