Page 74 of A Girl, Unbroken
“I want your name to be properly entered in the papers. I don’t want to keep having to tell Ivy: Today it’s Uncle Kjertan and tomorrow it’s Uncle Rayk. It will confuse her.”
His face darkens. “A dirty trick. She can call me Johannsson like Nathan and Ian.”
I touch his hand lightly. “I know it hurts. But your life goes on even if your brother’s is over. It’s not good to hold on to things like that.”
He stares into space, lost in thought, and his eyes become moist.
“One day you might not even know who you are anymore. Do you remember when you were complaining about Nathan? When you said he was ascaredy-catbecause he was afraid of love.”
He stares at me for a few seconds. “You clever,” he says, raising a finger. “But I no fall for it.”
I stand on my tiptoes. “You’ll be a great godfather, Rayk. I already know that,” I say quietly before turning and walking toward the hedge.
“How you know?” he calls after me. “What give me away?”
I feel a wave of deep sadness sweep over me because my suspicion, which I’ve been carrying around with me for a long time, has suddenly become a certainty. Nevertheless, I smile as I turn to him even though the lump in my throat suddenly seems huge.
Rayk comes toward me. “What?” he asks, shaking his head in confusion. “Or you just guess?”
To this day, we have never done that out of respect. And we have also avoided speculation or incriminating statements like the ones I just said. “I was fairly certain,” I say quietly. “Your brother, Kjertan…you may not have known it, but he looked at me differently than you do.” And mortally wounded, he shotIsaac as he lay lifeless on the ground. His love for me drove him mad with hatred.
Rayk is silent for a moment and I hear the birds chirping above us. “Yes,” he finally says. “I know. He love you like crazy.”
Now tears are streaming down my cheeks. “He was wonderful. A good friend. Just like you.”
Rayk wraps his arms around me, clings to me, and cries so hard that I think he’s going to drown in his tears. I stroke his back repeatedly, whisper soothing words in his ear, and, in all the tears and compassion, forget that I’m afraid of other people’s touches.
Two things make people unpredictable. One is war and the other is love.
Those were my mom’s words and I understand them much better now than I used to. Dad, or Mr. Hampton, must have waged his own kind of war, perhaps a war against life and its many losses. And he certainly stopped understanding the word love at some point. However, something else has become clear to me in the last few days: Dad’s greatest trophy was always me, not Coralie Chevalier. I was something he had unlawfully kept from Mom, something forbidden, something he could look at every day like a winner’s medal in a display case.
As I walk along the path to the Palace of Shards holding Nathan’s hand, I banish all these thoughts from my mind. As always, we take the side entrance and climb the stairs to reach the ballroom.
My skin tingles, something is different today. I look up at the ceiling where the sunlight breaks against the shattered glass, painting trembling patterns on the floor. Swirls, curlicues, figures like from aThousand and One Nights. Flying elephants and magic lamps. All around, the blue, red, green, and yellowglass of the old windows shimmering like colorful gold in the autumn sun.
I breathe in the warm air and look at Nathan. He comes toward me and takes my hand for our slow dance, during which we always say everything that is bothering us.
Today, however, we are silent.
Everything is suddenly different, but of course, that is not true. I have felt the change for the past few weeks. Inside me, on the grass under my feet, and the sun on my skin. It was like the bursting of a pod, releasing a tiny seedling. Invisible like a ghost but still present. And now it has come here with us, just as Mom always appeared to me when it was time to recognize things. And maybe it’s Mom who wants to tell me now that I should be a brave girl, that only I can overcome and change things myself, no one else.
I take a deep breath and wrap my arms around Nathan’s waist, press my face to his chest, and inhale his scent. He still smells of salt, wind, and sea. Of adventure and freedom. I could lose myself in it. Right here in the mysterious shadowy light of our magical hiding place.
“So quiet today, ghost girl?” Nathan whispers lovingly at some point and ruffles my hair. I know how much he longs for me and yet I haven’t been able to open up to him yet. Our love had been too wild, too impetuous before. What connected us always had a hint of danger and adventure. For a long time, I couldn’t allow that to happen. And yet…
I look at him and tilt my head. “Maybe I don’t have anything to say today, maybe I want something else,” I whisper. All great things start with a kiss, right?
Nathan chuckles and looks at me, his eyes darkening. A shiver runs over my skin, a beautiful one, and then it’s there again as light as a glowing spark, but I can feel it. The magic ofthe last Louisiana summer, the feeling of tender touches on bare skin, and the embrace of two bodies. Nathan’s and mine.
“I love you,” I form with my lips because I don’t want to destroy this feeling with words.
“And I love you,” Nathan whispers soundlessly and leans down to me. I feel his cool breath on my skin. Finally, he kisses me carefully and lightly as if my lips were made of this broken, colored glass. I pull him even closer to me and kiss him deeper. At this moment, the Palace of Shards is like a magnificent castle in which people dance and celebrate as if there is no tomorrow.
In the distance, I hear a flock of birds fluttering and taking off, and it seems to me as if all my bad memories are silent in those seconds.
When we finally part, I look reflexively toward the entrance. I almost think I see something white scurrying past, maybe a piece of a dress. And I feel something else, something tender that envelops me one last time, whispers a goodbye, and then disappears. I almost believe it is Mom and my eyes become moist.
“Hey!” Nathan lifts my chin. “Was it too much?”
