“It’s unpleasant to get into. The point is my father died disappointed in me. I didn’t get a chance to put it right. Make it right. Which gives the promise to take care of Mor a little more weight. Do you know what I mean?”

“I’d say it gives a lot more weight.” Kennet wiped his mouth with his napkin, then held out cupped palms to Astrid across the table. “Here. Let me hold it.”

She smiled, laughing a little.

“I mean it,” he said, wiggling fingers. “You’ve got lots of time before she gets here and no reason to stagger under your troubles. Give them over. I’ll hold them and you enjoy yourself. And who knows—maybe when I hand them back, you won’t recognize them.”

She gazed at him, then reached and put her hands in his. “All right then.”

Their fingers twined and squeezed as the worries changed ownership, then Astrid sat back with a long exhale and another laugh. “You know? I actually do feel a little lighter now.”

“Good.” He gestured toward her plate. “When you’re done, you want to go for a drive with me?”

Aix-les-Bains

“I hope you don’t think it weird I brought you here,” Kennet said. “We kids take turns coming to tidy things up once a month. It’s my month.”

“Not at all,” Astrid said. Hands on hips, she looked around the quiet rows of Clayton Village Cemetery. A gravel path wended around and among the rows of headstones and markers. A meadow ran along one side, waving grasses dotted with black-eyed Susans and tansy aster. Busy with dragonflies and bees.

A tall, white marble obelisk marked Björn Fiskare’s resting place. At its base, a smaller white stone snugged close:

Beatrice Klara

Beloved Daughter

1893-1894

“She was Major’s twin,” Kennet said. “They both had polio in the outbreak of ninety-four.”

“My God,” Astrid said, touching the dates beneath the little girl’s name. “Just a year old. This was your grandparents’ only daughter?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t imagine.” Her hands cupped opposite elbows, hugging herself. “Losing a child. It must just…change you. Change everything you are and everything you do.”

“From what I understand, they were never the same after. It’s impossible to be the same.”

“I wonder how it changed Major. I mean, change who he might have been if his twin had lived. How it affected him to have half his soul taken away…”

“I’d tell you if I knew. He doesn’t talk about it. Sometimes, if he’s flummoxed or exasperated or just plumb tired, he’ll mutter to himself, ‘Oh, Bea, what are we going to do?’ But that’s all I’ve ever heard him say.”

“The things a body can stand.” She sighed. “I’ll pick some flowers.”

Kennet unpacked his shears and trimmed the grass around the stones, while Astrid made little bouquets.