Amalie Chapters 1 8

AMALIE
By Alexandra Winter
CHAPTERS
1. 3
2. 11
3. 24
4. 32
5. 39
6. 49
7. 61
8. 69
TO BE CONTINUED 78
Ó 2017 Alexandra Winter 2

1.
“Let it be! Nobody cares about that stuff anyways.”

Dad always knew what to say to make me feel insufficient. Like my efforts to
help him were wrong and insulting. He threw on his blazer and tried buttoning it in the
front, but his recent weight gain reminded him to leave it open. I colored in the last
piece and looked at the poster. Normally I’d use Photoshop, but I didn’t bring my
computer and it was nice painting again. It was no masterpiece but would do the job.
“I would care. Nana would care.”
He snatched it out from under my hands and held it up to evaluate my work.
The sun shone brightly through the front door of the shop, highlighting fingermarks on
the glass. I should wash that when I finish the poster, I thought.
“Your Nana cares about a lot of things nobody else cares about.”
He was right, in a way. She cared about creativity, and how the mind works.
He didn’t. I enjoyed discussing novels she read on theories on how our mind works
both consciously and subconsciously. She had given me a book on graphic design
after I’d shown interest in the field a while back, and since then I hadn’t been able to
put it down. I loved everything about it, especially the way it made me appreciate
things I would take for granted. That someone once thought about and designed
every sign, every poster.
I knew the poster I’d just made could be better, since I never drew as good as
what I had envisioned in my mind. The car was a bit off and the family of four with the
dog in the back looked more childish in my drawing than I’d wanted. Still, I had
worked on it all day and was quite pleased with it.
Dad wasn’t. “You don’t sell previously owned cars by making posters for
children. Parents have the money, not the kids.”
I knew that, and I also knew that to call the used cars previously owned didn’t
fool anyone. The idea behind the poster wasn’t to sell to kids, but to show the car on
a family holiday. A trip that made memories the kids and the parents would treasure
the rest of their lives. For some reason, my father couldn’t relate to this. He struggled
to be a businessman, and had wanted to be successful his whole life.

He threw the poster back on my table. I finished it, less satisfied than I would
have been if he hadn’t commented on it.
“Just put it on the car and try, Dad.”
“No.” He tried to close the blazer again, forgetting it didn’t fit. He used such
force that the button flew off.
“Really! It can’t do any more damage. It’s not like the car is selling anyways.”
He pulled the blazer off and threw it on his chair before he stormed out and
slammed the door behind him. I ran after.
“I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean it like that. I just want us to try.”
He threw his hands up in exasperation and pointed to the rows of cars taking
up the entire field in front of us as he stalked off across the lot.
“Do you really think that I haven’t tried everything?” I didn’t follow him, but his
rant continued as if I had. “I know you want to be perfect, but this won’t work, Amalie.
Kids don’t buy cars!”
“I don’t try to be perfect, and I don’t try to sell to kids.” I shouted after him. “I
just want to help.”
It was no use, but I still wanted to try, so I placed the poster on the car window
of the family van and dusted the hood off. There were cars everywhere, all covered in
dust from the field. He had planned to cover it in asphalt, but never got around to it.
Dad didn’t see the small Ford parked in front of the shop and yelled at me from
across the lot, “I’m going for a drive!”
He couldn’t go. I didn’t know what to do. “Wait! We have customers.” I wiped a
streak of dust off my face.
I heard him growl as he shut the door to the BMW and come back.
Normally I would be ecstatic that the family in the Ford had bought the van with
my poster.
Dad didn’t say anything as they drove off, leaving the parking lot and us
covered in dust. I knew his body language by now, and he wasn’t happy. He turned
towards me, scratched the stubble on his neck and sighed.
“Can’t you just be like a normal kid?” He handed me the signed contract for me
to archive and walked towards the BMW. “If you think you can do it so much better,
here's your chance. You need the practice anyways for when you start working here
full-time.” He threw the store keys at me. I jumped to catch them, but they were too

high and hit the wall behind me. He laughed. “Marvelous to know there are some
things you aren’t good at.”
I turned to tell him that I wasn’t coming to work for him after high school
graduation, as I had done so many times before, but he was already in the car. He
spun off and left me alone with the shop.
The dust had settled hours ago, but Dad hadn’t returned and I had painted a
picture of two of the dandelions growing behind the shop. Luckily no one else came
to buy any cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if they did.
The electric clock on his desk showed 8:17 p.m. when Mom’s car pulled in. It
was still light outside, as the sun never truly set here in the summer. I packed my
paints, brushes, and pencils neatly into my leather backpack, turned off the lights and
locked the door.
“I’m sorry, Amalie. He just got home. I came as fast as I could. You should
have called me.”
“I thought he’d be back for me this time.”
Mom nodded.
Our home was in the forest and about a twenty-minute drive outside of the
small summer town by the sea where my mother worked, about a half-hour drive
from Dad’s shop, which was surrounded by fields. The house had belonged to
Grandpa and Nana, my maternal grandparents, before they gave it to Mom and
moved to a retirement home. It was too remote for visitors, but for us it was perfect.
Old, rustic, and home. She parked the car in front of our house, and I jumped out.
“How much time do I have?” One positive thing about being late for dinner was
that I had to spend less time with my grandparents on Dad’s side.
“Only thirty minutes, I’m afraid. Put the dress you want to wear on the
doorknob and I’ll iron it for you while you’re in the shower.”
We had to dress up to see these grandparents. Still, we were never properly
dressed in their eyes.
“Thanks, Mom.”
I ran into the house, and hung my favorite skater cut dress on the door, white
with pink flowers. In the shower, the dust acted like cement with no foam from the
shampoo until the third wash. Dad waited in the dining room, his feet drumming the

floor, knees jumping up and down, suit and tie on. I knew he was sorry, but he never
said it. It made me sad that he couldn’t be more generous.
Dad’s mother and father lived about an hour away, but it seemed like five
hours in the car driving there. Dad didn’t say a word, just stared at the road ahead.
Mom tried to help me dry my hair from the passenger seat in front, but it was no use.
I should have brought a towel.
Their house was huge and looked even bigger than last year. I didn’t know
anyone else who had a roundabout in their driveway. Most houses here were made
of wood, but this one was built of bricks and one floor higher than the other houses
around.
I gently pulled on the thick string that hung down next to the curved front door.
They were my paternal grandparents, but demanded to be called Mr. and Mrs. Skar.
No sound. I pulled at it again, this time harder. The sound of three large bells rang
from inside, and Mrs. Skar opened the door. She was wearing a wool tweed dress in
gray with a matching jacket. Dressed for the occasion, a formal dinner with her son,
his wife and grandchild. Her hair was flawlessly layered, smelling of hair products.
Her perfume stung my nose.
“Please come in.” She assessed us, her eyes resting on my damp hair before
moving on to Dad’s tie, the lack of a tiepin. “You can place your shoes there.”
She pointed to a shoe rack in shiny brass.
Behind her, in the grand hall, two stairs climbed to the floor above to an indoor
balcony, overlooking anyone who entered. The moonlight flickered through the crystal
chandelier that hung from a glass ceiling. A round glass table with gold legs stood in the
middle of the room. White hydrangeas poured over the edges of a large vase. On the
wall behind them was a family portrait of her, Mr. Skar, and Dad as a kid. They didn't
smile.
I took my shoes off using my hands, making sure that I didn’t spill any sand
in the hallway, and placed them gently on the shoe rack. Mom and Dad did the same.
Mr. Skar rounded the corner into the hallway and shook our hands firmly.
“Welcome, strangers.” He wore a black suit, white shirt, and dark green tie.
None of us liked coming here for this annual dinner duty. Mom and I came for
Dad’s sake.

Mr. Skar turned to Mom. “Congratulations,” he said.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. “My son here tells me you’ve been made
partner at the restaurant?” Mom seemed embarrassed. She gave me a shy smile and I
beamed with pride, but just as I was going to congratulate her and tell her how proud I
was, Mr. Skar turned to Dad and cut me off.
“Well, son. How's the car shop?” He sipped his whiskey and measured me
dubiously before turning to Dad.
Dad took Mom's hand. “I’m not here to discuss work, Father.”
Mrs. Skar pushed us into the living room. “Yes, wait to talk about work until
after dinner. We have manners in this family, after all.”
The furniture was placed in the middle. Dad sat in one sofa, Mom and me in
another across from him. Mr. and Mrs. Skar each had a seat in an armchair on either
end. Dad’s expression reflected my feelings, as if to say this would be a long
evening. The sofa was hard, and I wanted to pull my legs underneath me, but I knew
I wasn’t allowed to do that here and straightened my back instead to sit up straight.
Mrs. Skar nodded approvingly when she saw the correction.
Hunting and interior design magazines were neatly displayed on the coffee
table. Mom picked one up and turned to the page on Ilse Crawford, her favorite
interior designer.
“I love that she takes into account our five senses in her designs, don’t you?”
Mrs. Skar adjusted her hair. “Nonsense. A designer chair is still just a chair,
and we can replace it if it doesn’t fit the room. They are to sit in, not to feel good in. If
it hurts to sit, it's just a sign of either being the wrong chair or having to move on to a
better one.”
Mom placed the magazine back on the table. I agreed with Mom, but said
nothing. I knew she’d used many of the same thoughts to make the customers at the
restaurant feel more relaxed. When she started working there, spotlights highlighted
everyone’s heads making hair and even scalps shine through in the fluorescence.
She’d removed the spotlights, and added warm lighting on the walls. Soft textures
replaced hard leather, music and background sounds that highlighted the flavors of
the food replaced outdated pop music. The kitchen used to be closed off, but now
guests could marvel in the art of cooking and smell the food in the room.
“Well, I think it's interesting,” Mom said.
Mrs. Skar rose from her seat. “Of course you do.” She emphasized ‘you’

before turning to the dining room and gestured that we should move. “Let's eat before
the food gets cold.”
After too much shrimp, braised pigeon, and flambéed crepe, I was full.
Grandfather poured two glasses of whiskey, one for himself and one he placed
in front of Dad.
“You know I shouldn't drink.”
Mr. Skar waved the comment away as it if were a mosquito. “Nonsense, one
glass won't hurt. You need it.”
Dad looked over at Mom who lifted her shoulders. He raised the glass to his
mouth. Mr. Skar shot his down, and the sound of his empty glass hitting the table
startled me.
“Now. Tell me you've finally got this car shop making money.” Dad put the
glass down on the table. Every year, the same question. Every year, the same
answer.
“You know there's no change, Father. I'm doing my best, but – ”
“Your best?” Mr. Skar cut him off. He walked over to the liquor cabinet to pour
himself a new glass. “It does not help when your best isn't good enough!”
Mrs. Skar rose from the table, signaling that it was time for the women to
leave.
“Let's leave the men to talk business in peace. We can take our coffee in the
drawing room.”
We left the room and Mrs. Skar closed the doors behind us. Trailing after her, I
heard Mr. Skar go on.
“You should have taken the job in London twenty years ago. You are wasting
your time here. This is no way to live!”
I turned to Mom, craving to make a statement. “Do we have a bad life?” I knew
we didn’t live our lives the way the Skars wanted us to, but at least we knew how to
be happy for one another.
“Of course not.”
Mrs. Skar put her arm around me and walked me to the bar. Her excessive
sweet scent made my head hurt.
“It's important never to settle, Amalie. You have to work and work to get what
you want.”

Mom took a deep breath. “We are doing fine.”
“Well, perhaps in your eyes.”
Mrs. Skar mixed a martini and sat down in the chair before she realized she
hadn’t offered us anything to drink. Mom crossed her legs.
“No, thank you.” She answered for us both. We never drank liquor.
“So, what will you study now that you’re off to college soon?”
She already knew the answer, so why she asked I couldn’t understand. We’d
had a discussion about it last year when we were here.
“I still want to study graphic design,” I said.
Mrs. Skar rung a bell and a maid rolled in a cart of coffee and cakes. Mrs. Skar
shushed her away as soon as she reached our table, then she straightened her back
and poured us our coffee.
“Oh, Amalie! You need to grow up.” Her pinky pointed to the ceiling as her
wrinkled lips latched on to the gold edge of the porcelain cup. A slurping sound
reverberated in the drawing room. “You should study to make money, not to follow
silly dreams.” She placed the cup on its matching plate, aligning the patterns. “Money
makes you happy. Just look at me.”
Nana told me once that “Happiness arises from freedom.” Mrs. Skar
seemed trapped in her tight box of formalities and prejudice with no room for
laughter, compassion, or legroom to explore. I couldn’t see happiness in that, only
fear.
Little did Mrs. Skar know that I had already applied and would receive my
response in just a few days. The waiting drove me crazy. This school was the beginning
of the rest of my life and the only place I wanted to study. I had to get that scholarship.
“Amalie has been working on a graphic poster now for several months that I
think even you might like,” Mom said.
The assignment had been to show your life in a poster. Mine had displayed
one angry man on top of a treasure, and another man on top of a grassy hill with his
family, happy.
I had met Mr. Jensen, a childhood friend of Dad’s and a friend of our family, at
the post office the morning I’d sent the scholarship application a few weeks ago. I
shook with excitement and had to tell someone. He'd promised not to say anything to
anyone. He’d kept his promise and was the only one who knew about it. I hated

keeping secrets from Mom, but I couldn't bear the thought of her getting as excited as
I was and letting us both down if I didn't get in.
Mrs. Skar lifted an eyebrow. “Why on earth would one work on a poster for
months? Don't you have better things to do?”
It had been a part of my application. It needed to be perfect. I opened my
mouth to respond, but Mrs. Skar waved me off the same way Mr. Skar had to Dad.
She finished her martini and lifted the olives to her mouth before she pointed
to my mother.
“Do not believe you'll get any help from us. We have worked hard for this
money.”
Mom sipped her coffee and sat back on the sofa, placed the small plate on her
knee, and cupped the mug in both hands. Mrs. Skar had never worked a day in her
life, and Mr. Skar had inherited most of his money from the family wealth of his father’s
second wife.
Mom took a deep breath. “We know. Don't worry. We are doing well ourselves.
We always have.” The doors to the dining room opened, and Mr. Skar blocked the
doorway. He looked agitated.
“My son will stay with us for the night. You take the car. I'll drive him home
tomorrow.”
Mom got up. Dad sat at the dining room table, his head bent, looking down at
the empty whiskey glass. He turned his head carefully and nodded to her that we
should go.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course! I can see I need to step in, again, and take charge of my son’s
hopeless situation.”
Mom straightened her back. “With all respect, I did not ask you. I asked my
husband.”
Dad had the same empty look on his face as he had as a boy in the family
picture in the hall, when he turned to Mom. “Just -- Go. I'll be home tomorrow.”
Mom wanted to interfere, but changed her mind and left. I followed her to the
car. Last year, Dad didn’t stay when Mr. Skar had told him to. Poor Dad.
In the car on the way home, Mom did not say a word.

2.
The next morning, Mom picked up Nana so we could have breakfast together. It
was only a five-minute drive, but Nana was too weak to walk. She was in a happy
mood as always, her smiling wrinkles even deeper now than last week. When she
smiled, her glasses lifted with her cheeks and she adjusted them down to their proper
position. It was only 6 a.m. and I was still in pj’s while we were having our morning
tea.
“You seem gloomy this morning. Why?” She swung her oversized coat on the
back of a kitchen chair, got out a big red-wine glass from the cupboard, and filled it
with tap water. She always had water in wine glasses. Dad found this to be extremely
unnecessary and would always question it. “Why not?” she’d answer. “Because it’s
for wine.” He didn’t understand. She always answered the same. “So true. And now,
it’s for water.”
“Where is your father?”
Mom tied the string of the teabag to the handle. “He’s at the Skars.”
“Ah.” Nana took a seat next to me. “Then I understand the somber mood.” She
pulled out a book from her bag and placed in on the table in front of Mom. “Read this,
it helps.”
It was The Book of Joy by Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. The cover
showed the two men looking at each other in profile. Tutu’s smile made me laugh.
“They talk about what we already know.” She bumped her shoulder to mine.
“Happiness doesn’t come from the outside. You can read it out loud to your dad.
Perhaps Hermann can learn something.”
Mrs. Skar used herself as an example of happiness. But she never smiled or
laughed like Nana did. When Nana laughed, everyone laughed with her. You couldn’t
help it.
“When will he be back?”
Mom flipped through the pages of Nana’s book and stopped at a picture where
it looked like the Dalai Lama was trying to kiss Desmond Tutu. “He’ll be back for
dinner today.” Mom closed the book and pushed it away from her.

