I manage a smile of my own. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”
“Mom, at least let them get inside first,” a younger woman with golden brown hair says from the doorway.
Sigga waves a dismissive hand. “Right, right. Come on in.”
She heads into the house, and Ash and I follow her into the living room where we’re greeted by another woman and an older man who is unmistakably Ash’s father.
Ash hugs his father and sisters, and they all turn as one to look at me.
“Gray,” Ash says, coming to stand next to me, “this is my father Gunnar, and my sisters Inga and Petra.”
I can’t help my blink. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that with the last name Gunnarsson, Ash’s father would be named Gunnar, but it still takes me by surprise. Working with hundreds of students a year,you’d think I’d be used to different international naming conventions, but this one slipped by me.
Ash turns to his family as he puts an arm around my waist. “This is my girlfriend, Gray Mackey.”
His father and sisters step up to shake my hand and greet me warmly.
I look at Ash. “Is…Ash an Icelandic name?” I ask him softly. It never occurred to me to question it, but the rest of his family all have names that sound distinctly Icelandic.
“No, it’s not,” his sister Inga answers before he can. “In fact, the word for ‘ash’ in Icelandic,aska, is feminine.” She wears a half smirk, and I’m suddenly sorry I asked.
I look at Ash with apology, but he must be used to this because his look is resigned.
“Ash was our first child born in the US when we moved there from Iceland,” Sigga explains. “We wanted to give him an American name, and one of our neighbors at the time suggested Ash because one of the volcanos had just erupted back home in Iceland.”
“I think he was joking,” Gunnar cuts in.
Sigga shrugs. “We checked, and it was a common enough name for boys over here, so we decided to go with it.”
“We gave him a good Icelandic middle name, though,” Gunnar adds, making me think the name Ash was mostly his wife’s idea. “So he can use that when he visits Iceland.”
“Which I do,” Ash says to me softly.
I think back to my search on Ash and try to recall his middle name. Dagur, I think?
“The council never would’ve approved the name Ash,” Inga notes.
“Council?” I ask.
“Iceland has a council of three people who approve names for children,” Petra explains. “They reject anything that isn’t Icelandic enough. They would’ve had a problem with the word being feminine.”
Inga shakes her head. “There have been gender exceptions before,”she says. “A family went to court to let their daughter keep the name Blær, even though it’s a masculine word. They won the case, but probably because the name at least has some basis in Icelandic. They likely would’ve rejected Ash for being too American.”
I recall Inga is a lawyer, so her familiarity with the case isn’t surprising.
“I’ll bring those to the spare room,” Gunnar says, taking our bags from Ash. He’s clearly trying to change the subject or just get out of the room. “Sit down and relax.”
We all sit down in the living room and Sigga brings out a charcuterie platter. She goes back into the kitchen and returns with two bottles of wine and two glasses. There are already wine glasses on the coffee table that must belong to the other family members, and Inga and Petra both pick up half-full glasses when they sit down.
Ash and I sit next to each other on the loveseat, and he slings his arm over the back of it, almost on my shoulders but not quite. I wish he’d just touch me already because I can practically feel his arm there. My skin tingles with its nearness, like there’s some kind of magnetic field trying to draw me toward it. It’s more distracting than if he was just touching me.
“Ash said you like wine,” Petra says, smiling warmly at me. “These bottles are from local wineries. Did you know the Niagra-on-the-Lake wine region has close to seventy wineries?”
“No, I didn’t,” I say, surprised.
“Including Wayne Gretsky’s winery,” Inga says, although the comment is contemptuous.
I look at Ash. “Wayne Gretsky has a winery?”
