She circles the four capital letters.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think it’s him.’

She doesn’t notice Leo in the doorway until after they hang up.

‘What’s the matter with Sigrid?’ he says. ‘I just saw her run out of here like a wounded fox.’

Chapter 39

39

She’s sitting with her legs pulled up and her arms crossed, radiating the same kind of sullen loneliness as the gnarled pine tree she’s leaning against. In exactly the same position, and exactly the same spot, Karen herself likes to sit in when only the sight of the sea can heal her. A secluded place, shielded from the north and west by the mountain. Impossible to find unless you know where to turn off the path and cut across the smooth cliffs. She had shared the place with Sigrid last autumn when she had needed the sea.

Karen stops as soon as she spots her. Watches the girl who came stumbling into her life by accident and never left from a distance. The girl who had lost her mother and she who had lost everything. Maybe they had just filled the holes left in their hearts by people they no longer had. That’s what she had thought then. And maybe that’s how it had started out.

But not anymore.

Now, the mere thought of losing Sigrid makes her throat feel tight. The hole she would leave behind is different from the one she used to fill. Time has carved out a space in her heart that belongs only to Sigrid. The girl who is not Karen’s daughter.

Without saying anything, she moves out into the open. Knows Sigrid knows she’s there even though she doesn’t betray it with so much as a blink.

Sulky brat.

Without a word, Karen sits down next to her on the carpet of pine needles, feels the damp from the afternoon shower through her jeans, and suppresses a curse.

‘Move over,’ she says, and Sigrid scoots an inch or two to the left so they can both lean against the tree.

Then they sit there in silence, gazing out at the sea. Their eyes staring straight ahead, at nothing. And everything. Two cargo ships, delicately balanced on the thin line of the horizon, slowly move towards each other, briefly blend together, and then continue in different directions.

Karen breaks the stillness.

‘I know my mood has been a bit up and down recently,’ she says.

A small noise, like a dry laugh.

‘A bit . . . ? Yeah, OK.’

‘Fine, more than usual, then. But in my defence, I’d like to point out that at least part of it is all the hormones swirling around inside me. It’s not easy to suddenly have the mood swings of an angry teenager when you’re my age. What was it you said? Like, a hundred?’

‘I didn’t mean . . . I had no idea you were actually pregnant.’

‘I know, Sigrid.’