Nana was having a good day today, so I spent as much time as I could with
her before I had to get ready for school. I kissed Mom on the cheek and hugged
Nana goodbye. “Will you visit next week, too?”
She turned around on her chair to answer. “I can’t next week. I have a few
treatments, so I won’t be much company.” Mom put her hand on Nana’s and
squeezed it gently. “But the week after, if your Mom will get me, I’ll be here.” She
winked at Mom who waved the comment off. Of course she’d pick Nana up.
As the bus came to a stop after school, I wanted to run through the rain to get
home faster, but I had read that running only made the body get more wet, so I
walked. The trees provided shelter, but I was still drenched when I got home.
“I saw the rain, are you…” Mom came from the kitchen and stopped when she
saw me. “Yes, you are wet.”
I looked like a drowned cat. Note to self: reread that theory on walking versus
running in the rain.
“Luckily, I’m waterproof.” I turned on the floor heating. It was normally off in the
summertime, but when it rained, it got cold in the old house. I got out of my wet
clothes, had a quick shower, and met Mom in the kitchen.
She’d been cooking at the Bluebird all day and I could tell that dinner had
been made there and brought home. She called it cheating, but I thought it was
clever.
“Don’t judge me, you know I pay for it.”
I didn’t say a word, but jumped up on the kitchen counter. Through the window
I could see Mr. Skar’s Mercedes drive up in front of the house. I jumped down from
the kitchen counter to meet him in the door, but Mom stopped me.
“Can you go to your room for a moment, Amalie? I would like to talk to your
father alone before we eat.”
“Why?” I recognized the look of decisiveness on Mom’s face. There was no
point discussing what had not been a question.
The muffled sound of the door closing, followed by Dad’s shoes on the gravel
and up the stairs to our house seemed different than usual. His movement carried
another rhythm. I arranged pillows on my bed to sit comfortably and read the book
Nana had brought, but couldn’t help listening to their discussion. I couldn’t hear what
they were saying, though, because the sound was too low.

About an hour later, Mom called me out for dinner. She waited for us at the
table. At the same time that I entered the dining room, Dad came out of the
bathroom, newly showered, his hair wet.
“Hi, Dad.”
He didn’t answer. His head was bent as he sat down at the table. Something
was wrong. I looked at Mom.
“Is Mr. Skar here?” The smell of him hung in the house.
“No, he just dropped your father off.”
It wasn’t the smell of Mr. Skar then. My dad reeked of whiskey. The scent
crept across the table. He never drank. I looked to him for answers. This scared me,
he was never like this.
“Are you drunk?”
He straightened his back, no longer hanging his head. Mom stood up from the
table instantly.
“Amalie, please run down to the store and buy pepper.”
Why did she need pepper now? It was raining outside, cold, and I was hungry.
I didn’t want to go.
“I bought pepper last week.”
“Well, it’s finished. We use a lot of pepper in this house.”
She gave me a five-dollar bill. “I want to talk to your father.” The same decisive
look again.
I put on my shoes and stuffed the money in my jacket pocket. It was always
me who had to go to the store. I took Mom’s car. I wanted to get back as quickly as
possible to find out what was happening to Dad. Something was very wrong. This
time I bought three pepper bottles. It should have kept us with enough pepper for at
least a few months. The line had been long at the store, and it took me about twenty
minutes to get home. When I finally got there, Dad was gone from the table, his food
almost untouched.
“You can talk to him tomorrow, Amalie. He was tired.”
“Why is he drinking?” I felt frustrated and scared of what was happening.
“I don’t know, Amalie.” She pulled me in for a hug. “He didn’t want to talk
about it now and I think it’s better that he sleeps this off, and I’ll talk with him about it
tomorrow.”
I agreed.

I couldn’t wait to get home from school the next day. This was the day I would
finally know if I got the scholarship. You know that feeling you have when you’ve
lowered your expectations, just because you want something to happen so badly,
you’ll be devastated if it doesn’t? I had waited for months now. The last couple of
days I’d tried to convince myself that it didn't matter if I got in, but I knew that wasn't
true. It was my dream. It proved to be unnecessary. They chose me!
“Mom!” I closed the front door behind me, placed my shoes neatly on their
shelf, and read the small, but important words in the letter over again.
We would like to congratulate Amalie...
I had read it correctly.

The sun was gleaming through the old windows in our hallway down on the
rustic wooden floors. In many homes, dust would show in this lighting, but not here.
“I’m in the kitchen, Amalie.”
I followed the sunbeams along the floor into the kitchen. Mom wore her apron,
as usual, cooking. Not everyone could be so lucky as to have a professional chef for
a mother, but I was, and the house smelled amazing. My mother turned to kiss my
cheek as usual when I returned from school, but stopped midair when she saw the
joy in my eyes.
“What is it, Amalie?” She washed her hands and dried them off on her apron.
The adrenaline coursed through me, and my hands were shaking as she took
the letter from me and intensely studied the writing.
“Amalie?” she said shifting her view to me. “When did this happen?” Mom
teased. “Have you applied without telling me?”
I felt guilty, but I couldn’t help but smile. I usually shared everything with Mom,
no matter what, but this was the exception. I had dreamt of working in graphic design
all my life and the best school in the world was in Porto, Portugal. They gave three
scholarships to foreign students every year, and I had received one of those. Of the
thousands of students who had applied, they chose me.

“I didn’t want to tell you, in case I didn’t get it.” Her smile fell.
“Amalie! You know that I’m proud of you no matter what. You are the best
graphic designer I know.” I was the only one she knew. “No matter what any school
would have said.” She hugged me. “But now, it’s proven by a school, as well.” She
laughed. “And not just any school. The school. Oh, Amalie, I am so happy for you.
We have to celebrate! Come down to the restaurant tonight. I want to spoil you and
tell everyone.”
My mother was never as happy as when she knew I had achieved something I
wanted. She had a unique ability to validate my feelings and encourage me to
express them. If I had done something she thought I should be proud of, I should be
proud and be allowed to show it. And I was proud now.
She didn’t wait for me to respond. “Do you know what this means, Amalie?”
She took off her apron, placed it on the kitchen table, and ran up to the second floor.
I ran after her as I saw her pull down the hatch for the attic stairs. She disappeared
up into the ceiling, and I could hear her moving things around over me.
“This means that you will be the first woman in this family to leave Norway,”
she called through the attic floor. When she appeared in the opening, she had a
suitcase with her. It was an old red suitcase with a white hem along the edges and a
white handle on top.
“Can you place this on the floor?” she asked and lowered it down to me. It was
new, never used, antique and elegant with hard edges. She pushed the ladder up
and closed the hatch before taking the suitcase down to the kitchen table.
“I received this suitcase from my mother when I was going to travel for the first
time.” She dusted off it with her sleeve carefully. “She found out that I’d been offered
a job as a chef at La Chancé in London, and she bought it for me as a gift.”
She opened it. In a small pocket of the lining was a darkened, silver-framed
photograph of her with her mother, my Nana. She picked it up to show me. In the
photo, my mother posed proudly with the suitcase in her hands. Today she was the
spitting image of her mother in that picture with the same high cheekbones, slender
hourglass figure, and light blue eyes. “But I never had the chance to use the suitcase.
I received a much more important gift instead.” She handed me the picture and I
studied the image.
“What did you get?” She was my age, nineteen years old and elegantly
dressed in a white tucked-in shirt and high-waisted skinny jeans. I’d always wished I

looked like her. According to my dad I did, just as a fatter, less elegant version. Mom
was slender, almost boyish. She looked like Grandpa, while I had a full hourglass
figure, just like Nana, with too many curves. I hated them and that was going to
change. I had taken ballet now for one year and could see a difference already. I just
needed Dad to notice.
“I got you, Amalie.” She took my hands in hers. “You are the best gift I could
ever receive, and I am grateful for you every day.”
I knew my mother had given birth to me when she was quite young, but I
hadn’t realized that I had gotten in the way of her life in London. On the one hand,
this made me sad to think about, but at the same time, she recalled this news as if it
had been the best thing to happen to her. At that moment, I loved my Mom and felt
even more grateful for the person she was.
“But what happened to the job?”
“Something in me changed the day I was told I was pregnant with you. The job
in London didn’t matter anymore. None of it did.” She looked at me with pride. “You
are the best thing that ever happened to me.” She closed the suitcase and brushed
off more dust that still lay settled on its lid.
“Now, it’s your turn to have this.”
I looked at it and thought about what she’d said. She had given up a career in
London to have me.
“Was Dad going with you to London?” I asked. I wondered how different
everything could have been if they had left.
“Yes, he got a job at one of those big fancy sports car companies. I can’t
remember the name, but he was very much looking forward to it.”
“So, you’re both kind of working with what you wanted to then, just here
instead.” I thought about all the old used cars, or previously owned, as my father
would call them. We knew he wasn’t happy, and I wondered how different it would
be for him if they’d moved long ago. If I hadn’t gotten in their way.
She smiled, but as she glanced out the window, her eyes told me there was
some part of this story she had left out. “I have Mr. Jensen to thank for that. If he
hadn’t offered me a job at the Bluebird Restaurant, I don’t know what I would have
done.”

Mr. Jensen, my father’s childhood friend, looked more like a blown-up bathing
ball than a man. He had always been nice to me, unlike all the other suit-wearing
men I knew. My mother insisted that he’d saved her. But everyone knew it had been
the other way around. He’d been running the Bluebird to the edge of bankruptcy, and
my mother had turned the place around in only a few weeks. It went from chaos to
the best restaurant in the area. Without her, there would be no restaurant. Everyone
knew it.
“Yes,” I teased. “That was exactly how it happened, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes at me, and I could see the tiniest grin on her face. “I would
never have been offered a part-time job as a chef at any other place at that time.”
She would never take credit for anything. That was one of the many reasons
why everyone loved working with her.
“I can’t wait to tell Dad that I was accepted,” I said.
Mom stopped smiling.
“I think we should let him get used to the idea that you won’t be working for
him first, Amalie. I know you’ve tried to tell him, but he’s very set on you helping him
after you graduate.”
“I haven’t only tried to tell him, Mom. I have said it clearly, several times. He
won’t listen to me!”
I didn’t like working with Dad. He used to get stressed a lot because he didn’t
sell enough cars, but lately, he was just angry at everything. When I tried to help, he
took it as an insult, and still, he told me that I had to work for him. It made no sense.
The books I had from Nana taught me that he only got angry because he was afraid,
but I didn’t know why he would be scared.
Selling cars and making money was his life, not how I wanted to live mine. I
wanted to be creative, to inspire, and reach people on another level through my art.
My dream had just come true, and no matter how much he wanted me to work for
him, he was my father. He had to be happy for me. Then I saw my mother’s eyes.
“I think we’ll wait to tell him, Amalie. Trust me on this, please. We will wait,”
she pleaded. She put the apron back on before she lifted the suitcase down from the
oak table and handed it to me. “You can take this to your room. We can talk more
about it later. Your father will be home soon.”
I looked at her. Something had changed. The joy she had radiated just
minutes ago was gone as if someone had scared it off. She looked utterly troubled.

“Wait,” I said. I ran into the living room to take a picture of Mom, Dad, and me
down from the fireplace. It was old. We didn’t have any recent photos of the three of
us together.
“I want you to come along and help me get settled in at the school in Porto.” I
placed the picture in the suitcase and closed it. Mom turned her back on me to chop
herbs.
“Mom, are you okay?” She turned to me with a concentrated look on her face.
“I’m all right, Amalie.” She wasn’t, though. Her words told me she was, but her
eyes told me differently. She pulled me in for a hug and held me tight. “I’ll miss you,
Amalie.”
I hugged her back and felt her warmth. But something was off. There was
something concerning her that she wasn’t telling me.
“I’ll miss you too, Mom.” I decided to ask more about it later. I carried the
suitcase into my room and pushed it under my bed.
Nana wanted this for me. She had fought for me to travel and move away from
this little town to experience the world for as long as I could remember. Neither she
nor Mom had traveled anywhere. She nursed Grandpa until he died, then Nana
wanted to see the world. One week before her first trip, she was diagnosed with
cancer and she’d been in and out of the hospital since. The doctors forbid her to
travel anywhere.
“Don’t stay here, Amalie. Invest in your life, your interests, your experiences.
Don’t live someone else’s life as I did,” she insisted.
Marriage and kids weren’t what she had dreamt of in life. She loved Mom
more than anything, and me of course, but she’d had big dreams growing up to see
the world. It was Grandpa who’d wanted a family life, so she gave him that. When
she realized that she’d forgotten to fulfill her dreams in the process, she promised
herself never to let that happen to her daughter. But it did.
I think I was about nine years old, and I could still picture it like it was
yesterday when my mother promised me that we would travel. We had dinner, Mom,
Dad, and me. She forgot that we were out of pepper again and sent me down to the
store to get some. When I returned, Dad had gone back to work. She seemed just as
disturbed then as she did today. I wondered if he’d been drinking then, too.

“One day,” she’d said, holding her head in her hands on the kitchen table, “you
and I are going to go, Amalie. We are going to see the world.”
I never understood if she was trying to convince me or mostly herself, but now
I was ready to go.
I was helping her make dinner when the harsh glare of headlights from Dad’s
car lit up the house as he pulled into the driveway. It was raining, and I could hear
thunderclouds closing in.
I didn’t want Mom to feel bad that I was leaving. “I probably need some help
getting settled in,” I said carefully. I set glasses for wine and water on the table in
perfect alignment to the plates. “Could you come with me when I leave?”
She stopped chopping the herbs and turned around with a smile. “I would love
to go with you. I need to know that you’ll be okay.”
The car door thumped closed outside, and her smile fell.
“But for now, let’s not talk about it anymore. We can talk more later when Dad
goes back to work.” She drizzled cilantro over the salad and set the bowl on the
table.
The front door opened and lightning flashed as my father entered the house.
My smile faded, and my pulse quickened. My excitement became fright as Dad
removed his shoes and walked into the dining room. He didn’t look happy.
He sat down at the table and Mom served the food.
“Hello, my darling.” She kissed him on the cheek and placed a big steak in
front of him. It was his favorite dish and typically cheered him up, but not today.
He didn’t look at either of us, so I didn’t bother greeting him, as he wouldn’t
acknowledge it anyways. Her smile faded, too, then. She sat down next to me, and
the scent of him hit me. It was Mr. Skar's whiskey again.
I wondered if I should listen to Mom and wait, but I couldn’t contain my
excitement. I had to tell him.
“Guess what, Dad! I have great news!” Mom jumped and looked fearfully at me.
She shook her head at me, signaling for me to stop, but I wanted to cheer him up.
“I’m moving,” I said, “to Portugal.”
Mom looked down at her lap. Her fingers braided together in a tight grip.
“You are doing what?” He didn’t lift his eyes from the plate.

“I was given a scholarship to a graphic design school in Porto, so I’m moving
there.”
He cleared his throat, straightened his back, and poured more sauce on his
steak. Still not taking his eyes off his plate.
“No, you are not. You will finish school here and come work for me.” He took
a bite of his steak, but wouldn’t look at me.
I watched Mom shake her head again for me to let it be, but I had told him too
many times already that I wouldn’t work for him. I thought about the suitcase in my
room, the used cars, and Nana’s wish for me. I decided that enough was enough.
“No!” I said “I’m moving to Porto. Working for you is not what I want. I can help
you with everything you need before I go, but I am going.”
I was quite pleased for having stood up for myself, until I saw the look on my
mother’s face.
“What?” I followed her stare over the table, fixated on my father.
He pushed a potato back and forth with his fork, not looking up. Then raised
his glass of wine and for every swallow, his eyes grew darker. He’d been angry
before, but not like this. This scared me. My mother’s vein pulsated in her neck. I
could hear her comforting words try to calm him in the background.
“It will be fine, dear. This school is her dream, and we can be so very proud.
Only three people get offered this opportunity. Out of thousands, they chose our
daughter. I’ll go with her when school starts and make sure that everything is fine.
Then I’ll return here, to you,” she said. “I will come back, and then it will be just you
and me, together.”
He put his empty wineglass down, still not taking his eyes off his food, lifted
the meat knife and smashed the blade hard into the table. My eyes went back and
forth between my parents and down to the food on Dad’s plate. Mom had replaced
the meal she was making after I’d told her about Porto, but I hadn’t understood that
she’d made his favorite dish to appease him if I decided to tell him now. It hadn’t
worked. It had gone so much worse than I could have ever imagined. I had never
seen him like this before.
I looked at my mother, her expression sad. I thought about how she had
pleaded with me not to tell him. Trust me, she had said. I remembered all the other
times he’d gone quiet, when he’d played with his food as he did now, and she’d
asked me to go to the store to buy something. She was always quiet, deep in

thought, when I returned, and my father had left. But he was here now. And he was
angry.
“It’s unacceptable,” he said, almost in a whisper. He stood up, pushed his
chair to the side, and without warning, he threw it across the room, so it smashed into
the wall and shattered.
He shouted now. “It is unacceptable!” He punched his hands into the table, so I
jumped up from my chair and froze. He leaned over the table and yelled in my face.
“You are not going anywhere, Amalie!”
I felt his spit hit my face, but I couldn’t move.
“I stayed here because of you!” he continued. “I had to give up my career, my
dreams, because of you! And now you believe you’re entitled to better opportunities
than I had?”
I didn’t understand what he meant. Mom glowered at Dad.
He turned and looked daggers at her. She was the only one still sitting down.
“You don’t mean that, darling. We both agreed on what to do when we knew
about Amalie back then. We both made that decision. Now, our daughter can live the
dream we chose to let go. Isn’t that just incredible?” Her voice was thick.
Desperation emitted from her. She was anxiously trying to make my father see
things differently, but it wasn’t working. He shook his head, almost laughing, and
scowled at me.
“I am the man in this family. I decide, and you will work for me. You will make
my business better, and I will get the respect I deserve in this town!”
I had never seen this level of anger in him before. He was always quiet and
hardly ever spoke his mind. But he terrified me and I was not staying to see more. I
acted as my mother had done, so many times before.
“I think we forgot pepper,” I said carefully. “I’ll run down to the shop to get
some.”
Mom looked at me and understood that I had seen the connection. At that
moment, she realized that I knew what was going on when she sent me to the shop.
Tears ran down her face. I had revealed her secret.
“We can go together, honey.” She wiped away her tears with trembling hands,
stood up, and very calmly pushed both our chairs back in under the table.

