They talked for an hour as if such gatherings were a weekly occurrence. Natalie was the most garrulous, telling Olaf about her work with her usual seriousness on the subject. Her intelligence was on fine display, and Noah could see that Olaf was impressed. When the subject of Noah’s business came up — and when Olaf circled back to his original skepticism about the very idea of an antique map — Natalie offered her opinion, reiterating Noah’s point about them being artistic more than utilitarian but also explaining how purchasing the business fitted into their retirement years down the road and how, most importantly, it made Noah a happier man. Noah could tell her explanation was far more satisfying than his own had been those few days before.
It was well past dark when the conversation wound down.
“Well,” Olaf said, laboring up from the table after a lull in the conversation, “if I were younger, now’s the time I would have gone outside for a smoke. Might have finished the night with a finger of hooch. But I’ll be goddamned lucky to make it to bed. Natalie, I don’t have thanks enough. I’m off to bed if you two will clean this mess up.” He took a couple of steps toward his bedroom door, turned. “Noah could tell you how early I rise, but I sleep like I’m dead until then. Good night.” Noah and Nat said good-night together.
“Where does a girl go to the bathroom around here?”
“The outhouse is in the woods, up a path behind the shed. I’ll get the flashlight and go with you.” “You don’t need to go with me, just point me in the right direction.” WHILE NOAH CLEARED the table and put the food away, Natalie sat on the sofa with her feet tucked beneath her, a glass of water in her hand and the sweater folded beside her. She commented quietly on the inventory of the cabin. “What does he do up here?” “So far he fishes and tells stories.”
“Can you imagine living here?”
“There’s a radio show he listens to in the morning sometimes. I guess he reads a lot.” “Wouldn’t you get lonely?”
“Of course I would, but I’m not him.”
Nat looked at him. “You two aren’t so different.”
“Really?”
She looked at him again, a look to quell further comment if he read her right. “He was so sweet, Noah. While you were down at the lake we just sat here and talked like long-lost friends. We talked about everything. He’s got me scared of the bears and wolves. Did you know he makes himself pasties every Sunday night? I don’t even know what a pasty is.” Noah finished cleaning. He leaned on the counter, listening.
“He’s glad you’re here. That’s plain to see.” She took a small wooden box from the shelf behind the sofa. She opened it. Within were photographs, a pipe, a skeleton key. An old fountain pen.
Noah sat down next to her. “My grandpa carved that box, I’m sure of it. I think it was a gift for my mom. Maybe it was for Solveig.” Nat handed him the pictures. They were all of Noah’s mother. So beautiful. One of his parents on their wedding day. One with Solveig on her mother’s lap, little more than an infant. “Jesus, the things I’m finding around here,” Noah said. He put the pipe in his mouth.
Natalie took the pictures from him. She took the pipe. She re-packed the box and set it back on the shelf. She sipped her water. “So you’re not mad, are you?” Noah put his arm around her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Now that I’m here, I understand. If anyone should apologize, it’s me.” Noah leaned in and kissed her neck.
“This is so weird,” she said. “That’s the other bedroom right there? There’s not much room for privacy.” “We can be quiet.”
But how to be quiet on that bed, in that house so used to its own silence? How to be quiet when the only other sound was the stove fire and a dying gale outside in the woods? Noah had lit a candle, its amber glow left the last corner of the bedroom in darkness. He set it on the nightstand. At the foot of the bed they undressed, hanging their clothes on the bedposts for want of anyplace else to lay them. When they kissed — there at the foot of the bed — the touching of their lips seemed as loud as a drumbeat.
Natalie said again, “This is so weird.”
But Noah put his finger to her lips and led her to the side of the bed. He pulled back the covers. When Nat lay down the ancient bedsprings tolled. When she put her arms around him she also put her mouth to his ear, “Your skin is cold,” she said. “You smell good. Like the air up here.” “WHAT TIME IS it?”
Noah angled his watch toward the candlelight. “It’s only nine o’clock.” “God, it feels like three o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s always earlier than it seems up here.”
She took his hand under the quilt. “So, you think there’s anything going on down there?” She moved his hand to the bottom of her stomach. “The doctor said there were at least six follicles ready to release. We could have sextuplets.” “I’d take anything, but better to start with one.”
“What,” she said, shifting her weight up onto an elbow and looking at Noah, the candle aglow in her eyes, “don’t you think I’d make a capable mother of six? I thought my performance tonight with the Norwegian food was pretty impressive.” “Some of that food was awfully good.”
“I could eat lefse every day.”
Noah kissed her. “I don’t know where we’d find lefse in Boston.” She lay back down. The bedsprings creaked again.
“It was terrific, all the food. My dad loved it. So did I.” Outside, the gale was weakening. Noah listened to the trees still swaying gently. “Every night the wind dies down,” he said.
“Speaking of wind, you should have felt that plane land in Duluth this afternoon. It was terrible. But the view from the window was amazing. We circled out over Lake Superior. I could see the city below. There was a ship outside the harbor. We flew right over it. And there were these veins of reddish-brown water curlicuing from the shore out into the lake.” “Those are the creeks and rivers. Wherever they run into the lake they bring with them the color of the rocks and soil.” “It was so pretty. And I love Duluth. But cold.”
“That’s how everyone feels. The ‘but cold’ part.”
She snuggled next to him. “Not here, though.”
“Definitely not here.”
They lay silently for a while. Noah thought she had fallen asleep. He was about to get up and blow out the candle when she said, “I’m sure this isn’t even going to work, but it’s like I have to try. Why else are we on this earth?” Noah leaned up on his elbow now. “I’ve spent all day thinking about it. All this time trying, I guess it’s just taken it out of me. You, too, I know. Of course you more than me.” He lay down. “I don’t know, I think all the failing, watching you be so sad all the time.” “You were sad, too.”
“Of course I was, but it’s different.”
Again they lay silently, Noah stroking her hair, and again he thought she’d fallen asleep.
“Anyway, even if it doesn’t work I’m glad I came.”
Noah squeezed her hand. “I had a realization today. If we do have a baby, when we have a baby, I realize that I won’t be the most important person in your life anymore. I’m okay with that.” “What in the world are you talking about?”
“I mean when we become parents things will be different. Children, they demand a lot of love. Especially if you’re a good parent, which you will be. That’s all.” “Only a man would say something like that. Only a man would be capable of thinking something like that.” “I didn’t mean for it to sound bad.”