He didn’t ask me if I wanted to sit down too—it was as if he were alone. But I sat down anyway and then he seemed to notice me, because he took off his knapsack, opened it, and took out a lunch box.

“Here. You must be hungry.”

I took the sandwich on top. My stomach was growling—I was both hungry and thirsty, but it was difficult to swallow.

I held the box out to Daddy. “Don’t you want some?”

“Later,” he said, looking at his watch.

“You have to eat, you know, your body needs food to grow strong,” I said.

But he didn’t hear, just looked around as if he were waiting for someone.

I continued chewing, wishing the bread slices weren’t so thick, that there had been more butter, and I wished that I knew what I should say and do.

“I have to pee,” I finally said.

“You can go over there,” he said, pointing at a clump of bushes, the only vegetation growing up there.

I hurried over and squatted behind the bushes, but didn’t think they concealed enough. He was just my Daddy—I wasn’t shy, wasn’t afraid he would see me. It was rather that I didn’t want to see him. I sat there for a long time. The trickling between my legs was warm and a few drops hit one of my thighs, turning cold when I pulled my pants on again—two spots against the inside of my pants leg that would stiffen like salt water on my skin. I would feel it until I had the chance to wash myself.

When I was going to go back to Daddy, I discovered somebody else who was also out walking that day. He arrived in a truck that he parked where the haul road came to an end. I hadn’t heard him coming—the silence of the mountains had swallowed up the sound of him—but I recognized both the man and the truck. It was Sønstebø. Daddy approached him, and I understood that Daddy had come here to meet him. It was Sønstebø Daddy had been waiting for.

The two men talked and the mountain ate up their words. Or maybe they actually tried to speak softly, maybe they didn’t want anyone to hear, not even me, because they stood close together, the way lovers talk, the way Mommy and Daddy talked to each other before.

I hurried a bit closer, listening more closely, and then I was able to make out a few words.

“The bridge,” Sønstebø said. “The bridge would be better.”

Then Daddy looked up. “Hi, Signe,” he said loudly.

Sønstebø smiled at me, far too broadly, I thought, and again I thought of the doll. “Hi, Signe,” he said.

“Hi.”

“How nice that you and your father are taking a hike.”

“Yes.”

“We are heading home now,” Daddy said.

“Magnus stayed home today,” Sønstebø said to me.

“Oh.”

Suddenly I wished that Magnus had come with him, that he was also standing there beside me.