The Lost Boy

FJÄLLBACKA 1870

Karl still hadn’t touched her in that way, and Emelie was feeling confused. She didn’t know much about such matters, but she was aware that certain things went on between a man and a woman that hadn’t yet taken place.

She wished that Edith were here and that they hadn’t parted under strained circumstances when she left the farm. Then she would have been able to talk to Edith about all this, or at least she could have written to her and asked for advice. Because a wife couldn’t very well venture to discuss this type of thing with her husband. It simply wasn’t done. Nevertheless, she did think it was all a bit strange.

Her initial delight with Gråskär had also diminished. The autumn sunshine had been replaced by strong winds that brought the sea crashing against the cliffs. The flowers had withered so that now only bare, sorry-looking stalks filled the flowerbeds. And the sky seemed to be forever hidden behind a thick layer of grey. She spent most of her time indoors. Outdoors she shivered with the cold, no matter how warmly she tried to dress. Indoors, the house was so small that it felt as if the walls were slowly closing in on her.

Sometimes she caught Julian glaring at her, but whenever she met his eye, he would look away. He hadn’t yet spoken a word to her, and she couldn’t understand why he was so antagonistic. Maybe she reminded him of some woman who had treated him badly. But at least he seemed to like the food she cooked. Both he and Karl ate their meals with good appetites, and she had to give herself credit for her ability to put together delicious dishes from limited ingredients, which at the moment was mostly mackerel. Every day Karl and Julian went out in the boat and usually came back with a large number of the silvery fish. She fried up some of them for dinner and served them with potatoes. The rest she salted so that they’d last all winter, since she’d heard that there would be even colder days ahead.

If only Karl would give her a friendly word once in a while – that would make her life on the island seem so much easier. But he never looked her in the eye, never gave her an endearing pat as he passed. It was as if she didn’t exist, as if he hardly realized that he had a wife at all. Nothing had turned out as she’d imagined, and occasionally she would hear Edith’s words of warning echoing in her mind. That she needed to take heed.

Emelie always shook off such thoughts as soon as they came. Life was hard out here, but she had no intention of complaining. This was the lot that she had been dealt, and she had to make the best of it. That was what her mother had taught her before she died, and that was the advice she planned to follow. Nothing ever turned out the way people thought it would.