Dad stood completely still, staring down at his plate. His hands rolled into fists,
veins pulsated through the skin. His jaw clenched harder together and his breathing
grew faster, louder.
“You will stay here.” His voice shot shivers through my body. He did not raise
his eyes from his plate. “You will not have the opportunity you stole from me.”
Mom almost sang in a quivering voice. “We’re just going for a quick run, to get
some pepper to make the dinner better.”
But I could see the despair in her eyes, hear the fear in her voice, and see her
body trembling. We had to leave. We had to get out of this house as quickly as
possible.
Dad raised his eyes from the plate. He stared at Mom for a long time before he
yelled, “You will both stay here!”
Mom stood firmly. Even with a quivering body, she stood there, her back
straight, standing tall.
“Run,” she whispered, her eyes on Dad. “Run, Amalie!”
I ran towards the door, which seemed like a mile away. Mom came behind me
as soon as she saw me running. We both ran as fast as we could. Behind us, I could
hear my father throw the heavy oak table to the side and come after us.
I tore the door open and looked over my shoulder, hoping to let Mom escape
before me. I met her eyes just as she was pulled back in one strong tug. He had
reached for her hair, pulled her down to the floor, and was dragging her back to the
dining room.
“Run, Amalie!” she screamed.
I couldn’t move. His knee was in her back, pushing her body down with his
entire weight. Her fingers desperately clawed at the carpet I had taken my first steps
on as a child. She screamed as he forced her arms together behind her back. He
grabbed her neck and thrust her face down to muffle the sound. The thump of her
head hitting the carpet made me let go of the door, but I couldn’t move. The light gray
carpet turned red as her nose bled and she screamed through the bloody carpet
fibers.
“Run, Amalie. Run!”
She begged for me to leave her there. I couldn’t. I turned around and threw
myself into Dad’s body to push him off. Mother let out a piercing cry as my body hit
his. It was no use. He didn’t move an inch, his hands still held her arms and her head

locked to the floor. My body was a feather compared to his. His focus never wavered
from her; it was like I wasn’t there at all. As though someone had dragged my father’s
soul out of his body and all that was left was a mad, fuming animal I didn’t know.
There was nothing but hate in his eyes. There was no humanity behind them
anymore. He choked her.
“Let her go! Can’t you see that you’re killing her!” I screamed as loud as I could
as I saw the life in my mother’s eyes slip out of her body while she kicked desperately
to get away.
I threw myself at him again and wrapped my arms around his head to cover
his eyes, nose, and mouth. It worked. He let her go. I heard her gasping for air as he
threw me off and my back hit the hard, wooden floor, so it pushed the air out of me.
I remember two things before everything went dark – I saw my mother
breathing again. And I saw his fist coming towards my eyes.

3.
“Amalie?”
Was that Mr. Jensen’s voice? I heard someone whisper far off in the distance
and carefully opened my eyes. When I blinked, it hurt to move my eyelids, but I
could make him out now. It was Mr. Jensen. I opened my mouth to answer him. My
jaw ached, so I stopped to move my hand up to feel what was wrong. He
disappeared out the door shouting. “She’s awake! Hello? She woke up!”
I had to search for my jawbone underneath my swollen face. Pain shot through
my back as I tried to sit up. I supported myself using my right arm, and knives pierced
through my shoulder. I shifted to my left, but it was no better, so I laid back down. My
feet were asleep, and I turned my hip warily. What had happened to me? The lights
in the room were too bright as I tried to focus my view slowly. I could see a window,
white walls, and something that looked like a sink in the corner. I was in a hospital
room, alone, and I remembered the attack. Panic hit me. I had to find Mom.
I sat up, too fast. The movement made me dizzy, so I held onto the railing of
the hospital bed to support myself. As I slowly lifted my legs out of the bed and my
feet hit the cold linoleum floor, a doctor rushed in with Mr. Jensen who followed
behind out of breath.
“Amalie, I am Dr. Rose.”
I looked up at her. She was calm with kind eyes and, with her hand on my
shoulder, she kept me from getting out of bed. Something about her made me fight
the urge to struggle. She was tall, seemed about forty years old, and her hair was
blonde, like mine.
“I need you to lie back down.” I listened to her as I painfully lowered my back
onto the mattress. I braced myself for terrible news. Was Mom dead? I couldn’t
breathe.
The doctor lifted a stethoscope from her pocket. “We need to make sure that
you’re well enough to get out of bed first,” she said.
I didn’t care about that! “Where’s Mom?” I demanded.
The memory of Dad choking her flashed before me in vivid images and I
desperately needed to know where she was. Mr. Jensen had known Mom from when

they both went to the same kindergarten, and I knew he would have seen her already
if she was here, but he didn’t give away anything to confirm my worst fear, that she
might be dead. I studied his reaction as Dr. Rose replied. I knew his facial expression
would give away any detail the doctor wouldn’t share.
“Your mother is in room 232, just a few doors down, Amalie.” She wore ankle-
length black jeans and a thin wool sweater underneath her white coat. Designer
ballerina shoes matched the outfit. She reminded me of Mom. Elegant and classy.
“How is she?” I said, and wondered how much damage Dad had done after he
punched me out. I shouldn’t have told him about my trip. This was all my fault. My
throat thickened, and all I wanted was to know if Mom was okay. I knew I could take
it, but I really needed to know.
Mr. Jensen’s facial expression changed. My pulse increased. He looked
worried. “You’ve been here for three days. Same as your mother.”
I tried to remember, but it was all a blur. Dr. Rose worked as she spoke,
checking my eyes, testing my blood pressure, and writing on her chart.
“Your mother’s fine physically, considering what she went through.” Her tone
made me uneasy. Mr. Jensen rubbed his nose before moving on to his neck, shifting
his position from left to right. I could tell he was hiding something.
“Physically?” I asked without taking my eyes off him.
“She has a broken rib that will heal nicely, but it will take some time.” This
must have been from when Dad pulled Mom back from the door and threw her to the
ground. Poor Mom. She didn’t deserve this. “And she, just like you, had several
blows to the head that will take time healing, as well,” she explained as if reading a
recipe for scrambled eggs. Images of Dad smashing Mom’s face into the carpet
played out before me. I couldn’t watch it again. There was an unsettling feeling to the
way Dr. Rose explained Mom’s broken condition. She made me feel as if the worst
was yet to come, that she was leaving something out on purpose.
“But?” I turned from Mr. Jensen to look at her. What could be worse than this?
I reminded myself that she was awake, the injuries would heal. “What are you not
telling me?”
The doctor looked at Mr. Jensen who leaned his arm clumsily on the back of a
chair. She turned to me, took my hand and said, “Your mother is fine physically.
Psychologically she’s been through enough of a trauma that she’s sustained a
memory loss due to lacunar amnesia.”

Mr. Jensen nodded behind her. His eyes were sad as he took a step forward.
Dr. Rose stopped him.
“I think we’ll get you in better shape first, Amalie, and then we can talk about
the details later.” She gave me that smile that doctors do. That fake sympathetic
smile showing they have bad news, but are unsure as to whether a patient is strong
enough to handle it.
“Tell me what it means!” I demanded. “I need to know. If you won’t tell me,
then I will ask my mother myself.”
“Amalie, you can’t!” Mr. Jensen said.
The doctor took a deep breath, gathered her medical equipment, and sat down
in the chair beside my bed. “Lacunar amnesia is a partial loss of memory, a gap. It
can be the result of physical injuries like blows to the head, something your mother
has suffered. Or it can be psychological, a trauma.”
I nodded, also something my mother had suffered, I thought, as she continued
to explain. “If a person goes through something horrible, something they can’t cope
with, this gap kicks in as a defense mechanism. It deletes the bad memories so you
can live on without them.”
If my mother needed to erase bad memories, she would have to delete most
of her life with Dad.
She took another deep breath. “The reality is that she has no memory of the
last twenty years.”
Mr. Jensen studied my reaction. He waited for me to put the pieces together.
But I already knew. My mother had erased me from her memory. They both went out
of focus as my mind blurred with racing thoughts of the life Mom and I had had
together. She was my best friend. I shared everything with her. My ups and downs,
my dreams. Even though I loved Nana dearly, Mom was the only one who truly
understood me. Now I was the only one who could relive those memories. And I
couldn’t create new ones. She no longer knew who I was.
I felt a deep sense of urgency for facts and looked at Mr. Jensen for answers.
“What does she think is happening?” I thought about how the world would be
for her now. Fortunately, she’d lived in the same house her entire life. When Mom
had me, Dad moved in with Mom and her parents. A few years later, Nana and
Grandpa moved out, leaving the house to Mom. It was the same house, mainly the
same furniture with a different décor. But what was different was that I now lived

there. A person she no longer knew about. I didn’t exist. It hit me just how much had
changed in the last twenty years. She was just starting her career, and she was
going to London.
“What does she know?” I asked him again.
Mr. Jensen sat down on the bed and took my hand. “We don’t know, Amalie.
She’s told me that she’s met your father, but has only been on two dates with him.
She’s skeptical. She says he seems controlling, superficial, and stresses her out.”
I scowled. Mom was right to feel skeptical. He’d been a ticking bomb ever
since I was born and he’d just blown up. The logical side of me reflected as usual
before giving room to my feelings. I couldn’t understand his reaction. His father had
beaten Dad down for his lack of success every time we met Mr. Skar, as if it were a
game to him. Or maybe just for a lack of anything else to talk about. He’d set a goal
for Dad that he never achieved. Mom, on the other hand, had achieved her goals,
and I had just achieved mine. That would frustrate anyone. But to take it out on the
two people who loved him the most, no logic could excuse that. Dad was supposed
to be happy for us, not feel undermined or threatened. It didn’t make any sense. My
feelings only told me one thing – I hated him. He was a pathetic, scared man, and I
never wanted to see him again.
Mr. Jensen looked out the window. The sun was shining, and birds were
chirping. I couldn’t bear the harsh light, so I looked away. He squeezed my hand.
“She has high hopes to get the job at La Chancé,” he said, “but doesn’t know
that her father passed away. That will come as a shock to her.”
Dr. Rose leaned forward in the chair. “It’s important for her to have as little
psychological strain as possible, Amalie. A trauma isn’t a disease. It’s tension that
builds in a person’s nervous system, and if she can’t remember, she can’t process
and release that tension.” She knitted her eyebrows together, as if recalling a similar
patient. This frightened me. “We’ve previously observed that the patient in some
cases gets angry and defensive because they aren’t able to cope with their new
reality.”
Mr. Jensen jumped in. “She’s thrown me out of her room several times
already. She was scared to begin with when she saw me, couldn’t understand what
I’d done to look so old, but when she understood that twenty years had passed, she
shut down. Now she’s angry and won’t talk.” He sighed. “She needs time to cope.”
He took a step back to let Dr. Rose continue her explanation.

“Further stress could cause your mother to forget even more than she already
has as a way of protecting herself. We wish, of course, that your mother will now trust
her surroundings enough to let her memory come back. Even so, that will be difficult
for her.”
My grip on the cold steel railing of the bed tightened, and my view blurred
even more making me feel faint. I held on tighter to hide it. I couldn’t give her an
excuse to end this conversation. “What can I do?” I was frightened of what the
answer might be.
“The only thing we’ve seen to be helpful in other cases has been for the
patient to be around family and close friends as much as possible.”
I nodded. I loved being around my mother, so that wouldn’t be too difficult.
“It won’t be easy,” she continued. “We cannot let her know that you are her
daughter. She needs to remember you on her terms. If not, it would be like me telling
you that I am your mother. No matter what I said, you wouldn’t believe that.”
Not being able to let her know that I was her daughter made it more difficult. I
struggled to keep my breathing under control so as not to alarm Dr. Rose into
stopping.
“We do have several good examples where the patient suddenly remembers
again after a while.”
I never liked loose explanations. “How long is a while?”
Dr. Rose tilted her head to the side, and I knew she couldn’t say. She didn’t
know.
“Where’s my father?” The thought of him filled me with rage. How could he do
this to Mom, to me?
Mr. Jensen cleared his throat. Dr. Rose stood up from her chair and held her
chart to her chest.
“I need to see to other patients, Amalie, but talk to Mr. Jensen. He has most of
the answers you seek. You can come into my office later when you feel up to it. I’ll
answer all the questions you have then. I’ll tell the police that you need more time.”
I hadn’t noticed them before. Two officers, a man and a woman, were waiting
outside my room. They discussed something, and the woman faced my way. I looked
away when she met my eyes. I didn’t want to talk with them.
“Why are they here?”

Dr. Rose signaled for me to talk with Mr. Jensen before leaving the room,
closing the door behind her. After talking with the two police officers, she briskly
departed down the hallway. They thankfully left, too.
My thoughts were still on my father. It made me furious to think that he beat
my mother and me up, just because he couldn’t handle us achieving our goals and
dreams. I hoped there was some other reason, there had to be. I knew it frustrated
him that I wanted to challenge myself and do better, but that couldn’t be it. I refused
to believe that he’d think like that.
Mr. Jensen fidgeted in his pocket, finally pulling out an envelope. “A man
heard screams as he jogged by your house that night and called the police. He was
the one who found you and your mother alone. I only knew about this attack from
this.” He handed me the envelope.
“Is this from Dad?” I opened it and recognized my father’s signature.
“I found it in my mailbox the morning after and rushed to the hospital. I’ve been
here since, waiting for you to wake up. I haven’t told anyone. I’ll leave that to you to
decide since your mother can’t remember.”
He moved from my bedside to the chair that the doctor had just left, giving me
space to absorb its message.
Jensen
My friend.
I lost it today. I never meant to hurt Celina. I love her. I know it's no excuse, but
it's been hell the last nineteen years. The day Amalie was born, my life ended.
It’s hard for you to understand, since you don't have kids, but they change
everything.
Amalie robbed me of the life I was supposed to have. That life Celina and I
wanted. We were on our way to greatness, and Amalie took that away. She owes me
everything. I gave up everything for her. Without me, she wouldn't be here, and she
had the nerve to refuse to work for me? I gave up London for her! I gave up a dream
life for her. I’ve been stuck in that field of scrap metal for nineteen years because of

her. And this is how she repays me? By rubbing it in my face that she's leaving? Can
you believe it? The ungrateful brat!
I'm not a violent man, you know. I've only hit Celina once before. I was drunk,
and we sorted it out then. Now I know I've lost her for good. I have no reason to stay
here when I can't have her.
By the time you read this, I will have left the country. Celina can sell the cars.
It should cover the debt of the store and maybe leave some change.
Please tell her I'm sorry and take care, my friend. I know I can rely on you.
Hermann
The letter confirmed all my fears about my father. I’d tried so hard to be a
daughter he’d be proud of, but now I knew I never could be because he didn’t want
me to begin with. It made sense to me now. How he never asked about what I was
doing, criticized how I tried to do everything the best way possible. He’d only cared
about himself and I had truly been a burden to him from the day I was born. I decided
then and there not to spend any more energy on him. He wasn’t worth it.
“It’s good to know that he’s gone. I’m sure his father has him safe and sound
in Brazil or some other country where he can hide. I hope I never have to see him
again.” I handed the letter back to Mr. Jensen. He wouldn’t take it.
“You have it, Amalie. I’m sure your mother would like to read it when she
remembers again.” He put his hand on mine and pushed the letter towards me. “He’s
your father, and perhaps you will change your mind one day.”
Mr. Jensen didn’t understand. A father would never do something like he had
done. I might be his blood, but to me, my dad was dead. He never wanted me
anyway.
I dropped the letter down into the bag Mr. Jensen had placed beside the bed
with clothes and toiletries for me. He’d always been a good friend to both Mom and
me. If I were ever going to get married, I wanted someone like him. It scared me to
think about ending up with someone like my father. I decided then and there to avoid
men like that. If I didn’t meet them, I couldn’t marry them.
“Thank you. And thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

“You two are like family to me, Amalie.” He took a deep breath. “Deep down,
I’m afraid to say that I think your mother and I both knew about this dark side of your
father.”
I recalled in horror the times I was sent to the shop for pepper and concluded
that my mother had known more about this dark side than anyone could ever
imagine. But why had she stayed with him?
Mr. Jensen crossed his arms. “I never thought he’d go this far. I am so sorry
that this happened to you, Amalie.” He shook his head. “Do you remember what
could have triggered it?”
A lump in my throat grew as the question sank in. “It was my fault.” My eyes
watered. “Do you remember the scholarship I applied for?”
He nodded.
“Well, I got it.”
“Oh, Amalie. That is wonderful. Congratulations.”
His happiness for me made tears flow down my face. Dad resented me for it,
but here was Mr. Jensen giving me the reaction I’d hoped to receive from my father.
“That’s what he meant in the letter to you. But I wasn’t rubbing it in. I didn’t
know he felt that way.” Mom had known. That’s why she’d warned me to not say
anything yet.
Mr. Jensen wiped my tears and cupped my face with his hands. “It will all be
fine, just wait and see.” He straightened up and dusted off his shirt as if dusting off a
lie. I didn’t believe it either, but I wanted to.
I collected myself and sat up in the hospital bed. “I’d like to see my mother
now.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His voice was careful, and his eyes turned
sad. “She doesn’t know who you are, Amalie.”
“I don’t need to tell her who I am. Perhaps she’ll remember when she sees
me.” I smiled hopefully, but he did not return my smile.

