I rubbed a hand over my face. My mother could just as well have apologized for the weather. Because I didn’t know what else to say, I said, “Well, that’s how it was.”

My mother looked at the delivery truck. The supplier was pushing a cart as tall as he was, stacked with boxes of groceries and covered with a gray tarp, into the store. He stopped halfway through the doorway to tie his shoelaces. And if Elsbeth had appeared just then and said, “Look, Astrid, it looks exactly like a monstrous gray wall of regret, before which we will all eventually kneel,” my mother would have said, “Yes, that’s exactly what it looks like.”

“That’s something I’ll have to live with,” my mother said into the handset.

“Yes, I’m living with it, too. I have been for a while. Everything’s fine, actually.”

“Get some more sleep, Luisy,” my mother said, and I did want to sleep right then, very much, as did Frederik. We didn’t want to wait for the documentary a minute longer, but as soon as I hung up, the telephone rang again. Once again it wasn’t death but love.

“What is it now?” I asked.

“It’s me,” my father said.

“Did something happen?”

“No.”

“Then why are you calling so early?”

“I can’t reach Astrid and I wanted to tell you something.”

“I’m very sorry that I was never really there for you,” I said.

“What?” my father asked. “You’ve always been there for me.”

“It was a joke.”

“What? I can’t really understand you. The connection’s very bad. What I … what I wanted to tell you—”

“Are you drunk?”

“Yes. I wanted to tell you: I had to leave your mother back then. I didn’t have a choice. You can’t stay with someone who is always asking herself if she should leave you.”

“Are you sure you haven’t spoken to Mama?”

“No,” my father exclaimed. “I told you, I can’t reach her.”

“And why did you want to tell me this?”

“Because I can’t reach your mother,” he said, crackling.

“I’m not very reachable at the moment, either, Papa.”

“Just one more thing, Luisy. When people in Siberia go into the forest and then fan out alone, they call each other’s names regularly and the others call back, ‘Yes, I’m here.’ That way they can all be sure that no one is being threatened by a Siberian bear. And now I can’t reach Astrid.”

“I have company right now, and not the company of a Siberian bear.”

“Oh God, Luisa, I’m sorry. I forgot. Tell him hello for me.”

I hung up and went back to my room. I stretched out on the bed, pulled the blankets up to my chin, and looked over at Frederik. “You look like the most exhausted person in the world,” he said with concern.