Klara knows it’s true. She knows that for the last few years she’s been carrying a weight inside her. Ever since Mahmoud died on the dirty floor of a Parisian supermarket, ever since a man who turned out to be her father died in the snow out here in the archipelago. A father she was never able to meet or get to know. She hasn’t cried, hasn’t grieved, not really. Didn’t know she deserved to, didn’t know she was entitled to relief and the atonement grief would bring. And she hasn’t wanted to let go, hasn’t dared to let go, to move on. Instead, she’s buried herself in work and wine, late nights and short, empty relationships, pushing things deep inside and keeping a stiff upper lip, that’s how you live. You keep it together, you buck up, you do what you have to do.

But now, in the church, with the sound of the organ and the priest’s dry, monotonous voice, surrounded by ritual and candlelight, with Grandma and Gabriella and her relatives, she realizes it was always impossible, not everything will fit inside, you have to let go of something. You have to find a way to reconcile with yourself.

*

Afterwards, Klara stands in the darkness, in blowing snow in front of the church receiving hugs and condolences and pointing people in the direction of the reception at the parish house near the newer, bigger church. The wind is blowing faster now and heavy snow drifts across the fields, through birches and firs. She feels Gabriella’s hand around her elbow.

‘How’s it going?’ she whispers. ‘Keeping it together?’

Klara turns to her and smiles weakly. The tears have finally stopped, but she still takes sobbing breaths, like a little child whose crying fit just ended. She shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m not holding it together at all.’

Gabriella smiles back. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘We’ve all been waiting for you to stop doing that.’

It’s just them now. Klara, Gabriella and Grandma, who exits the front door of the church and squints her eyes at the wind and the snow, while pulling her hat lower over her ears and forehead.

‘He gets his way to the very end,’ she says. ‘There was nothing he was so fond of as a nasty autumn storm. Right, Klara, my love?’

Klara smiles cautiously and nods. ‘He would have liked this,’ she says. ‘No doubt.’

‘Come on,’ Grandma says, walking firmly past them down towards the parking lot. ‘They can’t very well have a funeral reception without us.’

Klara feels Gabriella lean towards her ear, feels her breath.

‘She can handle this,’ she whispers. ‘You know that, right?’

Klara turns to her and feels something like the contours of a distant calm inside, the promise of a feeling she’s almost forgotten. She nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘She can.’