Chapter 9: July Twenty-First

Anders's POV

I counted it in the truck, on the shoulder of Larsmont Road, with the engine off and the windshield cracked white across the middle.

April 13th, minus forty weeks, is July 7th.

Add two weeks for the part doctors count before there is anything to count.

July 21st.

My father's funeral was on July 21st.

I put my forehead against the wheel.

I had been telling myself for three days that I was wrong.

I'm good with measurements. I cut things to a sixteenth of an inch for a living.

I could not make this one come out wrong.

That night, after the funeral dinner, Nils had gone home to Britta and our mother had gone to bed.

I had stayed in the boathouse alone, with half a bottle of our father's whiskey.

Kristin had come looking for me.

She had known me since I was twelve. She had known my father.

She sat down on an upturned hull beside me and said she was sorry, and I said I didn't want to be with anyone, and she said she didn't either.

We both ended up at her apartment.

I won't pretend I didn't know what I was doing.

I left at six in the morning because I could not stand to be in the room.

She drove me to the airport and we didn't say a word.

I had not called her since.

I had told myself that was a courtesy.

Her apartment was on the second floor of a brick building on Third Street.

I went up at two on Sunday and knocked.

She opened the door in socks and a long gray sweater.

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