Chapter 5: Löyly

On the second evening I lit the sauna.

My grandmother had taught me, in her backyard in Hancock, with birch kindling and a tin bucket and a lot of opinions.

By seven the little cedar room at the end of the dock was dark and hot, and the stove ticked.

I stood in the boathouse porch in a towel, waiting for the stones.

Nils came down the dock with a flashlight.

He did not look at me.

He went into the boathouse office and I followed him as far as the door.

On the shelf over the desk was a gray box with a row of green lights and a cable running to the camera on the eave.

"What is that?"

"The recorder." He crouched and put his hand on the cable. "Dad watches the dock. Every boat, every guest. He likes to know who came and went."

"Does he check it?" I asked.

"Every morning," he said.

"Nils," I said.

"I know."

He pulled the plug.

The green lights went out one by one.

He stayed crouched there for a moment with the cable in his hand and I saw him decide something.

"Ten days," he said. "That's what you said."

"That's what I said."

He stood up.

"Get in the sauna."

I laughed, and went.

The room was small and hot, a bench along one wall and a second bench above it, and a bucket of water by the stove.

I dropped the towel and sat on the lower bench, and I felt the heat settle in my shoulders.

He came in with the door shutting behind him.

He had a towel at his hips and the rest of him bare, the scar on his eyebrow white in the half light.

His body was lean and hard, and I looked at all of it.

He looked at mine.

"Annika."

"Come here."

He crossed the room.

I took his towel and let it fall.

He was hard already, thick and heavy, the head dark and wet at the tip.

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