‘What a nice idea,’ Mum says, winking at Olea from across her puzzle and smiling at us both. Something about all this feels so right, I sense it, I’m the grown-up now, I’m good at this. My tone is calm and kind, it feels familiar, like how things ought to be. I find Olea’s life jacket hanging from 128the peg in the hallway along with a pair of trainers and a coat, feel almost proud to see her standing there ready to go with her life jacket on, looking excited. See, Marthe, I can do this, I’m the one who’s supposed to be doing this.

We have to pass Kristoffer on our way down to the jetty. He’s sitting on the decking having a cigarette, an empty coffee cup beside him, gripping the phone hard in one hand, I can see that he’s been crying. As we walk past him with our fishing gear and bucket, he looks up.

‘It’s time for her to go to bed,’ he says.

‘I thought it might be nice for us to take a little trip out in the boat before bedtime,’ I tell him. ‘Olea thought so, too.’

‘I’m going to have my own handline,’ Olea says, her voice timid, I’m not even sure she knows what a handline is.

‘That’s not for you to decide,’ Kristoffer says to me, his jaw clenched.

Olea freezes beside me, he must look scary to her in this moment, red-faced, an unfamiliar expression on his face.

‘We don’t have to go fishing,’ she mumbles quietly, tugging at my hand.

‘Of course we do, let’s go,’ I say.

The sea is greyish as I drive us out across the fjord, the evening light dwindling. There aren’t as many boats out as usual, and it feels a little less steady today, the boat feels more cumbersome to manoeuvre. Olea is lying on her stomach on the deck with one arm stretched out over the side of the boat, she looks back every so often and smiles at me 129as the waves slosh upwards and wet her arm. I remember what it felt like to lie like that, one ear against the side of the boat, my hand covering the other ear as I listened to the lapping of the waves and the dull thuds that seemed to come from within the boat, as if it harboured a secret that it never told a soul.

‘I’m allowed to lie here, aren’t I?’ she says.

‘Of course you are,’ I tell her. ‘As long as you hold on tight to the line.’

‘Daddy says I’m not allowed,’ she says.

‘You’re allowed when you’re with me,’ I reply.