Aven set Cora’s basket on the kitchen table. Something knocked above the ceiling . . . then thudded so hard the lantern over the table trembled.
“Jorgan!” Haakon hollered from the attic. “I need you!”
Seated at the table, Jorgan lunged up. His chair slammed back and he stumbled around it.
“Jorgan!” Haakon bellowed. “I can’t hold him!”
A crash clattered overhead. The wall of the stairwell shuddered. Too close to be the third floor. Jorgan called out for Al.
Aven turned but saw only an empty yard and a gaping barn door where Al had gone to do the chores. Cora was already rushing that way. Jorgan shouted for Thor to calm down. A heartbeat later there was a slam and Haakon swore.
Two pairs of running feet pounded the hallway, one just behind the other, followed by a crash so hard, the whole house shook. From above, Thor groaned—an agonized, guttural sound that had Aven’s heart ripping in her chest. She stepped back only to bump into the windowsill.
The scuffle intensified as did the sound of Jorgan’s and Haakon’s desperation. Even as panic quickened her pulse, the Twenty-Third Psalm came to mind. Not for herself, but for Thor.
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Aven hurried to right Jorgan’s chair when the wall trembled.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
Above, boards sounded like they were about to splinter.
“He restoreth my soul.”
She lost the rest—pleading to Christ for peace for this man.
Jorgan bellowed a curse and crashed down the stairs. He hit the wall at the bottom so hard, a picture fell and shattered. The whole world seemed to dim when Aven realized that coming down the stairs next was Thor.
Nearly on his knees, he fought against whoever held him. Haakon.
Thor’s torso was bare and Haakon clung beneath one of his shoulders, groping at his brother’s thick arm to hold on. Like two stags they fought, each clamoring to be stronger.
Al rushed into the kitchen with Grete at his heels. He skidded around the table and into the great room where he hefted Thor around the middle. Grete barked. With Haakon’s help, they tugged him up a step. Thor fought and thrashed. He kicked the wall then Al square in the stomach so hard that Al dropped like an empty sack.
When Grete growled, Aven called for the dog. The pup hesitated, looking terror stricken and confused. Aven called again. Whining, Grete crawled nearer. Aven pulled the dog close.
Jorgan rammed Thor with all the force he had, shoving his brother back a step. Then another. Thor punched at him. The sound of his fists colliding with Jorgan louder than even Thor’s grunting.
Jorgan ducked against the pounding blows, but still he heaved until Haakon clasped his brother’s arms. Al struggled to his feet and took hold of his other side. The three of them forced Thor farther back.
Thor made a sound much like “Av—”
She had to be mistaken. He didn’t speak.
“Get down, Aven!” Jorgan shouted.
Was she what Thor was aiming for? Aven dropped to a crouch behind the table. She pulled Grete into her lap. The dog whined in confusion, trembling from nose to tail.
Aven heard a thrashing from Thor. Then a whimper that could have only been his own. A sound so raw and broken that she clutched Grete tighter for fear the dog would scamper after him.
“Av—”
Tears stung her eyes at the sound of him trying to say her name. Aven blinked as her vision blurred.
Jorgan commanded them to keep their grips. The clamor shook the upper floor like a beating drum, then all at once everything went quiet. All save the panting breaths of three men.
First came Haakon’s voice. “He’s out cold.”
“Let’s move him before he comes to.” Jorgan sounded wrung out.
Fearing she was going to be sick, Aven sank against the table leg. She tried to heave in breaths, but perhaps that was her problem—they were coming too fast. She struggled to slow them even as the kitchen filled with noise again. This time of that which needed to be done immediately. Cora poured salt into a bowl and rushed for the kettle. Ida drew near to Aven and pressed a hand to her forehead. Aven closed her eyes again.
With Ida’s help Aven managed to stand. “I need air,” she whispered.
Down the stairs she went. Past the cider barn. All the way around it until she reached the back end. Tall, dry weeds swished as she sank onto a rusted box against the building.
Dropping her face in her hands, her shoulders shook. A sob rose so strong that air was lost to her. Aven heaved in a breath as tears pooled and fell. Because she could still see Thor’s struggle . . . and because she could still see Benn’s.
The sun was near to setting that day, two years ago. The flat all but golden in the glory of the sunset that streamed in through the windows. Benn had been sitting at the table of their rented room, his profile lit by that soft light. The pale hue of his hair melded to amber and his pensive brow shadowed above his blond lashes. He’d been lost in thought—and she simply watched him. For it had been the calm after the storm. One week after she’d pleaded yet again for him to give up the bottle.
He’d tried—for her sake, he’d tried. Making it into the third day. But by then she’d had to lock herself in the closet due to his panic. A panic taking over that bugs were crawling on them both. He slapped at his skin, at her own. Scratching at nothing. Forcing her to hide away.
Aven had pinned the closet door closed with the broom and tried to stay as still and quiet as possible. Praying that Benn would forget she was there. That their landlord, Farfar Øberg, would hear the ruckus and come to her aid.
Somewhere in the night, Benn had found a bottle of Akvavit. He’d finished the spiced liquor off by sunrise. Aven crawled out to find him in a stupor.
So it was four days later, the day of that vivid sunset, that he’d finally turned his head to her and, with a rare smile, asked what she thought about fish for supper. Mused aloud that the market would be open for a few minutes yet. Another bottle of Akvavit was in his grasp, turning slowly in his thick fingers.
He’d been a handsome man. Thirty-one to her nineteen that summer. He had a stoic kind of appeal. Skin gently weathered from hours spent near the docks. Golden hair thick and cropped short. Tidy most days, save when he was lost in thought and prone to tugging it.
When he gave her a second smile, flashing that matchless dimple, Aven had fetched a basket and a krone. Only two had lined the money box since his pub debts had emptied it. She’d stayed up many a night stitching seams in dim light to earn the two coins they had. Lacking powder to cover the bruises on her arms that his panic had borne, she draped a shawl about her shoulders.
She left the flat—that, the last she would see him alive. That smile. The light on his skin. The memory of it was all she had to hold on to as she turned away from the shadows of a life no more. Of a marriage no more due to his choice and the length of a rope.
For months after she was haunted by the sound of it. How could something so still as a taut rope creak yet? ’Twas the breeze from the open window, she knew. He’d opened it after she left because the curtains were spilling in and out as the wind shifted, and he was there—his life no more.
There she had fallen, her basket spilling of its contents, and there her landlord had knelt beside her, urging her to leave the room.
Farfar Øberg had moved a cot into his storage closet when fear hindered Aven from returning to the flat in the hours and days to follow. He brought her blankets and read to her by the light of a costly candle. Days upon days wore on, and she didn’t move from the bakery. Didn’t speak.
Until two weeks after the funeral, when Farfar Øberg had announced a letter for her. A message written in Dorothe’s hand. One urging her and Benn to come to America. That they would be welcomed to the farm and that there was much work to be had for Benn. After forcing herself to pen news of Benn’s death, Aven had tucked Dorothe’s letter beneath her pillow.
Months later, Farfar Øberg slipped a twenty kroner in the same spot. How he’d obtained it, he wouldn’t relay. But it was hers, he insisted, when he pushed it back into her hand with his gnarled, wrinkled fingers.
Aven held the valuable coin, touching the imprint of the coat of arms stamped into the copper-nickel, repeating the words she’d memorized from Dorothe’s letter.
“The Lord will also be a refuge for the oppressed. A refuge in times of trouble.”
’Twas nearly a year later when she finally penned a response to Dorothe’s bidding.
That, yes. To the Norgaard farm she would come.