Dalmar crossed beefy arms over his chest. And glared. “And Mother says you don’t play with insults like the rest of us.”
His lips twitched. “I lean more to the sarcastic. It’s never been her forte. She excels at the outright insult and has even honed her skill at the more subtle art of the backhanded insult. But sarcasm... she’s never gained a taste for it.”
“You were adopted,” Dalmar grunted.
Anders snorted at the decades-old taunt. “I’m the spitting image of Father.”
Dalmar’s mouth twitched much like Anders’s had just done. “He was adopted too.”
He laughed—he couldn’t help it. Then he sighed and leaned against the workbench. “Dal—you don’t have to understand everything he likes. You don’t have to understandhim. You just have to accept him. Accept that he can love you and look up to you without wanting to follow in your footsteps. I promise you, that boy doesn’t think you’re an idiot. What he thinks you are is a hero—the one person in the world he most wants to please, and the one person he fears he never will.”
Heaving a sigh, Dalmar leaned forward until he’d rested his elbows on his knees, then dropped his head into his hands. He sat that way for a long moment, and Anders said nothing. Just let him think. When the aroma of butter-seared fish met his nose, he turned around, checked on the food, and turned off the stove.
He put the least-burnt pieces onto a plate and set it on the table in front of Dalmar. His brother straightened, but he didn’t turn toward the plate. “I don’t think... I don’t think you know what it feels like, to have someone you love so much, someone you havesuch hopes for, say that what you do, what you’ve chosen, who youareisn’t good enough.”
Anders frowned. “I knowexactlyhow that feels.”
But his brother was shaking his head. “You don’t. You can’t. Our family—we’ve always been fishermen, Anders. All of us. Every grandfather, every uncle, every cousin, every brother. Untilyou. You had to go to university. You had to write books. You had to draw and paint and... and don’t you see what that felt like to the rest of us? Like you were saying the lives we’d all lived for generations weren’t good enough for you. You neededmore.”
His throat went tight. “Not more—just different. Don’t you think it was torture for me, feeling as though I never fit in? That no matter how I tried, I couldn’t conform myself to the mold I should have fit?” He got a glass down from the cupboard and pulled the bottle of milk from the icebox—Dalmar always liked milk with his dinner. “Iwantedto be good at the same things the rest of you were. Iwantedto make you all proud, not be the runt of the litter you were ashamed to even claim.”
“We were never ashamed of you.” Dalmar let his hand fall to the table, rattling the plate.
Anders put the glass beside it and fished cutleryfrom the drawer. “You hung a sign around my neck when I was six that saidBrother for Sale.”
Another twitch of his lips. “That was nothing personal, I did it to Ul and Ram too. As if any of the neighbors would take them. You, now—I had a couple good offers. Aron Frithricksson would have traded me his new wagon for you, so you could help him with his schoolwork.”
Having nothing else to occupy his hands, Anders sat in the other chair, laughing. “Aron—hewas an idiot.”
“And I, loving brother that I am, decided not to make the deal. See? You owe me.” He picked up the fork but just stared at his half-burned dinner. “It’s hard, Anders. Working day in and day out, just finally making enough to buy a few luxuries now that the Americans are importing our catches. While you sit at a desk and just... besmartall day, and make more than all of us combined. It’s hard not to feel like I’m letting down our mother, Kristin, the children.”
“Dalmar—”
“Then Garri.” Dalmar shook his head. “He’s so like you. And I look at him, and I think,He got it. My brother got it. Why didn’t I? Why did it just... pass right through me? To him?And I worry that I won’t be able todo right by him. I can’t send him to university, Anders, there’s no way. All I have to offer him is the fishing boat. But it’s not going to be good enough for him. I know it’s not, and...”
And that would hurt. Just like feeling forced into a life that didn’t fit hurt. Anders drew in a long breath. “Dalmar, you’re exactly who you were meant to be. And God gave you the children he did because he knew he could trust you to be their father. You don’t need to give more than you’re able. All you need to do is encourage Garri to be who God createdhimto be. Perhaps he’ll decide to run the boat—or perhaps he’ll leave it to Johann and Hans and try something different. If he wants to go to university, he can get scholarships, like I did. Just... don’t let him go, thinking you’re not proud of him. Don’t let him feel like a failure, like you only value the things he’s not good at.”
Dalmar cut a bite of fish with his fork but didn’t raise it to his lips. “What if I try... and still I can’t be what he needs? What then?”
“All he needs is for you to try.” Anders set his hand down beside his brother’s. Solidarity, even if they were so very different. “Eat your fish, brother. Then go home and apologize to your wife for being an idiot and tellyour son you’re proud of him. Ask to read his story. Joke, if you want to, about how he might need to define any words you don’t know. Let him feel clever.Makehim feel clever. That’s the only gift he’s ever going to need from you.”
His brother nodded. Took a bite, chewed, swallowed. For a minute, they were otherwise silent. Then Dalmar started to look like Dalmar again. The uncertainty faded away, and the prankster reemerged. “You’re not half bad at this parenting thing. And Mother says you’re bringing a girl with you to Christmas Eve?” He reached a foot over and nudged Anders’s shin. “Finally find a woman to make you abandon your bachelor ways?”
Anders blinked. “Don’t you mean ‘a woman who can stand you’ or ‘a woman desperate enough to give you a chance’?”
But Dalmar nodded beyond him. “That her?”
Anders spun, as if hereallythought Tatiana had followed him home and somehow snuck in without him noticing. But then he saw what Dalmar had been motioning toward—the paper on his easel, with her and Elea and the books and the background all sketchedout, and the background colors filled in. He relaxed. “It is. And her niece.”
“She’s pretty. Mother said she was, but she was so excited, I didn’t know if I should believe her. She’s convinced this is the girl you’re going to marry.” Dalmar chuckled. “If that look on your face is any indication, I think she’s right.”
No point trying to school his features now, he supposed. Anders sighed. “I hope so. Tatiana is... she’s... I...”
Dalmar grinned. “If she’s rendered you speechless, shemustbe something.”
He returned the grin. “She really is.” Heaven knew she’d been rendering him speechless since he first met her.
“Good. High time you settle down. And I hope you have a son just like me, and one like Ram, and one like Ul—”