4.
If Mom didn’t know who I was, I didn’t want her to meet a person who hadn’t
showered in three days. The water stung my skin in the places Dad had hit me.
Bruises covered my body in every color of the rainbow. The purple ones hurt the
most, but I needed to get rid of the smell of hospital glued to my skin and hair. It
made me feel sick, weak. I didn’t like it. It reminded me of what had happened, and I
wanted to wash it all off. I wanted to scrub Dad away and every memory I had of him.
The thing that hurt the most as I stood still, veiled by the water, was that I still had a
need for his approval to leave home and move to Porto. It infuriated me to think
about the hold he had over me, and I wanted it gone. Nothing could defend what he’d
done. Nothing in me wanted to accept that I still wanted his approval. I promised
myself to never invite a man like my father into my life again.
I put on the clothes Mr. Jensen had packed for me, a light pink sweater in soft
knitted wool and loose white stretch jeans. Nothing hugged my body, but it still hurt to
wear. I eased my feet into two soft slippers that I found at the bottom of the bag. It
was lovely to raise my feet the few millimeters from the cold hospital floor.
Walking from my room to hers, pain shot up my spine as my hips moved. Dr.
Rose and Mr. Jensen had warned me that Mom wouldn’t remember me, but I had to
see for myself.
I saw her through the window in the door of room 232, a shadow of the woman
I had known, her neck swollen under a neck brace from Dad’s attack. I relived the
memory of him draining her life, choking her, and I felt sick. My scrutiny traveled on
to her chest to where her hands lay folded over her heart. Both of them were covered
in yellow, purple, and blue bruises, the fingertips bandaged. Her nails must have
come off as she clawed to be freed of his choking grip. My body shivered, and I shut
my eyes as I recalled her screams. I shook the memory off, I didn’t want to
remember. I understood my mother’s protective need to forget. In some way, I
wished I could, too.

I opened the door slowly, and she turned her head slightly to look at me. Her
face was purple and blue with stitches over her right eye. The image of Dad crushing
her face into the carpet hit me and stopped me from walking further into her room. At
first, she looked scared. Evaluating me. Then I heard rapid beeping as her pulse
frequency quickened. It had just been a calm and steady beeping sound, but now it
was racing, and her face hardened.
“Who are you?”
My mind went blank. I knew who I was, I knew who she was, but I couldn’t say
that and I hadn’t thought of this being a question she’d ask. Deep down I hoped the
doctor was wrong, that she’d see me and remember everything. But Mom had no
idea. She didn’t wait long for a response as she sat up, alert, in bed.
“I asked you a question. You cannot barge into other patient’s rooms without
permission like this.” She lifted the alarm thread to show me she was serious. “Who
are you and what do you want?”
Her look stabbed my heart. I couldn’t move. She didn’t know who I was, my
own mother. The rock in my life and my best friend looked at me as if I were a
stranger. As if I were dangerous to her.
“Fine.” She pulled the alarm.
Two male nurses stormed past me towards her bed, pushing me to the side.
“Get this girl out of my room,” she commanded before they had time to ask
any questions. She pointed at me. “She isn’t welcome here.” Her eyes were cold and
without any recognition. Her memories of the last twenty years might have
disappeared, but so had she. My mother, as I knew her, was nowhere to be found.
She was not the woman I had known all my life.
The nurses didn’t know who I was either and their harsh looks let me know I
should leave, so I backed myself out of the room, my eyes locked onto her face. I
closed the door behind me. Through the window the monitor showed her pulse beats
slowing down to normal. She stared at the ceiling, folding her hands over her heart
again. I felt so sorry for her. She had to be terrified.
“Amalie?”
Mr. Jensen waited for me in the hallway. I tried to withhold my tears. He
opened his arms, and I threw myself into them and cried. I cried harder than I ever
had before. Where would I live? What would I do?

“It will sort itself out, Amalie.” He stroked my hair. “It’ll be difficult in the
beginning, but it will get better. Just you wait, it will get better.”
I talked into his chest. “This can’t get any better until Mom remembers me
again.”
That night back in my room I listened to the humming of the machines around
me, to nurses and doctors storming past, and the nightly conversations held between
them while they went about their routines. I couldn’t sleep. The ceiling needed a new
paint job, and as I studied its cracks, I thought about what I could do to help Mom.
The doctor had said that the more time I spent with her would increase the chances
of her remembering again. There was only one solution.
The next morning, I walked to Dr. Rose’s office. A matte white vase stood tall
on the edge of her desk, and the room smelled of lilies.
She gestured for me to take a seat in front of her.
“I’m afraid there’s no change from yesterday, Amalie. These things take time.”
My breathing quickened. Tears blocked my vision, but I wiped them away
quickly and concentrated. “There has to be something I can do? I’ll do anything.”
Dr. Rose placed a box of tissues in front of me. “The best way for you to help
your mother is to spend as much time with her as you can. If she feels safe again
with people around her, including you, she might give herself the room she needs to
let her memory come back. But there are no guarantees that this will happen.”
“How long could it take?” I wanted an honest answer, even if I knew that the
doctor couldn’t know.
“I can’t say, Amalie. The time varies a lot from case to case.”
Mr. Jensen knocked on the door. “Good morning,” he said. “Can I join you?”
“Of course,” I said. He sat down in the chair next to me.
“Amalie wanted to know what she could do to help her mother,” Dr. Rose
explained.
His kind eyes made me feel more lighthearted than I had just a moment ago.
“You should do the very thing you were supposed to do all this time. Move to
Portugal, graduate, and follow your dream.” He turned to the doctor. “You see,
Amalie has received a scholarship to one of the leading graphic design schools in the

world, in Porto.” He shook his head and paused. “Continue as you planned, Amalie. I
will not allow this to ruin your future.”
Behind Dr. Rose was a picture of her with a sand-colored terrier. The dog had
a birthday hat on and looked ecstatic. It reminded me of the picture of my mom and
grandmother with the suitcase she’d given me. They had the same expression in
their eyes as the doctor did here, full of love and happiness.
She noticed me looking. “She’s my everything,” she said.
I nodded. So was Mom to me.
I couldn’t leave. The scholarship had meant everything to me, but with Mom
sick, it didn’t matter. It was the reason that this had happened. If I’d kept my mouth
shut, or never applied, she would have been fine now.
There was a knock on the door. Dr. Rose let the two police officers in and
turned to me.
“The police came by earlier to talk to you, and I mentioned that you felt better
now.”
I didn’t want to talk about what happened, I wanted to forget, but it was better
to get it over with, since they were hovering. The policewoman introduced herself as
Clara and led the way to another small office. She was short and muscular, her arms
toned through her long sleeves. The man called himself Robert. He was tall and
pudgy with rimless eyeglasses. I felt his gaze on me and it somehow made me
anxious. As we sat down at the table, I noticed Robert’s chair was missing the arm
on the left side. Clara motioned for him to change seats, but he ignored her. My
palms got sweaty, and I told them everything I wanted them to know. Mr. Jensen said
it was up to me and I didn’t want to see Dad ever again, so I left him out. Clara
listened, and Robert wrote down every word precisely as I said them. It made me
conscious of my choice of words.
“So you didn’t see who did this to you and your mother?” Robert examined me
over his glasses. I thought he was trying to intimidate me. It worked.
Clara had been standing until now but sat down opposite me. “You look
nervous, but you don’t have to be. We want to find the man who did this to you.”
“Thank you. I just don’t feel so well.” I felt fine in fact, but it seemed like a good
excuse to get away from their scrutiny.
“We understand. It’s just— “Clara paused. “It’s just that, since your mother
doesn’t remember anything, we need your story to know where to start looking.”

“I understand, but I’ve told you what I remember. Can I go now?”
“Yes,” Robert said. He closed his notebook. “We’re done.”
“There is one more thing,” Clara said. “The man that called us, that found you
and your mother, is here. His name is William, if you want to talk with him.”
Robert walked to the door to let me out, but paused with it half opened,
blocking my exit. I didn’t like him. Was this William a suspect? I hoped not. He’d
probably saved our lives and I wondered if he’d seen Dad or knew what happened
after I had passed out.
“He’s been here every day to see that you’re okay,” Clara continued.
They had already said they needed help to know where to look, but I couldn’t
stand the silence in the room now with Robert impeding my exit. “Do you have any
suspects?”
He glanced down at me before he lifted his head high. “We will.” I wished he’d
let me leave.
“If you remember anything else…” Clara encouraged, and Robert finally
stepped to the side to let me pass. I positioned myself in the opening so he couldn’t
block me again and turned to her.
“Sure.” I hoped I never had to see them again, especially Robert.
I needed to find William to know what he knew, and thank him for calling the
ambulance.
On my way back to the room, I passed the waiting area to look for him. There
was only one person there. A handsome man, a few years older than me, leaning
forward, his elbows on his knees with a cup of coffee between his hands. It had to be
him. He stared into space, not aware of me watching him.
“Hi.” Did he save my life, I thought?
He stood up, surprised to see me. He hadn’t heard me walk in. Quiet slippers.
“Hi.” He put his coffee down and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “How are
you? Are you and your mother okay?”
I shook my head. “I’m all right. My mom not so much.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked like a typical city guy, a snob. Tight red pants, light blue
shirt with rolled-up sleeves, fit, and blond hair perfectly parted to one side. “I wish I’d
gotten to you sooner, but as I told the police, all I saw was your mom and you and
then I called the ambulance.”

I was glad William hadn’t seen Dad. I didn’t want him to get away, but I
couldn’t handle a trial or having to deal with him. If he was gone, that was the best for
now.
All the excitement made me dizzy and I needed to rest. “I just wanted to thank
you for finding us. For saving our lives.” I felt silly. I wasn’t able to properly express
my gratitude. I was too focused on controlling my balance.
“Your face is green. I think you should lie down. Can I help you to your room?”
It was sweet of him to offer, but I wanted to be alone. “I can manage.”
“Can I come by tomorrow then? See if you feel better?”
I felt like arguing. Right now, though, my preference was solitude over
company, and sleep above that. “Sure.”
The last thing I remembered before falling asleep was the moon outside my
window and thoughts of William. The police told me he’d been running and heard
Mom scream. It amazed me how his instinct to investigate had changed the course of
our lives. He could have shrugged it off and kept running, but he didn’t. Because of
him, we were alive.
When I woke up, I knew what I had to do. I walked into Dr. Rose’s office to find
her there with Mr. Jensen.
I looked at him. “Can you give me a job at the Bluebird?”
“No, Amalie, I won’t allow this,” he answered firmly. “I will not enable you to
throw away this opportunity. Your mother would never approve.”
“It’s not up to Mom. Can you give me a job at the Bluebird?” I insisted and
explained my string of thoughts. “The deadline for me to give my final answer to the
school is in two months. I can work there until she gets better.”
His eyes softened. “You are so much like your mother.” He smiled. “Of course,
I can give you a job at the Bluebird. But you must promise me to go as soon as she
remembers again.”
“I promise. Thank you.”
The doctor leaned towards us over her desk.
“Amalie, you must remember that you cannot tell her who you are. She has to
remember it for herself.”
“I know.” I turned around and looked in the direction of room 232 where my
mother was and then back to the doctor. “I don’t know that woman anyways.” The

person I’d met there yesterday was not someone I recognized. That was not my
mother.
“It will sort itself out,” Mr. Jensen comforted. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
I trusted him and felt my worries lessen. I had a plan. I had two months in the
summer to work at the restaurant until she remembered me. It would be all right. All I
knew was that I would do everything I could and hope that it would be enough.

5.
“Ready?” Mr. Jensen hovered in the door to my room, one coffee in each
hand. “We can still stay for lunch.”
I shook my head. Five days in the hospital was more than enough, especially
after my talk with the police yesterday. I was ready to go.
It was cloudy outside, there was pressure in the air, moisture blurred my view
out the window, and I wanted to get out before the rain came. It was a typical strange
Norwegian spring that was acting as if it were fall. Dr. Rose had cleared me to go
home an hour ago, to the house I no longer lived in. I dreaded the thought of packing
my existence into boxes, but to help Mom, I had to. Mr. Jensen had kindly welcomed
me to stay with him until I could move back, or find an apartment. He only had one
bathroom, and I knew I’d need space to be alone, so I’d already started looking for a
place, but because of the tourist season, finding something to rent would be
impossible as prices skyrocketed in the summer.
I changed from slippers into a pair of ballerinas he’d packed for me. I wanted
to leave, not deal with anyone or anything, but I knew I had to. It annoyed me. Even
my shoes frustrated me, as they didn’t match my outfit, something I really shouldn’t
have cared about at that moment. This would be a long day, and a part of me briefly
wished that I’d been unconscious for longer. It seemed easier to sleep my way
through this and wake up when everything was back to normal.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said. But I wasn’t ready at all. I wanted to bury my
head in a pillow and never look up. “It’s just for a few weeks after all.” That belief was
my lifeboat at the moment. I’d drown without it.
I threw the bag over my shoulder. The strap dug into my bruises.
“Do you want to say anything to your mother before we leave?”
I just wanted to get out of there. “I don’t want to see anyone,” I answered.
Mr. Jensen handed me one of the cups of coffee. It tasted old, the bag hurt,
and the only upside was that the lights in the hallway didn’t blind me anymore.
The elevator took forever going down the three floors to the lobby, and as the
doors opened, William’s cologne crept in. I’d forgotten that he was going to stop by
today.

“Are you leaving already?” His smile was dazzling white. Two receptionists
gawked at him from behind, and I had to admit that he looked better than yesterday,
wearing a casual V-necked sweater and jeans. “Let me help you.” He reached for my
bag, but I stepped back into the elevator. I didn’t want help. He retracted his hand
and stuck it in his pocket. The doors were closing, and Mr. Jensen stuck his foot out
to keep them open.
“I just want to leave,” I said. My behavior didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t
care if I hurt William’s feelings. I wanted this day to end.
Mr. Jensen moved past him, signaling for me to step out of the elevator. “I’ll
get the car,” he said.
William stepped toward me, gently, as if approaching a scared bird. “How
about we swap. You take these.” He held a bouquet of white roses out in front of me.
I’d been too focused on how to get through the coming weeks to see the flowers.
“And I’ll take the bag that’s gnawing into your bruises.” He’d found me, lying on the
floor and knew of course that my back hurt. I immediately felt bad for the way I had
just behaved. He had tried to help, and I should have accepted it.
I lifted the bag over my head. Pain shot through my neck as my arms raised,
but I didn’t let it show on my face. “Thanks.” I accepted the flowers. There was no
card, but the roses were beautiful.
He followed me to the electric car out front where Mr. Jensen stood and
chuckled. “Nice flowers.”
Rub it in, I thought. William placed my bag in the back seat. I clung to the roof
handle and lowered myself slowly into the front passenger seat, wishing for it to be
soft, but it wasn’t, and I clenched my teeth as I let my full body weight fall down.
Mr. Jensen turned to him. “She’ll be working at the Bluebird if you’d like to
check up on her.”
I wished Mr. Jensen would butt out. This was none of his business.
William shook his hand and closed the back door. I debated for a second how
I could buckle myself in, without actually twisting in any way. Mr. Jensen lowered my
window, and William leaned forward, resting on the windowsill.
“Feel better, Amalie. I’ll see you at the Bluebird.”
I felt ambushed, but smiled as best I could.
“Thanks. For the flowers.” I hoped Mr. Jensen would drive off, but the car
didn’t move an inch. Why wasn’t he going? “And thanks for calling the ambulance.”

