‘I think if his favourite architect asked him, he might.’
They clinked champagne glasses again and sat back on the sofa together, as her father talked about his work and her grandmother entertained them with tales of her recent cards evening with friends. But eventually, their conversation led them to Amalie.
‘Grandma, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, about Oskar,’ Charlotte said. ‘Were there never any photos of him in your grandparents’ home when you were growing up? No mention of the fact that your father’s brother had died?’
Her grandmother sighed. ‘I’ve asked myself the same thing over and over. You know I searched all those boxes we had in storage, but there’s nothing. It’s almost as if they completely erased him from their memory after he passed, because there’s not a birth certificate or a photo or even a diary entry that mentions him.’
‘It’s hard to fathom what Amalie went through, but until you experience loss, you don’t know how you’ll react,’ her father said. ‘Sometimes it changes you in ways that you could never have imagined.’
‘I can second that,’ Harrison said. ‘The grief is all-consuming, and sometimes the only way to cope is to lash out at the ones you love, even though all you really want is to draw them close and never let them go.’
Charlotte looked between the two men, and she didn’t know whom her heart ached for more—her father or Harrison.
‘I don’t blame Amalie, not for a second. I always knew she was brave, but when I think about how terrified she must have been, and how young she was when she found herself in London…’ Charlotte’s grandmother sighed. ‘She was a very special woman, and she carried a burden that no woman should ever have to carry alone.’
‘The night of the hotel opening, when she mentioned being in the hotel business,’ Harrison said, ‘I did some research about her and Alexander when I got home. But everything I read credited only her husband for the empire they built. She wasn’t mentioned once.’
‘The one thing I do know about Amalie,’ said Charlotte’s grandmother, ‘was that she was as much the driving force behind my family’s business interests as my father was. She worked tirelessly, and one of my earliest memories is of her sitting at our kitchen table, poring over architectural plans, and curling up in her lap at night and listening to her talk to my father about what hotel they would open next.’
‘Do you think anyone else knew how involved she was?’
‘I think Alexander’s family did, and I think that’s why things changed between them so much. They finally saw her for the woman she was, and realised what she could do for their son, at his side, as he continued to grow the business. I imagine they spent the rest of their lives regretting the way they’d underestimated her, knowing that their son’s death was effectively their fault.’
They sat in silence for a moment, sipping their champagne, as if they all needed a moment to digest what Amalie’s life had meant, how successful she’d been behind the scenes. Charlotte couldn’t imagine what it would be like working so hard without anyone knowing, couldn’t help but imagine if it were her, andshe only wished she’d known years earlier, so that she could have talked to Amalie about her work.
‘When I left, you still didn’t have the whole story pieced together, about what happened after she married Alexander,’ Harrison said. ‘Did Amalie share the rest of her story with you, or are you just going from your own memories of them now?’ He looked to her grandmother, but it was Charlotte who spoke.
‘It just so happens,’ Charlotte said, speaking for her grandmother, ‘that she did share the rest of her story, right before she passed. I went to see her that morning, and it was when I went back that afternoon that she left us.’ It wasn’t lost on Charlotte that if Harrison hadn’t finished things between them, she might never have gone to see Amalie that day, which would have meant she’d never have heard the final part of her story.
‘She was a remarkable woman, my mother,’ Charlotte’s grandmother said. ‘And at least now we know that she shared everything she could with us, before it was too late. Part of me wonders if she was hanging on until she’d shared every last piece of the story with us.’
Charlotte had imagined that Amalie had spent her entire life mourning Oskar, that the grandmother she’d known had hidden her sadness. How wrong she’d been.
Amalie had lived her life to the fullest despite her heartache, and if that wasn’t an inspiration, then she didn’t know what was.
‘Did she ever stop mourning Oskar?’ Harrison asked.
Charlotte met his gaze, sensing that he had a very personal reason to ask that question.
‘Yes, she did,’ Charlotte’s grandmother said, smiling. ‘Which only made me admire her all the more.’
34
OSLO, 1958
Amalie stood beside her mother-in-law, watching as Alexander took his place in front of the hotel holding a giant pair of scissors, preparing to cut a gold ribbon that would officially signal the opening of their new venture in Oslo. Their daughter, dressed in a cream dress with a matching coat and an enormous bow in her hair, stood beside him—she was his constant shadow.
She and Alexander might have been an unlikely pairing in the beginning, but Amalie knew that anyone who looked at them now would think them fated. They’d had their daughter while expanding his family’s business empire, and she knew that he’d be the first to say that this new hotel was as much her success as it was his. They’d spent the past three years working on ambitious plans to open a city hotel, different to the ones on the fjords that his family had always been known for, and now here they were, on opening day. She’d sat up with him every night till late when he’d been poring over the plans, or through dinners with investors and advisers, and she’d found that she was almost as attuned to business as he was now. Alexander had wanted her beside him up there, but it was his moment, and she had no intention of stealing it from him.
Once the ribbon had been cut and the invited guests began to mingle and go inside for a tour, Amalie’s mother-in-law touched her elbow and steered her away from the crowd.
‘Walk with me?’
Amalie nodded. They only saw each other on birthdays and special occasions these days, but they’d managed to establish a cordial relationship, and Amalie knew that the more well-known she and her husband became, not to mention the more successful the business, the more her mother-in-law warmed to her.
‘You must be so very proud of Alexander,’ Amalie said. ‘He’s worked so hard, and the hotel is everything I imagined it would be.’
‘I don’t think Alexander did this alone, Amalie,’ she said. ‘I know you had a hand in this development.’
