Chapter 10: The Back Row

Kaspar waited outside the ice house with his back to us, studying the horizon.

We dressed fast and in silence.

When we came out, he started talking to the lake.

"She says she has proof," he said.

"My mother wants to hear it before the toasts, but Calla refuses."

"She says it has to be in front of everyone."

"Proof of what?" said Henrik.

"That you and Astrid are fake."

Kaspar swallowed.

"I told her it's insane."

"I told her I'd seen you two at the dining table last night, and I've never seen two people look at each other like that."

"I'm so sorry, I'm going to go now."

He fled across the ice toward the lodge, slipping twice.

Henrik and I stood side by side in the wind.

The sun had slid low behind the tree line, and the sky had gone the flat grey of old dishwater.

"What does she have?" I asked.

"I don't know."

He rubbed the scar through his eyebrow with his thumb.

"Henrik."

"It's nothing."

"You're touching your eyebrow."

He dropped his hand.

I'd known him for twenty-one years, and I'd never noticed that he had a tell too.

"Okay," I said.

"Then let's talk about something that isn't nothing."

"Like what?"

"Like why you didn't walk up to me at the funeral."

He stopped on the ice.

I stopped too.

"I told you," he said.

"I didn't have the right."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

"Henrik, my father was dying for three years."

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