“It just doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t love you any less if I had a million kids.” And now she did fall asleep. Noah rolled out of bed and blew out the candle.
SOMETIME BEFORE DAWN Noah lay in bed, the stillness all around incomprehensible. Even the stove fire’s hiss was absent. Even the sound of her breath. He ought to sleep, he knew, was tired enough to do so, but his thoughts kept him awake.
After a time he heard his father’s door open and his feet padding across the great-room floor. By his reckoning of the previous mornings, he made the time four or five. The first daylight was still two or three hours away. He stepped out of bed, pulled the quilt up over Nat’s shoulder. She pushed her hair from her face but did not wake. He moved into the great room as the door outside closed with a quiet clap. From the window Noah watched his father cross the yard to the shed. Rather, he watched an apparition of his father, one blurred by the flashlight’s bouncing. The windows in the shed were soon bright. When Noah stepped outside he could feel the frost melting under his bare feet. There were stars enough to see a mile.
Inside, he put a kettle of water on the stove and two of the leftover krumkake on a plate. He wished he had a newspaper to read. When the water boiled he made coffee. He poured a cup and pulled the peacoat over his bare shoulders. He took the coffee and cookies to his father in the shed.
“I thought I heard you milling around,” Olaf said over his shoulder. He was separating two small piles of nuts and bolts on his workbench.
“I brought you some coffee.” Noah set the plate of cookies and the coffee on the bench. “This is it, huh?” he asked, gesturing toward the anchor.
Olaf nodded. “Thanks for the coffee. Didn’t want to wake you two.” “I figured as much.”
Olaf took a long drink of the coffee. He removed a cigar from a drawer at his knees and unwrapped it. He bit off the end but did not light it, though he held a match between his fingers. “You sleep okay?” “Yeah.”
“Natalie staying a while?”
“I’m afraid she has to leave this morning.”
Olaf smiled. A devilish look.
“I know,” Noah said.
“She’s about a hundred times the woman I remember from your wedding. What I remember from your wedding anyway.” “She’s the best.”
Olaf took another drink of coffee. “Well.”
“Well, I guess I’m going back to bed.”
“I’ll be out here for a while. We’ll have some oatmeal when you all wake up.” “Good.”
As Noah left the shed he could smell the first licks of cigar smoke.
He undressed and climbed back into bed. In a voice groggy and pleased, Natalie asked him what time it was.
“A little after five o’clock. Go back to sleep.”
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing, go back to sleep.”
He had almost fallen asleep himself when he heard her whisper, “Look at all those stars still out.” Noah put his arm around her.
“Is your father still sleeping?”
“No, he’s out working in his shed.”
“I have terrible breath,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he said, and again they made love.
When they’d finished Nat took her pillow from behind her head and put it under her bottom. There was a light beyond the stars in the window now, and they looked upon it. They lay so for a long time, both of them awake and silent. Her hair still smelled of its shampoo. Her skin so soft under his hands. He was exhausted but oddly restored next to her there in bed. He felt gluttonous. It was, perhaps, the most luxuriant hour of his year.
Finally Noah said, “What time do you have to leave?” “My flight’s at one. I guess I should leave by nine.”
Noah didn’t say anything, only held her.
“Unless you need me to stay for anything.” She rolled over to look at his face, put her pillow back under her head.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I could help you take care of him. We could try to bring him to the hospital. Whatever.” “He’ll never go to the hospital, and I don’t blame him anymore. It’s his life. We’ll be okay. I can take care of him.” “What about your sister?”
“She’s going to come when she can. She can’t just leave at a moment’s notice. Tom is busy. The kids are busy.” “I feel so weird leaving like this. Your father must think it so strange.” “He knows what’s going on.”
“I guess this all worked out.”
“It did. I hope it did.”
“How long are you going to stay? What’s your plan?”
“I have no idea.”
AFTER BREAKFAST NAT was ready to leave. She stood at the open door of her rental car and bade Olaf thanks. Noah tossed her bag into the backseat of the car. She kissed Olaf on the cheek. She kissed Noah on the lips. She squeezed his hand.
“Stay over on the right side of the road here,” Olaf said, pointing to the side of the trail up from the cabin with the most traction. “That track’s damn near washed out. And be careful driving back to Duluth on 61. The deer will be out for breakfast themselves. They sit in the ditch next to the road.” Olaf moved toward the house. “I’m going inside. It was good to see you. Thanks again for supper last night. It beat hell out of instant mashed potatoes.” “We’ll do it again sometime,” Nat said.
Olaf nodded. “Good-bye.”
Nat smiled. “Well, I better get going. It’s two lefts and a right, right?” “A right at Lake Superior.” He handed her the package holding the agate. “Open this on the plane. It’s no big deal.” She put her arms around his shoulders and hugged him. He hugged her back very hard. Her car trundled up the road, slipping into the ruts, the wheels spinning, but she was gone in a moment.
EIGHT
All day Olaf slept while Noah split and stacked wood. Vikar had emerged from the woods to watch, and at noon Noah fed him a bucket of food. His own lunch he took to the top of the ski jump again, leftover black pot and unbuttered lefse, the remains of the smoked salmon. Vikar followed him but would not climb the scaffold. After lunch he went back to the gulch to inspect the oak. He tried to devise a plan but realized he needed a much bigger saw, it was as simple as that. He would ask his father about it.
He checked on his father at one o’clock. The old man still slept, deeply but with great agitation. Noah went down to the lake to fish. He rowed across the lake to the spot off the cliff. He cast his line, waited, and jerked the jig across the bottom of the first step. For two hours he cast his line up the step. And for the second time in as many efforts he didn’t catch a thing.
THE SUV PARKED in the yard had North Dakota plates.
Inside, Solveig sat on the sofa beside their father, her arm around him. Olaf, his eyes glassy, his hair messed from the long day of sleep, looked both thrilled and desperate. “I wish you wouldn’t have asked her to come,” Olaf said before either of his children could speak.
“I didn’t ask her to come.”
“Of course I’d come, Dad.” She put her hand through his hair.
“Well, there’s no need to sulk,” Olaf said.
“Come on, Dad,” Noah said.
“I’m okay,” Solveig almost sang. “I’m glad I’m here.”
“When did you get here?”
“Just now. I can only stay for a couple days. The kids are with Tom’s folks.” She took a deep breath, trying, Noah saw, to stave off tears.