At this point, I didn’t care about the pain, so I turned slightly to get a hold of the seat
belt strap even though this made my shoulder feel as though it was on fire, then
buckled myself in.
Finally, Mr. Jensen drove off, and I could see William disappear behind us as
the distance grew. I didn’t know what he wanted, and I didn’t care, as long as he
didn’t make me into his charity case.
Mr. Jensen continued his giggling as he drove me home. “That man likes you
a lot.”
I didn’t care. I had enough to think about, and I wasn’t about to add a man into
the chaos on top of everything else. William was out of my league anyway. He was
just trying to be nice.
“If I’m going to stay with you, you can’t do stuff like that.”
Mr. Jensen stopped giggling. “You need a friend other than me, Amalie.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. I’d kept to myself most of my life. I did
have friends that would invite me to parties, but I just never wanted to go. Mom would
cover for me, tell them I had some family matter or something I had to attend. They
would always rant on about how strict she was about school, too, but I loved her for
it. She was the one I’d talk to about this, or Nana. But Nana was sick, and I didn’t
want to bother her. She’d have enough on her plate with Mom now anyway. William
already knew about it, and if I put my frustrations aside, he seemed very kind.
“No more, though. Matchmaking ends with him.”
“Promise.”
I didn’t know what to expect as we closed in on the house. Would there be

crime scene tape from the police? Maybe the door was locked. I wanted to search
my bag for the key, but the thought of stretching back to get it put me off the idea. My
heart beat faster as we turned into the driveway and parked in front of the house.
I turned to open the seat belt buckle, my shoulder burned again, and Mr.
Jensen noticed my expression.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
“I can do it. You can wait here, or pick me up later.”
I didn’t want his help. I wanted to manage on my own. That was after all how
my life would be from now on, and I wanted to get used to it as fast as possible. Like

ripping off a band-aid. He opened my door and held out his arm for me to hold on to.
I couldn’t leave him hanging, so I took it, and hoisted myself out as if in slow motion.
My spine felt like shattered glass, cutting me from the inside as I straightened up, one
vertebra at a time. I suppressed the pain and put on a smile to thank him. In the car
window my reflection looked back at me and what I thought was a smile looked more
like I was going to throw up, but he seemed happy. I walked ahead of him as he
closed the car door. He quickly caught up with me, and I surrendered to his helping
arm yet again.
The third step creaked, and it still smelled like home with Mom’s lavender
bushes blossoming on each side of the front door. I turned the knob and pushed the
door open, glad it wasn’t locked. I couldn’t make myself walk inside, even though the
scent of the hallway, the old wood, and its history hit me. It no longer seemed like my
home. It had changed. It felt haunted. I looked to Mr. Jensen who signaled for me to
go first. I didn’t bother taking my shoes off. Dad wasn’t here to correct me anyway.
Chills ran through me as I recalled that no one knew where he was. He could have
been here.
“You’re safe with me,” Mr. Jensen said. “I’ve now locked the front door, and he
is nowhere to be seen.” I looked up the stairs. He could be hiding there, I thought
again. I felt terrified, yet I wanted him to walk down those stairs, so I could hit him as
hard as I could. My back hurt again with the thought, and I looked to Mr. Jensen. He
nodded. “I’ll take a look upstairs to make sure.”
Dad wasn’t here, but the evidence of the attack was. The dining room looked
like a crime scene, although any sign of the police investigation had been removed.
The events of that night played out before me as I stood there, horrified by the
amount of blood in the carpet, the broken chair by the wall, and the tilted table.
I jumped back when Mr. Jensen placed his hand gently on my shoulder.
“I was going to ask how you were doing,” he said. “But you’re shaken up, I can
tell.”
Tears flooded my eyes. I wiped them off, they wouldn’t help. Where Mom
would have been the strong one before, I had to take over now and be the example
to follow. In the kitchen, the remains of the steak dinner reeked, and flies hovered
around the food. I waved them off and scraped it all into a plastic bag, closed it, and
threw it out on the front steps.
“Let’s get this done.”

Mr. Jensen didn’t ask any questions but got to work. I felt grateful.
We packed everything that could remind Mom of me into cardboard boxes Mr.
Jensen had brought. Pictures, drawings I’d made, some framed, some stuck to the
refrigerator door, I packaged it all away. I painted over the wall where we’d marked
my height, year after year as I grew up. For every year I painted over, I felt a part of
me disappear. Everything had to go to keep her stress levels as low as possible for
when she came home from the hospital. The only thing that kept me from breaking
down, as we neatly stacked my life into boxes, was the thought of how difficult it
would be for her to see herself with strangers on the wall. It would scare anyone. We
struggled to lift the oak table back on all fours and quickly gave up scrubbing the
carpet clean. It would have to come with us. We took the broken chair to Mr.
Jensen’s house as wood for the fire.
“I need to keep my mind off this,” I said. We lifted the last box into the car.
“Can I start work at the Bluebird tomorrow?”
I took one last look at what had been my home for the last nineteen years. It
felt empty, as did I.
Mr. Jensen started the car. All I could hear was the sound of tires digging into
the gravel as the car rolled down towards the main road.
“I think that’s a good idea. I’ve already explained to your mother that La
Chancé is gone and that she works at the Bluebird now. I tried to explain more, but
she wouldn’t hear it.” He paused. ”You know, I knew Celina before she had you, and
she might not be as pleasant as you remember her to be.”
I’d seen and felt that in the hospital. “I’ll manage.”
His face turned serious, and he stopped the car on the side of the road, then
turned to me. “Her values were entirely different, Amalie. I need you to be prepared
to meet a person who only cares about career, money, and looking good according
to other people’s views of her.” He sat back in his seat and looked out the window.
“She was an insecure woman desperate to make a name for herself.”
I’d never heard him speak of anyone this way before, so this had to be
sincere. I thought of Mrs. Skar, and suddenly it made sense to me, why Mom had
ever dated Dad. They had the same aspirations, and she must have loved his
parents back then. Shivers went through me, not because of my injuries, but with the
thought of being around a person like Mrs. Skar all day, trying to make her love me. I
couldn’t see that love was a feeling she was actually capable of.

“Okay, I’ll be ready.” I would at least try to be.
He turned the wheel and drove the car back onto the road towards his home. I
traced a drop of rain climbing across the window with my finger. Pine trees raced by
outside. An overwhelming feeling of sadness struck me as the single drop broke up
into several stripes and I realized that my life as I knew it would never be the same
again.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I wanted to shut the world out, but light sieved in
through blue curtains covered in a pattern of white lighthouses, a fabric too thin to
keep the room dark in the bright Norwegian summer nights. I worried about Mom and
how I’d do as a waitress. At five o’clock I walked downstairs to find Mr. Jensen at the
kitchen table. I’d hoped he’d be asleep so I wouldn’t disturb him, but he seemed
genuinely pleased to see me. His kitchen was modern, like the rest of the house,
sleek and completely different to what ours was. It didn’t fit his personality, though.
He was warm, but all the colors here were cold; he was round, the surfaces hard with
sharp edges. He served a breakfast of French toast made from a white loaf that he
sprinkled with sugar, no vegetables. Mom would have been horrified, but I ate it to
please him.
When we’d finished eating, Mr. Jensen offered me a ride to the restaurant, but
it was only a fifteen minutes’ walk from his house, so I went by foot. I needed the time
alone.
It was quiet, still too early in the morning for our little summer town to be
awake. Small waves knocked at the jetty where the bulk of the restaurant's outdoor
seating was, and seagulls soared overhead. I couldn’t see the sun yet, but as was
usual this time of year, it never truly set.
Mr. Jensen walked towards me with a box full of shrimp from the fishing boats.
I followed him into the dreaded first day at the Bluebird, trying to convince myself that
it would be a good experience. It would only be for a few weeks. I’d be okay.
Most of the staff were new this year, so Mr. Jensen and I agreed not to tell
anyone about Mom and her situation. It would lessen the possibility of someone
slipping and indicating that I was her daughter, or that she’d worked there for twenty
years already.
“You know the summer menu,” he said.

I read through it, and I knew every detail. I had eaten and discussed all these
dishes with Mom during the last several months, so that gave me an advantage. The
only employee that I knew, other than Mr. Jensen, was Mom’s friend and fellow chef,
Ms. Berg, a skilled short and round lady with glasses that lay far down her nose, who
organized the pots and pans to her liking. I followed Mr. Jensen into the kitchen
where she was eagerly waiting to inspect today’s catch. He placed the shrimp on the
countertop, much to Ms. Berg’s pleasure. She dived into the box, studying several
thoroughly. I hid behind him because I didn’t want her sympathy. But when she finally
saw me standing there, she put the shrimp back, cleaned her hands, and walked
over to me, not saying a word before she hugged me tightly. I fought my feelings
since I didn’t want to cry at work.
“How are you, Amalie?” Ms. Berg looked inquiringly at me over the tops of her
glasses.
I was horrible, I thought, and my life sucks.
“I’m good,” is what I actually said. Nobody likes a complainer. Anyone would
know I was only trying to be polite anyways.
“You’re just like your Mom,” she said. “Just you wait, she’ll be back to her old
self in a few days.” She couldn’t possibly know that, though, and I knew she was only
trying to be supportive.
Ms. Berg handed me a serving apron and shushed us out of the kitchen. “I
need to cook these. We’re having ceviche today, and you need other things to think
about so we can lighten that mood of yours.” She was right. I needed to make more
of an effort.
I got the hang of all the restaurant routines and work after a few days. The
other waiters taught me to stack plates and glasses. A few had wondered how I knew
the menu so well, but I’d excused it by saying that I’d used the first day to study it
hard.
The Bluebird’s clientele were mainly wealthy city people. They competed to
appear successful, and it meant leaving generous tips for me, unlike the clientele at
the nearby restaurants that didn’t have the same standing with the city tourists. The
money came in handy, and I saved everything for books. When I wasn’t at work, I
read to prepare for school and Portugal by learning Portuguese, or I at least tried to.
It gave me hope.

Ladies wore white summer dresses and the men bright polo T-shirts. Neon
pink and screaming red seemed to be this year's colors, unlike last year's turquoise
variants. All the men wanted to stand out, which again just made everyone look the
same.
The ladies also looked alike. Brunettes dyed blonde, fit, elegant and careful in
their movements. They fascinated me, the way they moved as if everything was
brittle and had to be treated with care. That everything they touched could be ruined
if they breathed wrong.
The other three restaurants were, for the most part, empty during the
summer, known for bad fried food with no nutrients. Only a few foreign tourists were
tempted by posters with pictures advertising french fries with all meals in the other
restaurants. Some flocked to the Bluebird with the news that we served shrimp the
Norwegian way. Others chose the neighboring restaurants because of it.
Peeling the shrimp was a tradition here. Every table would get a big bowl of
cooked shrimp to peel which they would add to their bread with any topping they
chose. Hardly anyone had the same preference for toppings, or if they went under or
on top of the shrimp on the bread. Mayonnaise, finely chopped purple onion, salt and
pepper, lemons and dill were all placed on the table so each person could serve
themselves as they made their own shrimp sandwich. It made the atmosphere less
uptight even with the white linen and champagne glasses. No one could be too
haughty with their hands full of shrimp shells. You had to let loose, and I loved
watching the clientele ease down from their high horses and compete on who peeled
the fastest, who had the best technique. Some even compared how neatly they
stacked the shells on their plates in order to flaunt their system, while others just
chucked them in the bowl for discarded shells on the table.
Three weeks later, while I was at work one morning, my phone rang. I
recognized the number. It was Dr. Rose. I answered her immediately.
“Is Mom all right?”
“Hi, Amalie. I am sorry to say that she still can’t remember, but she is well
enough for me to release her. She’s going home today.”
I froze and felt sick with adrenaline. I’d been preparing for this day, but now
that it was here, I didn’t feel ready at all.

“Should I be there?” Although I couldn’t, I realized, because she didn’t know
who I was. “How do we do this?” I leaned up against a wall inside the restaurant. The
weather was sunny so that no one would sit inside. Except for one elderly man who
was staring at me, waiting to be served. I knew I should prioritize him, but I couldn’t.
This phone call was more important to me than his table.
“Dr. Rose, can you hold on just a second?” I said.
The man started talking to me, but I rushed out to find Josefine, another
waitress, and dragged her inside to leave me free to speak with Dr. Rose. The
customer wasn’t happy. To avoid another situation like this, I walked out into the
grass field behind the restaurant. I used to play by the big oak tree standing tall in the
middle of the field as a kid. I continued the conversation with Dr. Rose as I walked to
it now.
“I wanted your permission to ask Mr. Jensen to get her,” she continued. I knew
it was the smart thing to do. Mom knew him, and he would gladly do it. But it still hurt
to know that Mom would only reject me.
“He’s working today, so I’ll tell him. When should he come?”
She cleared her throat. “Now would be good. She is quite determined not to
stay here any longer.” I could just imagine how eager Mom was to leave now that
she’d made up her mind to…
Mr. Jensen drove to the hospital only ten minutes after I spoke with Dr. Rose
and promised me he’d call as soon as he’d dropped her off at home. I counted the
minutes. I’d been so worried about Mom, but he’d told me before he left not to be.
“Worry more about yourself since being around her will be difficult for you,
Amalie.” When he finally called about three hours later, he was in his car. She’d
scanned the house, commented that it seemed unkempt, and asked to go straight to
work. According to Mr. Jensen, work had been her highest priority twenty years ago.
“To give you some time, I bluffed about a meeting that I had to attend so I
could only drive her to the Bluebird afterwards, in about one hour.”
I cringed and my lungs felt tight. “Thanks. I’ll be by the oak tree. I need some
time alone before she gets here.”
I climbed way up onto a thick branch and leaned my back against the tree
trunk. It was too high and I felt dizzy, so I climbed down to a lower branch nearer to
the ground and lifted my head to the sky.

Two butterflies danced around each other, both black on the bottom, with clear
blue wings on top, but their wings didn’t beat like butterflies I’d seen before. A simple
wing stroke gave them enough uplift to float through the air. It calmed me. My
shoulders loosened up and my shallow breath deepened. How lucky they were. They
could hover around, fly in any direction they chose. Their wings lit up in the most
beautiful ice blue, a bright, luminous color. I sent the two butterflies silent thanks for
giving me peace and presence before a meeting I dreaded. I couldn’t do anything
about it. I had to face Mom as a stranger, and I would do my best to make it pleasant.
Then out of nowhere a bird dived from the sky and swallowed one of the
butterflies whole. I was shocked. Something so beautiful, suddenly gone. The dance
was over. The remaining butterfly stopped midair before it fluttered onto the tree. It
closed its beautiful wings and the black underside made it invisible against the bark.
The bird scanned around to find it, too. I could imagine the terror in this little creature
who desperately sought a way out. Away from here to safety.
“Hey, again,” a voice behind me called. It was William. Far behind him Mr.
Jensen entered the restaurant, Mom on his heels.

6.
“Hi.” William had the worst timing. “I brought you a cup of coffee.”
I accepted the cup, and he climbed up onto my branch. It surprised me how
easily he moved, wearing tight red pants.
“Mr. Jensen told me you’d be here. It was a good excuse for me to get away.
My family has had a few glasses of wine, and they’re now telling the same stories
everyone’s heard a million times before.”
I welcomed the distraction. “What kind of stories?”
“Just nonsense,” he said. “They live in the past. They forget that the world’s
moved on while they’ve stood still.” He took a sip of coffee and flashed his pearly
white teeth.
I didn’t know anything about him, but I needed him to keep on talking. It would
keep my mind off Mom. I wasn’t ready to meet her.
“You live here?”
He sipped his coffee again. “I've just moved back.”
The bird had given up the hunt for butterfly number two and flown away. I
could see the blue hues from its newly outstretched wings between the leaves. It
showed off its most beautiful side before it flew off. I wondered if butterflies
remembered far back in time, or if it had already forgotten what had just happened. I
chose to believe that it forgot.
William continued. “I lived here with my family until I was fifteen. Then I moved
to Oslo to study and for success.”
I hated that word. He hung his legs down on each side of the branch. It was
then that I noticed his shoes. Italian, pointed, and brand new. Something about him
reminded me of my dad. It scared me.
“So you're successful enough now?” I knew that Dad wasn’t and I couldn’t
stand being around anyone who reminded me of him and his priorities.
He pulled his hand through his newly cut blond hair and smiled obliquely. “I
can’t complain.”

He provoked me, and all the hatred I had towards my father came rushing in
William’s direction. I decided to go. I didn’t want to be around him anymore. He may
have saved my life, but it could have been anyone who called the ambulance that
day.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said. I shot down the rest.
“Are you going?”
“Yeah, my break is over.” I’d rather face Mom than talk more with this snob.
I walked towards the restaurant. Mom stood in the door, watching me. I’d
never seen her wear jewelry before, or this much makeup. She reminded me of a
younger Mrs. Skar and it didn’t fit her.
“Are you employed here?”
Her question didn’t come as a surprise, but it still hurt. I could see she
recognized me, but couldn’t place me. It was probably from when I visited her at the
hospital and she’d thrown me out, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
“Yes, Celina.”
She took a step forward, and I felt the heat from her breath. She tried to
intimidate me, but it didn’t work. I withheld a laugh. Nana used to make fun of people
who acted like this. “They’re just scared,” she’d say. “If not, they wouldn’t have a
need to try to control others.” Mom didn’t look scared. She looked strict and
detached. But I trusted Nana, and it made it easier for me to stay calm with her words
in mind.
“As long as you work here, you will refer to me as Mrs. Vogt!”
Wonderful, I thought. Mr. Jensen was right. This would be hard. I swallowed.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Mrs. Vogt.” It pained me to hear myself say the words out
loud. I tried to pass her to get back to work. I couldn’t talk to my mom anymore like
this. I’d known it would be difficult, but this broke me. I had to save face. I wouldn’t let
her see me cry.
William came up behind me. Mom hadn’t seen him yet.
“It was my fault,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He stood next to me. I didn’t know what
he had apologized for, but it seemed to work.
She looked only to him now, and responded in a higher pitch, obviously
embarrassed that he’d observed her behavior.

