‘I suppose. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll give it a go.’
We each took a box and got to it, sifting through all the random pieces of the Nilsen family history that had been preserved over the years. Anything I was unsure of went into my miscellaneous pile as we worked through the boxes one by one.
‘Peace offering?’ Jonas called, waving a flapjack through the hatch.
‘How many have you got?’ Henrik asked. The hand disappeared and came back with a plate of four. ‘Yes. You may enter.’
He popped up and pushed two coffees in our direction. ‘Keeping it very methodical up here,’ he said, looking at the two of us working diligently through the papers.
‘I like to be organised – it’s my lawyer brain.’
‘And Henrik’s a control freak.’ He chuckled. ‘You’re well matched.’
‘Jonas only has two settings in life: slob or sloth,’ Henrik mused, scanning through one of the papers. ‘He doesn’t understand what it means to be ordered and meticulous.’
‘You’ve missed out chef, drummer, skipper. Lots of precision needed for all those. Don’t be pissed at me, bro, I’m stressing about the wedding.’
Henrik gave him a long, cool look.
‘Listen, Sara, I’m sorry about earlier,’ Jonas said, offering me a flapjack. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I know you’re only trying to help.’
‘I accept your apology and your delicious-looking peace offering.’
‘I’m worried aboutPappa, and where we’re all going to live. But mostly I’m worried about the wedding.’
‘Weknow, Jonas. You’ve mentioned it a few hundred times. Have you told Greta, yet?’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t even think about it. I’m hoping it will somehow get sorted before I need to. There’s no point worrying her unnecessarily.’
Greta was lucky to have a man whose first thought was to shield her like that. Mark had always shared any and every problem with me – no matter how stressed out it made me. I sometimes wondered if he enjoyed seeing how far he could pushme before I cracked. A real-life game of Buckaroo. Just one more tiny weight on my shoulder, then watch me crumble.
Jonas slowly ate his flapjack while the two of us worked. ‘A smidge too much honey,’ he said, looking at it carefully. He took another bite and sucked in his cheeks to taste. ‘Any sign of anything?’
‘Not yet, but we’ve still got two boxes to go,’ Henrik said. ‘Are you sure it’s not inBesta’schest?’
‘One hundred percent sure,’ Jonas said. ‘I’ll leave you to finish up here. Holler if you find Wonka’s last golden ticket.’
‘Will do,’ Henrik said, barely lifting his eyes.
We kept going, trawling through page after page. I put a playlist on and Henrik nodded along to it every now and then, mouthing the words to himself.
The family photos were beautiful, but nosing through them was clearly outside the remit of the task. Henrik had his mum’s cheeky smile and dimples, and there were hundreds of pictures of the four of them: skiing, swimming, climbing trees, playing tennis. A happy, healthy, outdoorsy family who clearly adored each other. The two boys were a melting pot of their parents, with Audhilda’s sparkling brown eyes and Tore’s dark blond hair. Henrik caught me looking at one of the photos for a little too long.
‘Sorry,’ I said, putting it down and moving on to the next pile.
‘Show me,’ he said.
I turned the photo round and almost heard his heart break as he looked at it. The four of them stood in front of a Christmas tree, Henrik and Jonas each holding up a ski while Audhilda and Tore beamed into the camera. No wonder all the memories had been packed away so tightly. They were still too devastated to share them. Of course they were.
Henrik smiled sadly. ‘I was twenty-one in that photo. My first pair of touring skis.’
‘Such a cute picture. Do you want to keep it out and get it framed?’
‘I want to get them all framed. They shouldn’t be up here gathering dust and getting ruined.’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’ve got pins and needles.’
‘Well, I’m done. My boxes were mostly books and photos, a few paintings you and Jonas did when you were little. Some other bits and bobs. This is the pile of randomness I couldn’t work out.’
‘Cool, let’s have a look,’ Henrik said, taking it from me.
