So I went off to have a baby she said. Just like you. They had the same father I shouldn’t wonder. She was plucking at the sheet. It was striped in red and black.

I was about to say something but she interrupted me. Now I can see my dad she said.

What happened to him.

He shot himself during the elk season. They all said it was a hunting accident but I can see him now. He put the muzzle in his mouth and pressed the trigger.

Do you know why he did it I asked.

Same reason as the others.

What others I asked but she had dropped off to sleep again. I changed her nappy and checked her feet. The flares were creeping halfway up her calves by now.

I should have alerted caronika but katarina would probably want to sleep for a while now. I got up and tried to bring my dormant muscles back to life. We were in the kitchen. For practical reasons the bed had been moved here from the bedroom. It may have been to make room for the chairlift that no one used or because the bedroom was on the first floor. People who look like angelika find stairs problematic. 79

I switched on a standard lamp in the sitting room that was actually a bestroom but it felt like bad form to say things like bestroom when you were with katarina. She was ahead of all of us. At times even years ahead. She always was. The doorway to the sitting room was a kind of arched portal like the entrance to an italian palace or possibly a pizzeria. No pullout beds or folding tables here. The sofas were covered in black leather and so were the armchairs and they were all grouped around a table made from a thick sheet of glass.

Pictures in wide gilt frames decorated the walls. Horses galloping along a beach. Frontlit beautiful women smoking. A glittering bridge in a foreign country. And then. There.

Like a protruding limb.

An alarm light blinking red. A pair of yellow rubber boots on a chest. A shadow falling on a splatter painted timber wall.

Now I heard her. Mumbling something and calling out. I switched the lamp off and hurried back to the kitchen. She was talking deliriously. Hands plucking at the blanket. Body casting about her head hitting the pull-up grid that prevented her from falling out of bed.

Easy now I said and steadied her with my hand on her shoulders. They were as thin and frail as an infant’s.

I opened a window. Birdsong and spring air flowed in. Slowly, I caressed her forehead. At last her body relaxed and her face calmed.

Her hand sought mine.

Bye then jana she said with surprising clarity. There are a few letters you must read. They are in.