Loved Twice by the Hockey Star novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: The Lighthouse

Erik looked at me over her head.

I looked back.

Neither of us said "he's in jail."

She knew.

She'd sounded out the letter.

"Okay," Erik said. "Then he'll see you."

I called the Lake County sheriff myself on Monday.

The same heavy man who'd read my name out on the courthouse steps.

He listened to the whole thing without interrupting.

"Four o'clock?" he said.

"Four o'clock."

"I'll set him up in my own office," he said. "With a tablet. You call that number at five to four. And Ms. Skoglund."

"Yes?"

"Congratulations."

July 30th came up blue and windy over Lake Superior.

The lighthouse stood on the rocks above the harbor, red brick and white trim, the keeper's house beside it with its porch and its geraniums.

Below it, the lake went on forever, so bright it hurt to look at.

There were white chairs on the grass.

There were the nurses from the sixth floor, in sundresses, crying already.

There was the doctor, in a hat, not crying, with her camera.

There was the father from 610 and his son, whose hair had grown all the way back.

There were twenty-three hockey players in suits that didn't fit across the shoulders.

The bait shop man came.

So did the woman from the café with the coffee pot.

She'd closed the café for the afternoon.

She'd put a sign on the door.

At five to four, the young winger stood at the end of the front row holding a tablet up on a selfie stick, high.

On the screen, in a plain office with a flag in the corner, sat Nils.

He was in a gray county shirt.

His beard was trimmed.

He'd combed his hair.

He kept touching it.

At four o'clock exactly, the music started.

Ingrid came down the aisle first.

In her yellow dress with the white flowers on the hem.

Her short blond curls, with the yellow ribbon.

A basket of petals she didn't throw, because she was too busy telling everybody where to stand.

"You. Sit. You. Stop crying. Goalie, do you have the rings? Show me."

The goalie showed her.

She nodded and moved on.

When she reached the front, she turned and walked straight to the young winger.

She stood in front of the tablet on its stick.

She held out her skirt on both sides.

"Uncle Nils," she said. "Look. This is my dress."

On the screen, Nils put his hand over his mouth.

"I see it," he said. "I see it, Ingrid. You look beautiful."

"I didn't trip."

"You didn't trip."

"Daddy still might," she said, and went to stand where she'd told herself to stand.

Then Jodie came down the aisle in green, her pixie cut bleached so white it glowed.

She'd sold the Fargo salon in April.

The new one on Lake Street had a line out the door.

She was crying so hard her mascara was gone before she reached the front.

"Shut up," she said to me as she passed. "Just shut up."

Then it was me.

No father to walk me.

No mother.

I walked by myself, over the grass, in a plain white dress, with my hair grown out pale blond again to my chin.

My real color.

The ring from the glovebox on my hand.

Erik was standing at the end of the aisle with his back to the lake.

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