Chapter 7: Back Early

Annika's POV

I made the guest bed with Nils's mouth still on my neck.

He made his in the east wing.

We cleaned the kitchen top to bottom so there would be nothing to find.

At noon on Tuesday he went down to the boathouse and plugged the recorder back in.

At three the black car came up the drive.

My mother got out first.

She looked rested and a little thin, with a Norwegian sweater on and a paper bag of chocolate in her hand.

I ran down the steps and hugged her, and she smelled like airplane.

"We came early," Gunnar called from the car. "I couldn't stand another day of herring."

Nils took the bags.

He shook his father's hand.

I watched Gunnar's eyes go over the front hall, the stairs, the dining table, checking each one.

"You kept it clean," he said.

"Annika did half."

"Good girl."

I let that one go by.

My mother had brought me a silver brooch from Bergen and Nils a carved wooden bridge, which made him laugh in surprise.

At dinner Gunnar sat at the head of the table and carved the roast himself.

He passed my mother a leather folder.

"What's this, Gunnar?"

"A schedule. I had my office manager type it up."

He smiled round the table.

"So you don't have to think about anything. Meals, the church circle, the garden."

"Anything outside the house, you check with me first."

She opened it.

I leaned and saw the first page, with times in a neat column and her name at the top.

"Thursday, church circle, two to four, with a note: ask G," my mother read.

She laughed uncertainly.

"I've been going to church circle for thirty years."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Stranger Became My Stepbrother, Then Our Parents Divorced from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.