“Hold your head straight, please,” Selma said. “I’m going to pull the bathing cap on. The shampoo has to work overnight.” It was Elsbeth’s bathing cap, the purple one with frills that Selma had borrowed many years before and never given back. “Sorry, it’s the only one I’ve got,” she said.

“Go ahead,” my father said.

Selma put her hands in the bathing cap to stretch it out and small tears immediately formed between the frills. The bathing cap had clearly passed its expiration date, even though there was none listed.

My father patted the cap on his head and turned to face me. “Well?” he asked.

I laughed. “Very fetching,” I said.

“Where is Astrid?” my father asked. Selma, the optician, and I looked at each other. We didn’t know if my father knew that my mother was in a relationship with the owner of the ice-cream parlor.

“She should be home soon,” I said. “She’s at the ice-cream parlor.”

“She is?” my father replied, and we knew he didn’t know.

When my mother drove up the hill a few minutes later and the glare from her headlights swept over us, Selma laid her hand on my father’s shoulder and said, “Peter, my dear, it’s like this. Astrid has, in the meantime, also let a bit of the world in.”

My mother got out of the car and stopped abruptly when she saw my father. Then she came toward us. She was carrying a small tray wrapped in paper. My father stood up.

“Hello, Astrid,” he said.

My mother looked at my father in the bathing cap, then at Selma in her caftan. “You two can wear absolutely anything,” she said.

My father wanted to hug her, but she quickly held out her hand. Then she unwrapped the tray, which held three cups with three scoops of ice cream each, already starting to melt.

“That looks delicious,” my father said.

“Unfortunately, I only brought three. I had no idea you were here.”

“You can have mine,” I said to my father.

“No,” my mother said, “please come upstairs with me, Peter, I have something to tell you.”

My father followed her into the house. We heard them climbing the stairs to the upper apartment.

“Poor Peter,” Selma said. “Let’s hope he can handle it.”

We left our ice cream to melt. The optician reached for the crushed pack of clove cigarettes my father had left behind and lit one. It tasted like he was smoking Astrid’s flower shop.