“Don’t worry about it.” She looked him up and down, and her smile grew when
she got to his shoes. Did she just become happy from connecting him to money?
She really was a different person. “No harm done.”
I couldn’t help but feel grateful, though. William stepped towards Mom, or Mrs.
Vogt, as she insisted I call her. It felt like daggers in my stomach to know I had to
refer to her in the same way that she’d always hated me referring to Mr. and Mrs.
Skar.
He put his arm on her back, gently pushed her away from me and around to
the outside and the front of the restaurant. “Would you join our table? I know my dad
wants to brag about the food.”
She beamed and went along with him. I walked into the kitchen to put on my
apron. Maybe he wasn’t that bad after all.
In the kitchen Ms. Berg rinsed apples at a speed even my Mom couldn’t
match. “Did you meet Mrs. Vogt yet?” she said. She’d received the same message,
not to call her Celina.
I put on my apron. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “She’s quite…” she paused, “different.”
I laughed. I didn’t know what else to do. Different would not have been the
word I would use to describe her, but it worked.
Out through the window on the jetty, I could see William introduce Mrs. Vogt to
the rest of his family. There was a man in his sixties at the end of the table with a
yellow party hat on his head, which had to be his father. He kissed her hand and she
gleamed from the attention. I walked out, William lit up when he saw me, and I
couldn’t help but feel better. It seemed I liked the attention, too. As much as I would
have loved to eavesdrop, there’d been enough drama for one day. New customers
entered, and I showed them to their table.
It was my turn today to close the restaurant, and as I locked the door behind
me that evening, there he was, sitting at a table alone. All the guests had gone, but
William was still here.
“What are you doing here?” I gestured jokingly for him to shoo off.

“Waiting for you.” He ran his fingers through his thick hair. “I wanted to
apologize. I must have seemed a bit sleazy earlier.” He cleared his throat, both
hands in his pockets. “By the oak tree.” I didn’t follow. “When I said, I’m successful
enough.”
“I know you’re not sleazy, but you’re right, you weren’t exactly charming.”
He rolled his eyes teasingly. “I’m not a bad guy.”
“No?”
“No. I might have that look.” William pointed at his red pants. “But, I’m not.”
I laughed. He seemed thrilled by my response.
“Can I buy you dinner, to try to mend your impression of me?”
I wanted to go home. Food was not on my mind right now. I walked over to
him and signaled for him to get up from the chair. “No, thank you.”
He got up, I stacked the chair on top of the rest, and chained them together. I
could have dinner with him, just not now. I didn’t know him, and the thought of
conversation running dry left me not wanting to be stuck to the confinements of a
table with him.
“Good night, William.”
“Tomorrow then?” He was relentless.
“No,” I said. I had enough on my mind, and my only plan for the following
nights was to cry myself to sleep. “Good night, William.”
He chuckled, and I could see that even though I had said no, he heard maybe.
It made me happy and annoyed at the same time. Deep down, I liked having him
around. I wanted to appear strong and didn’t know if I could hold onto the facade for
too long with him.
The next day, I took my lunch break by the oak tree again, deciding it would be
my regular spot. I needed the space from Mom. Being around her drove me crazy.
William stopped by, again with coffee, and we talked until my break was up. He
continued to bring me coffee for the next several weeks, while every evening he
would wait for me to finish.
The summer passed and my deadline was closing in. In only one week, I had
to choose to give up on Portugal, the scholarship and my dream life, or Mom. I

wanted to talk to William about it. I was used to him meeting me in my lunch breaks
by now, but today he didn’t show. I missed him here next to me on the branch. I
wondered if he’d given up on me, and if he had, I understood. I was in no place to be
dating anyone.
A few days went by and my deadline for mailing my response to the school
was tomorrow at four o’clock in the afternoon. He was still a no-show at lunch. I
worried about him, but when I closed up that night at two o’clock, I felt relieved to see
that he was waiting for me on the restaurant deck again.
“You can’t refuse a free dinner forever,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he tried to
convince himself or me.
Apparently, he didn’t know me. I had my mother’s stubbornness. “Of course I
can.” If it were a challenge, I’d win it, but this was a challenge I didn’t want to win.
“Nobody eats dinner at two at night anyway.”
He shrugged. “We can plan for tomorrow.”
He was sweet and polite, and everyone at the restaurant loved him. The sneak
even brought flowers to Ms. Berg, so now he got the coffee for free when Mom
wasn’t around. He charmed everyone. Even Mom. And even me, although I didn’t
want him to.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Can I walk you home then?” He’d asked me this before, but I had never let
him. The warm summer air had started to make way for a cooler fall, but it was still
bright outside. I wasn’t tired, and I needed to talk to someone. Mr. Jensen had been
traveling, and my school deadline was only one day away. I didn’t know what to do.
“Okay. You can walk me home. But only if we get a hot cup of tea in the park
on the way back.” Now that it was night, the day’s condensation lingered in the cool
air, and covered every surface.
“Perfect.” He jumped up from his chair. “It’s cold sitting here.” He stacked it
himself this time. It made me happy not to have to do it. He could clean up after
himself. On my way out of the restaurant, I dragged my hand up the deck railing to
collect enough water to wash the dust off my hands.
We walked up the narrow main street. On each side were small white painted
wooden houses with newly-cut gardens facing the road. Nothing ever happened
here. We were a small community, and gossip spread like wildfire. Or, faster if

possible. It was bad enough that everyone knew we had lunch together every day. If
anyone saw us now, the whole town would know about it tomorrow.
I wanted to break the silence. “Why did you move back?” We usually only
spoke of his days in the sun with friends. They were all here for the summer, just as
he’d been for years, and I liked how he’d ditch them for lunch with me by the oak
tree. I could feel his presence next to me. He seemed calm, but a gut feeling told me
that he wasn’t.
“I'm at the right age to settle down, and I started a new job here at the bank
last Monday.” That explained why he didn’t show, and I felt relieved. He was only
twenty-four, so the whole settling down thing had to be a joke, but I went along with
it.
“And the reason you wait for me every night is that I’m the one you’d like to
settle down with?”
He laughed. “We'll see.”
We’ll see, I thought? I had been kidding, but I wasn’t so sure he had been.
“I need to get to know you better first, but so far you’ve made it difficult,” he
said.
He was serious. Who settles down at twenty-four, I wondered? If I were lucky,
I’d be traveling the world at that age.
We stopped by the local bar. It was located at the end of the main street where
the park started. I knew the bartender by his bad reputation only. He was closing up
and not enthusiastic to receive customers this late, but after William’s response, I
couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t offend him, and I needed tea to warm
up.
“Two cups of tea, please,” William asked the bartender. He glowered at us as
if the tea was a code word, as if he was actually thinking, “What do you really want,
kids?”
“Peppermint tea,” I explained. “To take away.”
“Well, well. Two peppermint teas then.” He cut off peppermint leaves, placed
them into paper cups, and muttered to himself. “What kid drinks tea, and at this
hour?” Neither of us responded as he added hot water from the coffee steamer.
When he turned back around, he managed to bump one cup on the machine,
spilling residue coffee over it. He noticed, but placed them on the counter anyways,
the stained cup in front of me. I wanted to ask him to change the cup to a new one,

but decided not to. I didn’t want to seem difficult. William wrapped two layers of
napkins around his cup, the clean one, to protect his hands from the heat. Then he
gave it to me. I smiled in thanks as he turned around to the bartender, and just stood
there, with a smile on his face as if to say you know I won’t take it until you change it
to a clean cup, the stained coffee cup standing untouched between them. Without a
word exchanged, William got his new cup, paid, and thanked politely. The city people
could do this, make things happen without asking, I’d seen it all the time. It fascinated
me. Although I was delighted with him for giving me the clean cup, I no longer
appreciated someone else buying me things. After what Dad had done to Mom and
me, I felt an incredible need to be independent. I still had some manners left, though.
“Thanks. I’ll get the next one,” I said.
“If that means there will be a next time with tea at two-thirty in the morning, I’ll
gladly accept.”
The trail was broad, and I jogged through the park often. I knew all the
shortcuts to get home faster. Tonight, though, I took my time with William. I wanted to
talk about Mom, and the choice I had to make, but I didn’t know where to start
without bursting into tears, and I didn’t want to cry.
William sipped his tea. It was still too hot.
“Burned?”
“Yes.” He laughed at himself. “I should have learned to blow on hot things by
now.”
I didn’t think he should have felt embarrassed. “Happens to me all the time.
Peppermint tea has a unique ability to keep warm.” This was a fact that was actually
true, or I’d never say it if it wasn’t.
“By the way, I know you don’t like to talk about your Mom, but is she any
better?”
And there it was. My way in. Although I never wanted to discuss her before, I
no longer had the luxury not to. The only thing I could think about was the deadline
tomorrow at four o’clock, and the letter I had written, telling my school I couldn’t
accept the scholarship. It was ready to be sent, but I had to wait until the last second
to mail it. I felt the weight of my decision. Perhaps tomorrow was the day she’d come
back.

“No. All I can say is that it’s draining to work with her,” I said. I wasn’t ready to
discuss this with William after all, even though my time was running out.
I took a seat on a bench along the river. He sat down beside me and removed
the lid from his takeaway cup. After observing me for a while, he blew on it to cool it
down, then stared at the trickling water passing us by only inches away. The moment
I became aware that I didn’t want to talk about Mom, I couldn’t find anything else to
talk about at all. My mind felt defensive and blocked.
“What’s it like to live here?” William asked. He’d only been here for the
summer and although the winter months were my favorites, I didn’t see how he’d like
it much. I’d seen him with his friends, in their fancy boats and fans lingering around. I
loved the silence, but he wouldn’t last one winter, I suspected.
Still I was grateful he’d changed the subject. Living here was something I
could discuss. This was a welcome topic.
“There isn’t much to do here. Out of season, it’s quiet, and everyone
complains that it’s quiet. Every summer, it’s busy, and everyone complains about the
boasting city tourists who move into their summerhouses. But I like them.”
The truth was that I despised the way they acted as if they were better than
me and those of us who lived here, just because they had more money. At the same
time, the way their persona made anyone who served them work just a little harder to
please them inspired and fascinated me. I wanted that ability, too. They were raised
in a world of riches that few had access to and, because of that, expected more from
their surroundings than those who lived here did. I would often analyze how they
moved, dressed, and talked. Try to understand how they did it. William was one of
them, a city tourist, even if he’d been born here.
“You’re like them, you know,” I said. “You act and dress just as they do.” And
you have the same confident air about you, I thought. So, I couldn’t make myself
elaborate more. No bartender here would give me a new cup without me having to
ask for it, or possibly even beg. Everything was easier for them. If the cup was dirty, it
was evident that they’d get a new one. That could only be a matter of fact if you
never got the dirty cups. Which most people here did.
“Does this mean you might like me a little, too?”
Of course William made this about him. I pretended not to understand the
connection in order to test his response.
“Pardon?”

He wouldn’t back down. “You said you liked the city tourists, and I’m a city
tourist. Or was.”
“We'll see,” I teased.
The answer was yes, that I actually did like him, but I wasn’t about to let him
know that.
After Mom had lost her memory of me, it no longer felt like home here. I
dreamed of traveling away from this town where everyone knew everything about
me, and to a place where I could start over again. A place where no one felt sorry for
me, where I could decide my own past and my own future, without the expectations
of others pushing me off track. I liked him, but I wanted to leave, for Nana and Mom,
and he wanted to settle down.
“If you want someone to settle down with, I'm the wrong person for you.” I
didn’t know why I felt the need to warn him. I needed to add an excuse. “The timing is
bad.”
“Wouldn’t I be the judge of you being right or wrong for me?” he said. The wind
blew on the surface of the water, making dented patterns that reflected the
moonlight. The weather was cool from the moisture in the air and warm from the
surfaces where the sun had shone all day. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work with
Mom for much longer, not while she wasn’t herself. It would kill me, but could I leave
her?
“I don’t want to sound conceited, but two months ago, back when I was in the
hospital after the attack, you did get me flowers…” I said.
He leaned back, casually placing his arm on the bench behind me. “I always
bring sick people flowers,” he teased. “And besides, all timing is clumsy. Some
people just see that time will never be right for anything and live their life the way
they want to despite it.”
It made sense to me. The time would never be right for me to leave Mom, but I
could always do it if I wanted to. On the other hand, the time would never feel right
for me to get involved with anyone as long as Mom was sick, as her condition was
too much of a strain for me to be around. I stood up to head home, and William
followed me. I felt like I could stay on that bench forever, but I needed sleep.
We approached Mr. Jensen’s house. It was only four bus stops away from my
childhood home. It made me feel safe to know that if my mother needed help, I was
not far away.

“I’m thinking of leaving,” I said. “I’ve been accepted to a school in Portugal.”
He studied my face to see if I was serious. “Portugal?”
The whole idea sounded absurd to me, too. Mom not remembering me,
William popping up out of nowhere, me moving to Portugal, Dad gone.
He shrugged. "If you stay, I could help you with your mom if you’d like. She’s
just insecure and needs to feel special.” He sipped his tea. “I had a colleague like
that in Oslo.”
We threw the cups in a garbage can on the way out of the park.
I knew he couldn’t help with Mom, but he was one of the few people I could
talk to about it. I felt torn. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone now, but he was
sweet, and there was no doubt that he liked me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have waited
for me every night after my shift was up. On the one hand, I wanted to go and leave
all this behind, but, on the other hand, William made me want to stay.
“Thanks, but I don’t think you can help much.” We got to Mr. Jensen’s house,
and I stopped at the curb. I didn’t want to wake him.
“So, you want to move to Portugal, and I want you to stay here.”
His honesty made me feel safe with him. William was confident and not afraid
to state his opinion. I liked it. Dad had never stated any opinion out in the open. He
was always scared someone would argue and know more than he did.
“I feel that's where I'm supposed to be. Does it make any sense?”
“Only if you don’t have anything holding you here.”
William was kind, and I could relax around him, something I needed. Before I
could think of anything more to say, he kissed me. It took me by surprise, but after a
few seconds, I kissed him back. His lips were soft, and it was lovely being so close to
him.
I felt him tremble as he pulled me closer. When he released me, I took a step
back, his eyes were still closed, and he looked nervous. This puzzled me. He
seemed so confident. He didn’t strike me as a guy who’d be apprehensive to kiss
some girl.
“You have every right to feel conceited,” he said. “I am completely taken by
you.”
He meant it. He wasn’t sleazy, but thoughtful, with snobbish clothes. I liked
him and thinking back, he hadn’t acted as if I was just some girl, but he’d made me
feel special from the moment he had saved me. I only had one more day to figure out

if I would stay to help Mom, or follow my dream in Porto. He didn’t make this any
easier.
The following day, I visited Nana at the retirement home to ask for advice.
When I entered her room, she quickly pressed buttons to raise her bed up to a
seated position to greet me. I chose not to comment on all the medical equipment, as
she didn’t like to talk about it. She’d been through several treatments these past few
months and looked weak.
“I feel wonderful,” she said. “What’s on your mind, my darling Amalie?”
She always did this. If anything made her feel gloomy, she skipped the subject
altogether. I let her this time, since I needed her advice.
“Mom’s not doing any better, and I need to mail in my response to the school
today. What do I do?”
She shook her head. “You can’t ask me about this. You know what you’d like
to do. Follow your heart.”
“You’re no help at all, are you.”
Her glasses moved up with her cheeks. “I would go, but you are not me. You
must decide what’s right for you based on yourself – not me, your mother, or anyone
else.” She waved her arm, and wires jingled underneath it as she reached for the cup
of coffee placed on her nightstand. She was still short about an inch, though, to get it
herself, and I let her fingers stretch a second until I handed it to her. She laughed and
changed the subject. “Is there someone else?”
I hadn’t mentioned William at all, yet she knew. “There might be.”
She hit her arms down in protest. “Then you need to go!” The coffee spilled all
over her bed, but fortunately nothing landed on her. “I won’t let you stay here for
some silly boy.”
I got a towel from the bathroom and began wiping away the coffee.
“He’s not silly.” She was testing me, but I didn’t fall for it. She knew I’d never
repeat our family history. “I wouldn’t stay for him. I’d stay for Mom. She needs me.
You might need me a little, too.” This would fluster her ego. If she could test me, then
I could tease her back, I thought.
Her monitor started beeping faster. “Nonsense, she can take care of herself,
and so can I. How many chances like this do you get?” She paused and glanced at
me. “You’re teasing me.”

“You taught me how,” I said. She laughed. But she was right, I wouldn’t get a
chance like this again and it killed me.
The rest of the day spent with her I talked about Portugal, and she seemed
pleased. But I still hadn’t reached any decision when I left her. The post office closed
in two hours. William wanted me, and Mom needed me according to Dr. Rose to
remember. Nana would never admit it, but now that Mom had stopped caring about
anyone but herself, Nana needed me, too. And I needed the school.

7.
September had arrived, the early onset of fall came to our little town, and the
few remaining city tourists clung to summer and refused to sit inside. Instead, they
covered themselves in wool blankets under electric lamps providing heat. I loved this
time of the year when the air was crisp, lanterns lit up every table, and once again
our town became quiet. After a hectic summer, I longed for shorter days at work and
cozy evenings under a blanket with a book and a cup of tea when I finished. I’d
searched for a place to rent all summer, but everything was full or too expensive, so I
still lived with Mr. Jensen. We enjoyed each other’s company, but I couldn’t wait to
find a place, my new home.
Mrs. Vogt had decided to interview all the staff, to know who she wanted to
keep for next summer. Mr. Jensen tried to object, but she came prepared. “I evoke
my right as a partner to make sure our staff is up to par.” She didn’t like me either.
“There’s something fishy about that girl, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” I was her
daughter, so no wonder she felt strange around me.
During the off-season, we closed on Mondays, so at seven in the morning on
the following Monday, we all had to wait inside the restaurant for her to collect us one
by one.
A new waiter, Matt, was cleaning wine glasses behind the bar when Mrs. Vogt
walked in with a determined look on her face. It made him so nervous that the glass
shot from his hands and crashed to the floor.
Mrs. Vogt shook her head and rolled her eyes for everyone to see. “Truly,
drying off glasses can’t be too difficult to manage. We’ll discuss you later.”
Then she walked out, calling for me to follow her, thankfully. I’d hate to have
too much time to reflect on what she might say. Mom would have bent down to pick
up the broken glass and helped Matt with the technique to avoid a repeat mistake,
but this wasn’t Mom anymore. It made me sad to see up close. I used to look up to
her, be proud, now I only felt embarrassed and glad she didn’t know me.

