Maybe that was our problem from the beginning.
But we have places to go. We get dressed, get packed, and it’s not long before we’re taking some stale croissants and cold cuts from the breakfast table in the lobby and heading to the car. The storm has quieted a little, the clouds providing a dramatic backdrop as we zip along the edge of the fjord, hundreds of meters high in the air, with only a guardrail between us and certain death. At least that takes my mind off of things for a bit.
Eventually, we head inland and the weather clears just enough for me to get more photos. I don’t ask Anders to pull over this time, even though he offers, though eventually he makes the call when he finds a photogenic patch of sheep and a stretch of empty road. I get out and walk down the middle of the road, arms out, posing for the camera, grateful that Anders is far enough away that it’s hiding the tears in my eyes. Out here in this beautiful land, on top of the endless, undulating mountain tops of bare rock and moss, a prehistoric landscape that strikes at some primal part of me, I feel both free and trapped, like my old life, the one in which I had no real direction, will suck me back under and there’ll be no escape.
When I walk back to the car, there’s no hiding that I was crying through the photoshoot.
Anders see this too, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
We get back in the car and continue on our way, past desolate lakes, more sheep, then finally the famous snaking switchbacks, making a brief stop for coffee at the shiny glass cafeteria overlooking it all. We drink our coffees beside each other in silence, watching the cars, tour buses, and motorcycles making the twists and turns before we go down the infamous road ourselves.
I have to say, the drive back to Trondheim is just as gorgeous as the road along the Atlantic, and we’re driving along side an aquamarine river, me snapping photo after photo (I’ve become a pro at taking them from a moving car), when Anders’ phone starts to ring.
He answers it, even though he shouldn’t when he’s driving.
“Ja?” he says in Norwegian, already sounding worried. Then he says something so sharp, it can only be a swear word.
I look over at him, at the look of horror coming over his face, and my heart immediately sinks.
Something horrible has happened.
Anders is nodding, talking fast in Norwegian, and then he quickly pulls the car over at the first available spot along the river. He says a few more words and then hangs up, body completely tense.
“What?” I ask, trying not to panic and think ahead. “What happened? Who was that?”
He stares straight ahead for a moment, pain wrestling his features.
Then he turns to look at me.
Opens his mouth for a moment before the words come out.
“The boat,” he says. “The boat was lost at sea.”
19
Anders
Numb.
I’ve gone completely numb.
I stare down at the phone in my hands, wondering if this all could be a bad dream. It certainly felt like a bad dream when I woke up, a bad dream in which Shay and I were to part, never to see each other again.
But she’s still here for now, sitting beside me in the passenger seat as rain starts to patter on the roof, and this bad dream has swiftly turned into a nightmare.
The boat is lost at sea.
My boat.
My boat with Epsen and Dag on board.
It can’t be real.
This can’t be happening.
“Please, Anders, talk to me,” Shay says softly, though I can hear the panic brimming in her voice.
But I don’t even know what to say.
“What do you mean it’s lost at sea? What does that mean?” she asks, reaching over and pressing her hand on top of my thigh. I stare down at her hand, at how small it is, delicate. A hand I know as intimately as my own. Soon, I’ll lose her. Soon, I’ll have lost everything. I’ve barely even processed what she told me last night, that I had gotten her pregnant, that for a brief period of time we had a fucking baby, something that felt like a boot to my ribs. And now…this?
I shake my head, trying to swallow, to speak. It feels impossible.
“The storm,” I manage to say. “There’s a storm out there. On the sea. On the bank. The other vessels started heading in but…they stayed. Tried to get more fish. They were heading back when things got bad and one of the vessels lost radio contact with them. Said they were taking on water. Then…that was it. Now no one knows. Now it’s search and rescue, hoping to find Dag and Epsen and the crew alive and…”