Chapter 10: A Proper Bed

"It was dark," said Soren. "I put it on in the dark."

"Mm," said Dagny.

She looked at the cot, which was empty, and at the oven, which was fine.

Then she looked at her brother's face, which was a color she had probably never seen on it.

"I'll check the fire from the alley," she said. "For about an hour."

She shut the door behind her very gently.

I stayed flat on the floor behind the cot, with my cheek on the cold stone and my shoulders shaking.

Soren put his forehead against the steel door.

"She knows," he said.

"She knows."

"She is going to say something at breakfast."

"Soren."

He turned around.

His shirt was inside out now as well as backwards, and I had never wanted anyone so much in my life.

"Come upstairs," I said.

Outside, the rain had thinned to a mist.

We went up the alley stairs to my grandmother's door in the dark, one flight, very quietly, with his hand around mine.

I got the key in the lock on the third try.

My grandmother's apartment smelled of lemon polish and old coffee.

I lit the little oil lamp on the kitchen table, because the power was out, and the lace curtains turned gold.

Every wall was covered in framed photographs of me, my mother and the shop.

In the background of nearly all of them, I now noticed, stood a tall man with a mustache.

He was looking away.

"Is that..." said Soren.

"Don't."

"That's my grandfather at your first communion."

"Soren, I will do anything. Please don't look at the pictures."

He turned his back on them very deliberately.

I took his hand again and led him down the narrow hall to the bedroom at the end.

It was a small room with a big old iron bed, a quilt in a faded star pattern and a window facing the lake.

He stood in the middle of the floor and looked at the bed.

"It's a very good bed," he said.

"You're allowed to come closer."

"I've written nothing down for this," he said, in a voice that didn't sound like his.