I hated that it now felt natural for me refer to Mom as Mrs. Vogt. She dressed
differently. My mother used to wear jeans and shirts, always looking elegant, but
practical. Now she wore matching tight jackets with skirts and blouses, high heels,
rings, bracelets, and necklaces bigger than my fist. I thought the hardest part would
be to hide that I knew her, but that wasn’t hard at all because I didn’t. The worst part
was that I knew my mother was in there, inside her, and I couldn’t help her get out.
I had tried to please her with things I knew Mom enjoyed, like tea in the
morning, but she no longer drank tea, only espresso. I’d read in one of Nana’s books
that coffee made people anxious and jumpy, and Mrs. Vogt certainly proved that
theory for me. She always seemed stressed, nervous, scared, and full of anxiety.
Mom used to focus on stimulating the five senses of her customers, putting them
first, but Mrs. Vogt only cared about what looked neat, and put herself before
anything or anyone. I would think Mrs. Skar might like this change, but none of us
had heard from them, which was probably for the best. I knew I should feel
disappointed, but it just confirmed that they didn’t care and proved what kind of
people they were.
Mrs. Vogt waited for me at a table at the far end of the garden. The sun hadn’t
evaporated the moisture from the chairs yet, so she yelled for someone to bring
coffee and pillows for us to sit on.
“How is your mother?” I said. I had talked to Nana yesterday, and she felt
better, but I wanted to know how this version of Mom thought of her being sick. We
stood there in an awkward silence, and she didn’t respond until we both had a pillow,
were seated, and she had a sip of her espresso.
“My mother is sick, and none of your business,” she said. I wanted to hit her
but stayed calm. She took another sip and ordered Matt to bring her another, seemed
reluctant to talk more, but somehow continued. “If she’d taken better care of herself,
she wouldn’t be sick. I am sure of it. Now it seems as though I have to take care of
her. As if this is my fault.” A bee flew in front of her, and with both hands, she clapped
it dead. “If you get it from each side, it can’t sting you,” she said. After that, Mrs. Vogt
drank three more cups of espresso during my interview. She slurped each sip with a
lifted little finger making the resemblance to Mrs. Skar even more evident. I could
hardly get a word in as she ranted on about what would happen if I made mistakes.

“I don’t care about your personal life, so don’t force me to. Keep it away from
the Bluebird.” She held her head high when she spoke, holding her mouth in a tight
line as she looked down at me. She wasn’t afraid to repeat several times that “Here
with us, at the Bluebird, we only provide the best service, Amalie. More than what the
customer expects.” I overheard her say it to the others, as well. It sounded
rehearsed, and I imagined her practice in front of her mirror before today. It made it
easier to bear, seeing her like this. She fired three waiters, and to relieve herself from
kitchen duty, she hired one more chef, Ms. Christensen.
She was a tall and slender woman, and when I walked into the kitchen on her
first day, she was studying the menu with both arms crossed.
“No sugar?” she asked.
Before the attack, Mom had always refused to use sugar in her cooking. She
believed it was poison for the body, and Nana’s books proved her right. I had read
that it fed her cancer cells and was even highly addictive, and that’s why all the fast-
food chains coated their french fries in it before they cooked them. I enjoyed knowing
stuff like that.
“Yes, that is correct,” Ms. Berg said. She was proud and no wonder, as she’d
worked with Mom to create the new recipes. “We use healthy, natural ingredients like
fruit, coconut, apples, and so forth as sweeteners here. No artificial stuff.” She
chuckled.
“You’ll get used to it,” I said. Ms. Christensen turned to me. I explained. “To
cook without sugar.”
She flipped through the book of recipes quickly, too quickly to be able to read
any of it. She was still skeptical.
“Strange,” she murmured to herself. Loud enough for us to hear.
Ms. Vogt walked into the kitchen and overheard Ms. Christensen’s unsatisfied
murmur. “What’s strange?” She didn’t accept critiques.
Then Ms. Berg made the one mistake that we all tried to avoid. She referred to
the two of them having made the menu, when Mom was herself, something Ms. Vogt
had no recollection of. It changed her mind. It was like observing two people at war,
except, they were the same person. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes flickered
back and forth, trying to grasp what had just happened to her.
“We’ll use sugar,” she said and left.

In the end, the customers complained when sugar came back on the menu,
much to Mrs. Vogt’s dismay. She ranted on and on about how people had to make
up their minds because this made it impossible for her to do a good job and that she
only tried to do what was best for the customers. We all knew she didn’t, though, and
the only reason she had changed the menu in the first place was to hide her
embarrassment over not being able to remember making it. This was a huge blow to
her ego and didn’t leave her any choice but to let Ms. Berg change it back. It pained
me to see Mom like this, but no matter what I did, I only made it worse.
The following day was busy, and I hurried outside to serve Mr. Jensen and
Mrs. Vogt their drinks while they enjoyed the last bit of sun with a few regulars out on
the deck. Sunbeams blocked my view, and I hadn’t seen Josefine trip. She was
Matt’s replacement after Mrs. Vogt had fired him. I’d been too preoccupied to avoid
Josefine as she knocked my tray out of balance. Panic shot through me as I
desperately tried to shift the balance of the serving tray to catch the espresso cup
and glass of lemonade dancing across it. It was too late. As if in slow motion,
lemonade slushed into Mr. Jensen’s lap, dip-dying his previously off-white pants into
a yellow color. The glass bounced six times on the deck, ice cubes shooting out like
confetti, finally ending its performance in a pirouette before it crashed into a thousand
pieces between tables. Mrs. Vogt sat next to Mr. Jensen, and her cup landed
smoothly in her lap, splashed a cow-patterned brown spot onto her white skirt and
blouse but didn’t fall to the ground. I cringed at the sight of her expression.
The silence that immediately followed was deafening. Josefine looked at me
with horror, but I smiled back. She knew why Matt had been fired, and Mrs. Vogt’s
reactions often made me wonder if she thought we messed up on purpose. Mom
would never have gotten angry about something like that. She would have known
that we were all doing our best. In just this one week, though, more glasses had
broken than ever before. I suspected it to be because everyone was so nervous and
scared not to mess up that it only led to a vicious circle of even more mistakes.
Mrs. Vogt shook her head disapprovingly, making sure only I could see. She
stood up, glanced proudly over her customers who now held their eyes on her. Some
were surely wondering whether I would get fired. Others would hope for it to
decrease the risk of me spilling on them, too.

“Cheers, my friends, for being the best guests we can dream of here at the
Bluebird."
Everyone got up and raised their glasses to her. They applauded and talked
amongst themselves about what a sport she was to let my mistake go as she had.
But I knew she wouldn’t let this go.
I continued to work down between the table legs. I gathered glass shards,
dried up coffee, and lemonade as the cold wind blew through the thin shirt Mrs. Vogt
had us all wear. She’d ordered matching jackets, but they hadn’t arrived yet, so we
moved a lot to keep warm. I needed a bucket and water to finish and started rising to
my feet when Mr. Jensen leaned down toward me.
“Don’t worry about it, Amalie,” he whispered. He’d bent down under the
tablecloth so Mrs. Vogt couldn’t hear him. The shirt buttons stretched around his
stomach, praying for him to get up again. I wished he’d take better care of himself,
but Mr. Jensen was too busy taking care of others. Including me.
“No one dies of a little lemonade or coffee. Tomorrow, this will be yesterday’s
news, my dear.” I knew he was right, but I still hated to disappoint Mrs. Vogt yet
again. He took my hand and helped me up so I could go get water and a scrubbing
brush to remove the sugar left behind from the lemonade.
In the kitchen, Josefine waited for me. “I'm so sorry,” she said. “I'll tell Mrs.
Vogt that it wasn’t your fault.” She knew I’d tell her not to.
During the summer, Mr. Jensen had already given me my job back four times
after Mrs. Vogt had fired me. Three times for spilling, one time I was sick which was
against the law to fire me for, but she didn’t care. By now, she’d given up the hope to
ever get rid of me, and I often took the blame to keep other waiters around longer.
The first time my mother had demanded I leave was only two days after she came
back from the hospital, and it tore my heart out. To me, she was still Mom then, and
when she told me that she didn’t want me there anymore, I cried immediately. My
mother didn’t want me, and that feeling would always hurt. No force in me could hold
the tears back as I ran out. I stayed in bed the rest of that day. Mr. Jensen had
convinced me to come back and I did, for Mom. Luckily, the second time hurt less,
and today, I knew I would never be good enough for her. No matter how much I tried
to get Mrs. Vogt to like me, she ended up disliking me even more. It was the most
frustrating feeling I had ever had. I took out a bucket and cloth. “Don’t worry about it,”
I assured Josefine. “I’ll be alright.”

Josefine sighed in relief. “Thanks, Amalie.”
Outside, the lemonade had attracted bees, or wasps, I could never tell the
difference here. One stung me, but I didn’t have time to let it hurt. The restaurant was
full, and I was needed. Each waiter slowly hurried between the guests who waved
glasses, knives, and forks around as they gesticulated. This dance between arms
and tables had become an art form for all of us who worked here. A new
performance every night, with a few unexpected events like me spilling today. I could
usually foresee every movement, and plan my steps if I’d been attentive, but today I
was lost in thoughts about Portugal. About what my life would be like now if I’d left.
“Are you doing okay?” William startled me as he squatted down beside me
between the tables. “I saw the bee sting you.”
Him being here meant it was time for my lunch break and my frustration went
away the second I saw him.
“I’m all right," I said. I dried up the lemonade faster to finish.
He stretched out his hands towards the cleaning cloth. “Let me help you.” I
surrendered it and placed the shards in a container. “The faster we finish, the sooner
we can eat,” William said. Two of the waitresses swooned over his gesture from the
other side of the deck, signaling to me that William was a keeper. He was, but not
because of this. He was just a good guy all the way through.
"I'm done." I threw the cloth in the bucket and got up. “Let’s eat.” There were
still a few spots of lemonade left, wasps enjoying my intentional oversight. I didn’t
care. I couldn’t wait to show him the apartment I had found, and I wanted him to
come with me for the showing this weekend. “Go ahead, I’ll meet you by the oak,” I
said and went inside to put the bucket away.
Mr. Jensen lingered behind the bar, and I knew he had sneaked in a can of
soda. He had a secret box of sugary drinks he thought no one knew about. Of
course, we all knew but left them alone, even though I was tempted to throw them
out. I worried about his health.
“I'm taking my lunch break now if it's okay?”
He jumped up, put the soda on the counter, and started a double espresso to
distract himself or me. When he saw my judgmental gaze, he put the soda back in
the fridge.

“Yes, I know,” Mr. Jensen said. “It's not good for me.” He shook his head as if
disagreeing with his own statement, replaced the soda with a bottle of water, and
demonstratively drank before he poured the rest into a glass. He was addicted to
sugar but refused to admit it.
“Take your break, Amalie. You need it.” He placed the cup of espresso on the
tray. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Mrs. Vogt hasn’t gotten hold of me yet, and William’s waiting for me
by the oak, so yes, so far, I’m great.”
He handed me the menu and opened the door to the kitchen for me. Ms. Berg
was grinding oats to make flour in the grain mill but killed the machine when she saw
me.
“The usual for lunch, dear?”
When I’d first started working here, I used to pour over the menu like a kid
choosing ice cream. Now I ordered what had become my usual – a crayfish salad,
with extra crayfish, extra avocado, fresh dill with sliced salad leaves, and coriander
cream. I never liked when the leaves were too big to fit into my mouth.
Ms. Berg was known for her coriander cream. She and Mom had created the
recipe together years ago, and it was the restaurant’s signature taste. Ms. Berg
prepared my salad but stopped. “And the boyfriend?” I nodded, and she doubled the
portion. William had asked me to be his girlfriend the same day I sent my rejection
letter for my scholarship. I warned him about my situation, but he didn’t care, so I
said yes. He met me here every lunch, and we spent the evenings walking around
outside when I had time off work. I’d show him my favorite places in the park and
he’d take me out on his boat. Dad used to have a small boat, but he sold it many
years ago and I’d missed being on it, just laying still, looking up to the sky while the
water clucked as it hit the side of the boat. It was my favorite sound to fall asleep to.
William still lived with his parents and I with Mr. Jensen, so I couldn’t wait to have my
own place for us to meet.
I took the salads, thanked her, and headed for the oak tree where I could see
William’s fancy shoes shine as they dangled from his branch.
After we finished our salads, I couldn’t wait any longer. I showed him the
apartment on my phone, but he didn’t seem as thrilled as I did. “What do you think?” I
asked.

He scrolled through the images and shrugged. “Renting? You know I’m a
banker, right? It’s a bad investment. You should buy something with me instead.”
I almost fell off the branch. “What?”
“Well, I need a place, and you need a place. Together we could get a loan and
pay off our own mortgage, instead of someone else’s.”
It made sense, but I felt hesitant. “What if we break up?”
He laughed. “You are such a romantic.” I knew I wasn’t. I was a realist, and I
didn’t want to risk being stuck if I wanted out, which seemed absurd right now, but I
couldn’t know for sure, no one could. We were best friends, and I would never leave
him. But Dad had also been kind at some point, and Mom, as well. Nothing felt
secure.
“Okay,” William said. “We’ll have two loans. Mine might have to be bigger
than yours, though.” I already figured that. He made more money than I did, but that
way we could both benefit. “You can make up for it by cleaning the house,” he
teased.
I laughed. “Never going to happen! We’ll make an agreement about those
things. We both contribute to house chores equally!”
He smiled cunningly. “And make sure that you’ll be free from me, economically
independent, if one of us breaks up.” I couldn’t help but feel a bit insulted. “What do
you mean one of us? Are you planning to call it quits?”
William put his arms around me. “Nope, I love you.”
I almost fell off the branch again. When I turned to look at him, he trembled. “I
don’t think you realize just how much you mean to me.”
I didn’t, but it felt natural to kiss him, perhaps because I loved him, too, but I
didn’t think so. I did know I felt sorry for him saying he loved me and me not saying it
back. He knew I’d never say anything I didn’t mean, so it had to hurt to know that I
wasn’t there yet. But I’d had no idea that he loved me. Maybe he was just saying it to
see how it felt, to test me. Well, I wouldn’t fall for it.
“Perfect,” I said. “Then let’s buy a place together.”
He hugged me tightly, and instead of having the calm feeling I usually did
when he held me, I suddenly felt trapped. “And we need one of those contracts.” He
rolled his eyes so I could see, but I could also see his smile.
“I’ll send you a suggestion to proofread tomorrow.” Then I calmed down and
let him hold me on our branch until my break ended.

8.
6 Years later
I had been born in the spring on March 20th, exactly twenty-five years ago
today. At the Bluebird, Ms. Berg had made her specialty for me in order to celebrate.
An apple crumble made from oats, butter, mint leaves, lemon, coconut, vanilla seeds,
and honey with an amazing homemade vanilla ice cream on top. It was my favorite
cake, and everyone who worked here gathered inside to share, taking turns to wait
on customers. Mrs. Vogt, of course, felt it unnecessary to waste time and money on a
day that happened every year for the employees. She felt differently about the
guests, though. Any guest with a birthday had to be celebrated, fussed about, but just
not us, not me. I wanted to give up on her, on the chance that Mom could fight her
way through her hard shell, and a part of me already had. I couldn’t see any chance
of her remembering me. It seemed she was too focused on finding my flaws. Yet a
part of me still hoped that somehow a tiny detail, an event or just something would
make her flip back to the mother I once knew.
William came by to congratulate me. He’d wanted to throw a big party, but I
didn’t want one, and I had made him promise not to do anything. Today, all I wanted
was to curl up on the sofa, with a glass of wine and a book, alone. Working with my
mother who now appeared as someone else had worn me down over the years and
William had been my support. I don’t think I could have stayed this long if he hadn’t
been there to pick me up when I cried so hard that my knees couldn’t hold me and he
had to lift me up off the bathroom floor, kitchen floor, or anywhere else in the house
my sorrow had struck. I got through most days. Yoga helped, and as long as I
avoided Mom, it was easier. If she was around, I always felt her judgmental scrutiny,
and my time by the oak was the only thing that calmed me down now. I’d told William
I wanted my lunches alone this summer, but he’d tried to come by a few times, and I
always told him to leave. Even though every woman around me swooned about
these visits, I’d grown tired of them. He’d robbed me of my oak tree by continuously
popping in when I wanted the time alone to think, to just be me, away from him and

away from Mom. I didn’t know if I had ever fallen in love with him, but he was my best
friend, and I loved his company. We could talk about anything. Except for marriage
and kids. That always cut a pleasant evening short.
I didn’t want his company. I had promised William an answer today, to
marriage and kids, and even though he was here, comforting me, I knew he’d wait for
me at home for a decision as soon as my shift was over. “Can I talk to you outside?” I
took his hand and followed him out behind the restaurant where no one could see us
and I let go.
He held his arms out, wanting me to walk into his embrace as I used to, but I
couldn’t move. It disappointed me enough that Mrs. Vogt tore me down so badly, and
he didn’t help out by demanding answers. Besides, I couldn’t give him any, yet. He
retracted, looking hurt.
His eyes flickered with hope. “I know, you want to be alone today, but I thought
we could have lunch, as we used to, under the oak tree,” he said.
I felt bad being around him. About a year ago, he had told me he wanted to
marry and have kids, and instead of joy, all I felt was panic. I should have been
happy, but I wasn’t. We argued about it, and the weight of uncertainty had been
straining both of us since. The first three years had gone by so fast. When we bought
our house, we painted and made it our home. William left the decorating to me, but
had to test-sit sofas and chairs, and we’d agreed on most things. My favorite piece of
furniture was an old wooden closet that I’d found online. A carpenter had used it to
store his tools out in his shed, but he got too old to work, and his daughter sold it for
him. It was perfect for the bedroom, so I painted it gray, built in a rod to hang my
clothes on, and sanded down the insides of the two drawers so no splinters would
ruin our clothes. It was the oldest furniture in our house, and my most cherished. My
red suitcase fit perfectly on top of it. We were happy. That was when I still believed
I’d given up my school for Mom to remember again. After the third year had passed,
though, it hit me that I could have accepted the scholarship, done what I dreamed of,
and come back. Mom would still have been the same as today. This crushed William
at the time, because it meant that we wouldn’t be a couple, that I would have rejected
him. But with that realization, that I could have followed my dream and things would
be the same as they were now, that was when my real sorrow began. I couldn’t
justify my choice anymore.

