Bright Midnight

I hated how gorgeous he was back then, and I’m hating how much more gorgeous he is now. It makes it hard to think.

“There’s not much to add,” Anders says, as Astrid leaves. “I took over my father’s fishing boat after he died. I man the ship when I can to support the farm, and I help my uncle with labor the rest of the time. I don’t exactly have an exciting life.”

My heart pangs at his admission. I know he’s trying to be self-deprecating when he says that, but I can’t miss the look of defeat in his eyes.

“I’m sorry about your father,” I tell him. I remember that his father and him had a rough relationship. It’s why he moved to America to be with his mother, even though their relationship got too rocky too. Anders was expelled from school a month before we were supposed to graduate and sent back to Norway—his mother couldn’t handle him anymore. Which was just as well at the time, since we broke up a few weeks earlier. In one instant, Anders went from being everything to me to being out of my life for good.

Forget it, I have to remind myself. Focus on the now.

“How did he die?” I ask, even though I know the question can be a bit rude.

“He was lost at sea,” Lise says quietly, looking down at her hands. “Four years ago.”

“Bad storm,” Anders says. He leans back in his seat, his eyes absently searching the bar as his lower jaw wiggles. “They found the boat, but he’d been swept over. He was trying to save a deckhand when it happened. He had a survival suit on at the time but…it didn’t matter.”

“Oh my god.” My hand goes to my chest, my heart sinking. “I’m so sorry. And that’s the boat you have right now?”

“Midnattsol,” he says. “The Midnight Sun. He used to call my mother the midnight sun, so I guess it was cursed to begin with.”

So you’re working on a cursed boat? I want to ask. But I don’t. The subject seems understandably touchy. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a parent die like that, in such a vague, helpless way, with no body to bury, and then to inherit the very ship, the very job, that killed them. I can’t fathom how Anders does it, but I’m starting to understand that haunted look in his eyes. When he was younger, there was at least a cover of jovial teenage rebellion masking the darkness. But now, especially in the dim light of this bar, he looks war-torn and weary.

“But,” Lise says, pasting on a smile and looking over at Anders, “our father knew what he was doing. He was very good at his job and he knew the risks. We all did. It happens a lot out there and it was just God’s plan for him.”

Anders snorts and gives her a derisive plan. “You keep saying God’s plan, Lise, but I’m not sure you know what that means.”

She raises her chin. “I know what God means to me. What is he to you?”

“A poet,” Anders says after a moment, smirking at no one in particular. “A nasty one.”

Oh boy. I hope I’m not about to get caught in a sibling theological debate.

“So how long are you at sea for?” I ask him, trying to get the conversation on a smoother path.

He eyes me carefully and gives an almost unperceivable nod, as if he knows what I’m trying to do. “Usually three weeks, sometimes a month. Sometimes longer. It depends on the season. The shortest I’ve been out was two weeks. It was a disaster, couldn’t find the fish anywhere—but that’s what I got for trying new grounds. The longest was six weeks. The fishing was fucking fantastic and when you have a chance to make more money, you take it.”

“But when you do that,” Lise says, “and work sixteen-hour shifts, you’ll burn out sooner than you know.”

Anders shrugs. “I’m young. I’m not burnt out yet. And it makes working on the farm feel like a vacation.”

“And how long do you work on the farm for?” I ask, totally intrigued over how his life has turned out. Makes me feel like I’ve literally done shit-all. Yes, I got my degree and held down a few jobs. But none of them were particularly challenging.

None of them meant anything.

“It depends on the season, on the cod, on the prices,” he says. “I’ll be here for a month unless something changes.”

One month. The same amount of time I told myself I would probably stay in the country.

I’m fooling myself if I think it means something.

“Are we behaving ourselves?” Astrid says as she puts a glass of water down, Roar at her side, drinking a beer.

“Only you are,” Lise says.