Chapter 9: Eino

I woke up in his bed with sun on my face, and for a whole second I forgot to be afraid.

Lennart was propped on one elbow, watching me.

His hair was wild and his eyes were soft.

"You talk in your sleep," I said.

"I know."

"You said a name."

His face went still.

"Yours?" he said.

"Not mine."

He closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I should be. You're in my bed."

"I knew who she was before I climbed the stairs, Lennart."

He opened his eyes, and looked at me for a long moment.

"You're the strangest woman I've ever met," he said.

"Thank you."

"I don't mean it as an insult."

"I know how you mean it."

The doorbell rang downstairs, three hard pushes.

"That's my father," Lennart said, with deep dread.

I found a flannel shirt of his on the floor and pulled it on.

Eino Brekke stood in the kitchen, big and heavy in a plaid coat, with a paper sack of doughnuts in one hand.

He had the same green eyes as his son, set in a harder face.

He looked at the shirt, at my bare legs, and at the second coffee cup on the counter.

"You're the clerk from Gerda's," he said.

"Maja."

"Good." He put the sack down. "Sit."

I sat.

Lennart came in behind me in a pair of jeans, and stopped.

"Dad."

"I came to see my son." Eino didn't look at him. "Go away for ten minutes."

"No."

"Go and shower. I want to talk to the girl."

"I'm twenty-seven," I said.

"Then talk to the woman."

Lennart looked at me.

I nodded.

He went, grimly, up the stairs.

Eino turned a chair around and sat on it backward, with his thick arms across the back.

"You know why my boy swore the Refusal?"

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