I tried to be even better for Mrs. Vogt, and decided to do at least three things I
now knew she liked every day, and I really went for it, for her to like me. But after a
year I didn’t have anymore left in me. She rejected every attempt I made to be
friendly, kind, helpful. She just really disliked me.
William had promised to give me space, yet here he was trying to be kind. “Are
you okay?”
Mrs. Vogt still hadn’t understood that William and I were a couple, after years
of him lurking around. She’d fired me over past spills, and I could only imagine what
she’d do if she found out I was dating her guest. I laughed at the thought. How many
secrets must be kept from people like her when they think they control everything
and everyone around them.
No, I wasn’t okay. I felt as though I was living for someone else. It had been
my choice to stay, but not my choice that she still didn’t remember me. Nothing I did
seemed to help. I visited Nana at least once a week, and she’d stop by when she felt
well enough to update me on Mom. Still, after all this time, I hoped Nana would say
that she noticed a change, but it never happened.
“I'm giving up on Mom.” The second the words came out of my mouth, guilt
flushed over me. “Nothing helps, and she hates me.” Nothing anyone did softened up
Mrs. Vogt. He knew it, I knew it. My eyes watered. I’d lost hope. The realization that
my mother would never come back had finally hit me. I had to get out. I couldn’t look
at him. Those kind eyes would tip me over the edge, and I wouldn’t be able to hold
back the tears, and inside I had to be happy. It was after all my birthday. But I felt
devastated. He’d told me that he needed to know if I wanted to marry him, to have
kids. He could wait if I did, but if I didn’t, he needed to find someone who’d want that
life with him. I didn’t want to lose my best friend, but I didn’t want to rob him of the life
he wanted either. My safety had been with him after Mom had disappeared. Now that
would be lost, as well.
When I, at last, got home from work, William met me in the hallway. Behind
him in our living room hung a big banner with Happy Birthday, balloons, and red
roses on every surface. Adrenaline went through me as my suspicion rose, and I
wondered would he propose? And he did. He kneeled down, told me he wanted to
spend the rest of his life with me, presented a beautiful ring, and the tears ran down

my face. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to ask him to get back up, to retract it. If I said
yes, it meant agreeing to a year of planning, a wedding I didn’t want, and then I’d
have to get pregnant. My life would never be mine again, a life I didn’t feel I’d had
since I was nineteen when Dad had ruined everything.
“I’m sorry, William.”
He tucked the ring away and walked into the kitchen. I wanted to kiss him and
say that everything would work itself out, but I couldn’t because I knew it wouldn’t.
“I thought you’d say yes,” he said. He buried his head in his hands. He
explained that he had invited his family, Mr. Jensen, and Nana to celebrate both the
engagement and my birthday with us. He had promised not to invite anyone for my
birthday, not to do anything, and now I had to pretend for several hours. They’d be
here any minute. I had a feeling I’d look back on this day, remembering the moment
where he kneeled in front of me, for the rest of my life.
“We’ll talk after your birthday party,” he said. It broke my heart to do this to
him, but I balanced out my conscience with my anger towards him for lying to me
when he promised me to not have any surprises for me today. I’d looked so forward
to reading a book in peace, alone, but now I had to pretend to be happy for the
evening. He pulled out a chocolate cake from the fridge, took a spatula and smeared
the writing. It had said,
Happy birthday to my fiancée.
Now it only said, Happy birthday.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “What do you want, Amalie?”
The doorbell rang. I was grateful. I didn’t have an answer.
Nana asked me what was wrong throughout the evening. She always had a
sense about these things. If someone was hurting, she’d know. But I couldn’t tell her.
I couldn’t talk about it without tears flooding my face, and I couldn’t have this turn into
a family drama.
“I’ll tell you some other day,” I said.
It was one of the longest evenings of my life. One part of me wanted to sneak
off to the bedroom to read, the other wanted to finish the lingering conversation that
William and I had started. We both faked our way through the party, and his parents

seemed clueless, which made me sad. It was easy to see that William was in pain.
Even their two dogs sensed it and wouldn’t leave him alone.
As I opened my presents, I tried to send him a smile, to let him know I cared
and felt sorry for him, but he wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t blame him. From his
parents, I got kitchen appliances, as always. This year I received a blender. Last year
it had been an iron. They were old-fashioned and thought I ironed his shirts, even
though he’d corrected them on several occasions before. They also thought I did all
the cooking when we actually shared this equally. I played with the dogs a lot tonight.
It might be the last time I’d get to see them, and I knew somehow that I’d miss their
company more than his parents. I didn’t dare to talk to him about us while everyone
was here, as anything could have reignited an argument. He’d have to let me go, and
I’d lose my best friend. It was inevitable. But first, we had to get through this evening.
Nana gave me a book called Thinking Fast and Slow. The title made me laugh
because it reminded me of myself, and Mr. Jensen gave me a bouquet of white
roses. I couldn’t stand white roses, they reminded me of the flowers William brought
me in the hospital, and always made me think of the day Dad attacked Mom and me.
William knew, so before I could do it, he threw them away as soon as the last
birthday party guest left.
I fell down on a chair by the dining room table with a balloon fastened to its back that
spelled the number twenty-five. I turned it away from me to stare out the window at
the full moon hovering in orange hues above the treetops, and I found myself
wondering if it looked the same in Porto. I knew I shouldn’t think about Portugal at
this moment, but I couldn’t help it. It always came to me when I felt trapped, alone,
and I dug into my cake with a spoon to fill my mouth with chocolate.
The cake was half-eaten. I think I ate most of it and it now only read Happy
birth. I almost laughed out loud from the irony staring me in the face. There would be
no birth, no wedding, I couldn’t give William what he wanted from me, a wife and
kids, it didn’t feel as if it was mine to give. Why wasn’t this good enough for him, why
wasn’t I enough? Why did he have to ruin this? We had a good thing, he and I, why
did it have to change? I flicked the balloon strapped to my chair three times and knew
I had to tell him, I had to break us up.
“I can’t marry you,” I said. I wanted to continue as we were, and I didn’t see
why marriage was so important to William. It was after all just a party. Half of the
people who got married ended up divorced anyways. It didn’t change anything

between us. It was an expensive party. “It doesn’t feel right yet,” I said. I didn’t know
if it would ever feel right, but I couldn’t know for sure. He used to tell me, that for him,
it would be a celebration of our love and to show the people we loved that we
believed in us and wanted to give them the safety that we’d be together forever. The
only problem was that the one person I loved more than anyone in this world, my
mother, wasn’t here to attend.
“Nothing feels right for you, Amalie. Unless it’s about what you want. Or, what
you don’t want.” He collected dirty plates from the table as he spoke, not bothering to
remove leftover chocolate cake before stacking them. He knew I’d get annoyed
watching chocolate squeeze between them. I chose not to care.
“What do you want, Amalie? I need to know. We have had this discussion for
years now. To me, everything feels right. I love you, and you love me. We have
steady jobs. We have a beautiful home together. Why is this not right for you?”
He placed the tower of chocolate-covered plates in the sink, walked around
the kitchen island, pushed my balloon aside and took my hands. I couldn’t look at
him. I should have felt happy. I should have jumped for joy. But I had no excitement
in me, no hope, and no joy. All I felt was panic.
“Amalie, look at me,” he pleaded.
I couldn’t.
“Amalie, I'm going crazy here. What do you want?”
“I don’t know what I want. I just know that I can’t marry you.”
I let go of his hands, went into the bedroom, closed the door behind me, and
threw myself on the bed. Everything with him had worked so well, so why couldn’t I
feel happy about it? Sex was good, not amazing, but good enough. I trusted William
with all of me, and he was my best friend. We were a team and were there for each
other when work was tough, when I cried, missing Mom.
Something held me back. And that's when I saw it. Over the old closet, pushed
against the wall, lay the suitcase I had gotten from Mom many years ago. I pulled up
a chair and lifted the suitcase down to the bed. It looked as new as the day Mom had
given it to me. I opened it, and the first thing I saw was the picture I’d placed there of
Mom, me, and Dad. It took me back to the attack, to all the feelings I’d buried. All the
feelings I thought had gone away, and I screamed. I couldn’t hold it in. Years of
frustration belted out of me.

I opened the frame and tore Dad out of the picture. A tear landed on Mom’s
face and blurred her out. I dried off the photo and placed it back in its frame. I ripped
the picture of Dad into as many pieces as I could and threw it in the trash can.
William knocked and entered the room cautiously. He’d heard me scream. The
whole town must have heard me scream.
“What are you doing?” He regarded me and the suitcase before taking a seat
next to me on the bed. He took the picture out my hands to study it and sighed. “You
know what you want,” he said. “I hoped I’d be enough.”
He’d known it all along. I felt bad that I couldn’t comfort him, say it would be all
right. I had convinced myself for years that I could forget about Portugal and stay
here. Stay here for him, stay here for Mom, and trust it to be enough for me. But in
that picture, I remembered the person I had once been. Full of dreams, ambitions,
and on my way to Porto. But I had never left. I watched William as he studied my
family photo, that I’d ripped apart.
“She still doesn’t remember me,” I said. Tears blocked my view. “I've been
trying for years now.”
He put the frame down and pulled me close. “It’s time you admit it to yourself,
and to me.” Then he caressed me gently.
I knew he was right. I only wanted one thing, even if it meant leaving him,
Mom, and everything safe here at home. I stood up and took one step away. I knew I
was ready to say out loud what I’d been afraid to admit to myself.
“I want to move to Porto and start my life there,” I said.
I knew I wanted to continue my life where Dad had stopped it. I’d known for
years. Relief flowed through me, and I felt more at peace than I had in a long time. Of
course, William had known. I’d asked the same question as I did when he wanted to
buy a home with me to anything that would bind me to him. What if we’d break up. I’d
made certain we each had a loan on the house, a contract to keep me feeling free. I
even made sure that we both knew which furniture belonged to whom.
Subconsciously I’d planned to leave all along.
His eyes filled with tears. “I know, Amalie.” He wiped at a tear running down
his cheek. “Even though I hoped that life with me would be enough, I feared that this
day would come.”
It hurt to see him like this. He’d never been scared to show his emotions. I
loved that about him. I looked at this incredible man who had been brave enough to

bet on me, on us being together. Now he was free to find someone who could share
his dream, and I could chase mine. Me leaving was right for the both of us, and I
knew we both felt it. I sat down on the bed next to him, and we cried together. We
cried because we knew we’d never be the same, and for a future we’d never have.
But we also cried for a future that was right for both of us. The joy spread in my body,
and my face blossomed into a smile. For the first time in a long time, I felt happy,
free. I knew what I wanted, and I was ready to go.
We sold the house. William didn’t want to live there anymore, and I could
relate. I wouldn’t want to invite someone else into a home that had belonged to us if it
had been me. The changes we’d done to the house gave us a good price, and I
could buy my own apartment. William helped me with the loan in his bank. I struggled
to keep my excitement hidden as I handed him the signed contract to my very own
apartment overlooking the park. I loved him as a friend and would miss him terribly,
but it felt right to go. I didn’t know what I’d do in Portugal as my scholarship was long
gone, and there was no job, but I needed to go. It didn’t make sense, but something
in me pulled me there, and I had to follow that feeling.
We stayed friendly and, even though it was hard and we were both sad when
we divided our belongings into his and mine, we supported and comforted each other
when memories, ideas of what might have been, and the feeling of loss hit us. I
brought the closet with me, he took the TV, the sofa, and bed. William bought a
smaller house for himself. He wanted a garden for potential kids.
When summer came, I handed in my resignation to Mrs. Vogt. She seemed
thrilled to see me go finally. “You don’t have to stay for your contract period of three
months. Go as soon as you’d like. You’re easily replaced.”
She could have stabbed me, it would be less painful, but I hadn’t expected
anything else. I needed the tips from our summer regulars, though, as they would
come in handy, so I worked through the summer and saved up to go.
When fall came, Josefine broke up with her boyfriend and needed a place to
stay, so I offered her the chance to move in with me. We agreed that she’d rent my
apartment when I left for Porto, which gave her a home and me an extra income.
Mr. Jensen had arranged a going-away party at the Bluebird after we closed
early on a Sunday. Everyone I knew showed up to wish me luck. Even Nana came to

see me off. She was so happy for me and so proud that I’d finally leave Norway and
do what she had always dreamt of. Mom didn’t show. I was glad as it would have
been unbearable to say goodbye to her as Mrs. Vogt.
On my last night, I couldn’t sleep. I went over and over whether I’d forgotten
anything. I gave up at around 4:00 a.m., and even though I had packed a week in
advance to be sure, I went through my list again. I felt anxious and thrilled all at the
same time. This would be my first trip out of the country.
When I left my house, it was early morning and still dark outside. William had
offered to drive me to the airport, but I wanted to take the train and go alone. I
needed the time to get my nerves under control and to know I’d done this on my own.
I’d never been afraid of flying, but the thought of leaving everything I knew for the
unknown made me sizzle with excitement and fright all at once. As the train left the
station, I could see the sun rise out my window. As asphalt turned to forest, forest to
fields, and with every passing minute, my body tensed. I felt the lack of sleep. I’d
heard people at the restaurant speak of how they always slept on planes and it
sounded like a good plan since I hadn’t slept well last night.
The train reached the airport, and I was the first to disembark. Around me,
people rushed past, many in suits in a hurry on their way to work in other cities, with
only minutes to spare I heard one man in a suit say on the train. But I had plenty of
time as my plane left in two hours. I checked to see that I had my passport for the
fifth time today. It was in my bag where it had been for the last week, ready for
departure.
I entered the immense departures terminal with its marble tiles, a roof at least
twenty meters up, and a buzzing sound from all the people rushing through that
bounced against the arched walls. I wanted to check in my bag and find my gate to
be sure I didn’t miss the plane. “Calm down,” I told myself. But I couldn’t. I was going
on a plane.
There were self-service check-in desks with no queues and one personal
check-in desk with about thirty people lined up, all looking like pensioners. I
positioned myself last in line.
“Next!” A woman with her hair pulled tight into a bun signaled for me to place
my suitcase on the belt.
I crossed the yellow line, walked toward the desk, and smiled.
“Passport!” she said.

I presented my passport and flight information which I’d printed a week ago. I
decided that she had undoubtedly made it her life goal not to smile as her eyes were
empty, her face stiff, and all her movements robotic. She didn’t meet my eyes once. I
smiled in the hope of infecting both her and myself with a slightly better mood. I didn’t
want this trip to start badly. I wanted an excellent start to my new life, away from
Norway, away from my history, and into the exciting unknown.
“Thanks,” she said, strenuously, as if the word meant something painful. Why
did she have to be so rude, I wondered?
I had only heard about the prices in airports from others, but prepared myself
for the worst, and decided to think about it over an overpriced breakfast. Only a few
more minutes and I’d be through security and on my way. I hadn’t packed much.
Only a few clothes, some toiletries, and the picture of Mom and me was necessary.
The rest I would buy when I arrived. I imagined cobblestone streets, picnics in the
park with free-ranging peacocks. Listening to conversations in a language I had
practiced for six years and now knew. Men in hats drinking espresso and sunsets
over the Atlantic Ocean.
The lady behind the counter quickly pulled me out of my daydream.
“Your flight is canceled.”
Her eyes met mine for the first time with a look that, at my most generous, I
would call haughtiness. A chill went through me, and I felt faint.
TO BE CONTINUED
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AMALIE

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“Let it be! Nobody cares about that stuff anyways.”

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We would like to congratulate Amalie...

I had read it correctly.

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I didn’t know what to expect as we closed in on the house. Would there be

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