Punishment aka What Is Mine

SIXTY-TWO

They recognized each other immediately.

A generation had grown to adulthood since she stood on the dock and waved good-bye. As the MS Sandefjord pulled away, he had tried to follow her with his eyes when she tightened her shawl around her and started to push her bike out to the end of the dock. The wind caught the hem of her skirt. The bike was newly painted and red. She was slim and had blue eyes.

Now Eva was bedridden and had been for eleven years.

Her lifeless arms lay alongside her body. She slowly raised her right hand and reached out toward him when he came into the room. In a letter she’d said that God in his mercy had allowed her to keep the use of her right hand so she could continue to write letters. Her legs were paralysed and her left arm was useless.

“Aksel,” she said quietly and easily, as if she’d been expecting him. “My Aksel.”

He pulled a chair up to the bed. Then he shyly stroked her shorn head with his hand and tried to smile. Her fingers were cold when they brushed his cheek. They used to be warm-dry, playful, and warm. But it was still the same hand; he recognized it and started to cry.

“Aksel,” Eva said again. “To think that you came.”