Chapter 15: Better Builder

Magnus's POV

She came across the yard at noon with a white envelope held in both hands.

I was on my back under the Annika's keel, and I saw her boots first.

I knew them by now.

I slid out on the creeper and sat up with sawdust in my hair.

"Where did you get that?" I said.

"The study safe. Greta opened it." Linnea's voice was level and her eyes were red. "I read hers out loud, because she asked me to."

"And this one?"

"She gave it to me and told me to bring it to you."

She held it out.

My name was on the front in my father's square hand.

I did not take it.

"Your father wrote it two years ago," she said. "She's had it since the funeral."

"I know when he wrote it."

I took it.

The paper was thin, and the flap had been licked and pressed down by a man who had never trusted glue.

I thought about my father at the kitchen table in the Park Point house, with his reading glasses pushed up, licking an envelope.

"Do you want me to go?" Linnea asked.

I thought about it honestly.

"No," I said. "Stay. Please."

It was the first time I had asked her for something, and she heard it.

She sat on an upturned bucket a few feet away, and Moby put his head on her knee.

I opened the envelope and read.

It was two pages, and the second page was shorter than the first.

Magnus,

If you are reading this, Greta has finally done what I asked.

You have married, or you have given up, and I can't tell which from here.

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