Chapter 10: The Chair

By the first week of August Nils had been vice president for five weeks, and he had not slept through a night.

Gunnar had given him an office next to his own, on the second floor above the paint shed.

It had a window over the harbor.

He wore a tie to it.

He came home at eight and ate standing up.

On a Wednesday I got off early.

I carried dinner down to the yard in a paper sack, because I could say it was for my brother.

The office was empty.

The building was dark and the shop floor was silent below.

A single lamp was on in Gunnar's corner office, with the door standing open.

Nils was not in his own.

I went into his father's room.

It was the biggest office I had ever seen in a boatyard, all dark wood.

A model schooner stood in a glass case, and the desk was the size of a dinghy.

Behind it was a leather chair.

I put the sack down and sat in it.

It swallowed me.

The arms were wide and cool and the seat was still shaped to a bigger man.

I put my feet up on the blotter, on top of the papers, and leaned back.

"You're in my father's chair," Nils said.

Nils stood in the doorway.

He had loosened his tie, and his sleeves were rolled.

"He's at the Rotary dinner until nine," I said.

"Annika," he said.

"I brought you a sandwich," I said.

"Get out of his chair."

"Come take me out of it," I said.

He did not move for so long that I thought he wouldn't.

Then he crossed the room and took me under the arms.

He lifted me out of the chair and sat me on the edge of the desk.

My knees opened around his hips.

"Say you want it," he said.

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