But she spoke calmly, in the same voice she sometimes used with me. “People have been working for this since the 1920s.”

“But don’t they understand what they have?” he shouted. “What the river is?”

“That’s exactly what they do understand. It’s an incredible opportunity. A whole new start for Ringfjorden.”

“A new start?” He spit the words out, as if they nauseated him.

She spoke a bit more, in the same calm voice.

He tried to respond in a subdued tone of voice, but failed.

And now her voice rose too. The words flew back and forth between them, faster and faster, louder and louder.

There was something strange about the whipped cream—it was too thick, almost butter. Else, the housekeeper, must have forgotten about it, whipped it for too long. It coated the inside of my mouth and throat like a cloying membrane. I stood up without excusing myself from the table, because they wouldn’t have heard it anyway, their voices were just screams.

They didn’t notice that I left them, that I hadn’t even finished my dessert.

I walked through the parlor into the dayroom, but the sound of their voices followed me. I opened the door to the porch—out here there must be another sound that could drown them out, birds or waves on the fjord, but there was no wind and no birds were singing and I could still hear their voices.

Then I discovered the typewriter. Daddy had abandoned it. The sun was shining and when I ran my finger over the typewriter, the metal was warm.

They didn’t see me out here, didn’t hear me. I sat down at the table, Daddy had left a blanket there, protection from the spring wind. I wrapped it around me and turned to face the typewriter.

I lifted both index fingers and lowered them to hit the letters. The A was beside the S, the R and the T were side by side. The P was at the top on the right, as if the alphabet came to an end there.

I can write a story, I thought, a story about elves and princesses, something magnificent and beautiful that I can present at school and everyone will love it—or maybe something I can save and keep working on, and it will bring me glory and honor while I am still very young, make me a famous author.

I wanted to write a story, but I could only ever write about what I saw, back then as now. I could only write what I heard, because the sounds from inside the house grew louder, they grated on me, like the wind, chill, storm, the words raged through the porch door and it was impossible to write anything else.

Power company, I wrote.

Guests, I wrote.

Future, I wrote.

“The freshwater mussel will die out,” Daddy cried.

Die, I wrote, as quickly as I could. Die, died, have died.

“And the water ouzel, it lays its eggs by the river.”