‘It’s time for Olea to go to bed,’ Marthe says, swinging her legs round and out of the hammock. She’s wearing a nice pair of sandals; I feel the urge to see if they might fit me.

‘Are you coming, Olea?’

‘I want to stay up,’ Olea whines.

‘Come on, don’t mess about now,’ Marthe says. ‘We had an agreement that you could read for a while, then it would be time for bed.’

‘I want Ida to do it,’ Olea says, she’s holding my hand and swinging it back and forth like a pendulum.

Marthe stands there with her hands on her hips, looking at Olea and then at me.

‘Uh-huh,’ she says. ‘Do you want to?’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘You and me, eh, Olea?’

‘Yeah!’ Olea cries.

‘You two it is, then,’ Marthe says.

Olea sleeps in the little box room next to mine, where Marthe used to sleep when we were young. She has to show me all of her books and cuddly toys and clothes before she goes to bed, she clambers up and down on a chair, pulling things out of drawers. Kristoffer sticks his head in and tells her that’s enough messing about now. 49

I lie down beside her, Olea under the covers and me on top. The room has dark, thick curtains to help her sleep even though the sun is still out. We look one another in the eye in the half-darkness until we start to giggle, as if I were a child, too.

‘Ida,’ Olea says. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’

‘Of course,’ I say.

‘You can’t tell anybody,’ Olea says.

‘You can tell me anything,’ I say, placing a hand on the back of her neck.

I wish that you were my mum. I wish it was you, not Marthe.

‘I…’ Olea begins, ‘I’ve crocheted a present for Grandma.’

‘Have you?’ I reply.

‘It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever finger-crocheted,’ Olea says.

She chatters for a while longer, about finger-crochet and swimming the next day, tells me I have to go with her.

‘I will,’ I tell her, I’m bored with listening to her now, I want to go back out to the others, ‘but you need to go to sleep now,’ and then I sing her a lullaby. It’s a hard one, high and low, my voice crackles and squeaks and Olea twists and turns in bed as I sing. I carry on until I realise that she’s not going to fall asleep with me lying there beside her, and in the end, I say goodnight and get up, like Kristoffer and Marthe have told me to. Olea hugs me, her arms wrapped tight around my neck for a moment, then she drops back down onto the bed. I think I’ve done everything right.